Had the U.S. Postal Service incrementally made improvements over the years, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says, Americans wouldn’t know who runs their mail agency. And DeJoy, the controversial leader of the mail service, wouldn’t be making “uncomfortable” changes at the Postal Service to make it fit for evolving consumer habits.
But when DeJoy, a former supply-chain logistics executive and conservative political donor, took over the Postal Service in June 2020, the agency was in dire shape. The coronavirus pandemic was on the verge of sidelining much of its workforce. Its complex transportation network was misaligned, a cardinal sin in DeJoy’s logistics world. The postal chief’s changes to fix what he saw as fundamental flaws cascaded into a mail-delay crisis before the 2020 presidential election that made DeJoy a household name.
