Author: Ronald Williams Jr.

ISBN: 1-4241-7189-X

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As a follow up to his Deep Inside LiteBlue, Ronald Williams Jr. has written Thinking Inside The LiteBlue Box where Williams presents concrete suggestions as to how to improve the United States Postal Service or as he says in his introduction “this book is packed with olive branches and verbal spears from a courtside warrior. It’s about flipping the script or turning the pyramid upside down and putting the hard working employees on top for a moment.

Once again Williams describes some of the deficiencies of the US postal system which he describes within the book’s eighteen short chapters.

We learn about employees taking shortcuts in not cleaning up before the next shift arrives on the scene. The debris left behind causes the subsequent shift of employees to waste one to two hours before commencing their operations. If management were less concerned about the 30 seconds late from break or lunch and paid more attention to the down time, they would realize that it is costing the postal service considerable money in lost man-hours cleaning up instead of processing the mail.

As for what he thinks about most of the managers, Williams paints them as inefficient and if an employee should get in his way, look out for their razor-sharp tongues. Change is a dirty word as it would upset the apple cart. In fact, if there is change, it only lasts a week then it is back to business as usual-something managers can deal with.

An interesting observation and one that most of us don’t think about is that postal workers are made up of a multitude of individuals from diverse cultures. Consequently, in order to have and maintain a smooth running operation it is essential to recognize and appreciate these different backgrounds. Unfortunately, as we read, such is not the case. Williams tells us that 98% Caucasians are in upper management, 95% minorities are in the workroom floor and out of that number 85% are Asians, 5% African Americans, 5% Hispanics, and 5% the other. If what we read is accurate, then something is definitely wrong with this picture and as Williams states there is a lack of diversity of opinion if we don’t have a diversity of people throughout the ranks.

Other gripes noted by Williams are forced holidays when if there are not enough volunteers to work a particular holiday some workers are forced in. However, it seems that there are more veteran holidays than any other type of a holiday, and it appears that veterans get the short end of the stick as they are always forced in rather than having the opportunity to reflect upon their military service and their contributions.

Another eye-opener and one that must be corrected is that according to Williams supervisors can say anything they want to employees as long as they don’t curse at them. Not something to condone if you want to have peace and employee loyalty. 

Although Williams second book is as informative as his first, I don’t quite understand why he didn’t combine both books into one, considering that each are under sixty pages in length. As a result, there is a tendency in Thinking Inside The LiteBlue Box to be redundant as Williams rants about some of the same deficiencies in the postal system as pointed out in Deep Inside LiteBlue. Nonetheless, Thinking Inside The LiteBlue Box is quite a revelation and I do hope Williams does not suffer any repercussions as a result of his whistle blowing pertaining to the many wrongs he perceives in the postal service.

The above review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN:  Norm is a Retired Title Attorney and now is the Editor & Publisher of Bookpleasures. Here are  Norm Goldman's Reviews       

To read Norm's Interview with Ronald Williams Jr. CLICK HERE

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