Ooops! moment for the Postal Workers demonstration

The postal workers union will demonstrate this afternoon in Spokane against plans to close some Post Office facilities.

But the notice of that demonstration seems to be a model of Murphy’s Law about things going wrong.

First of all, the notice received Wednesday wasn’t sent out by standard mail but by e-mail, which is one of the reasons postal volumes are down.

Second, the first notice had the wrong day. Well, good thing it was by e-mail, because the union was able to send out a quick correction saying it was actually today.

But that new notice had a problem itself. In explaining the reason for the protest, the press release contained the following:

“Our postal workers are on the front line and they know how much these congressionally mandated cuts will hurt their customers,” said xxxxx xxxxx (maybe local union pres).

Now, only the most naive reporter  believes that a quote in this type of press release represents the exact words from the person mentioned. But rarely do we see such a blatant example of getting the cart before the horse in quotes, coming up with what the organization wants said, and looking around for someone to spoon feed that quote to.

When this last gaffe was mentioned to the union spokeswoman, her response wasn’t really printable in a family newspaper, or even on a blog that it runs. But had they sent out the press release the old-fashioned way — typed it up, made copies and put them in a series of envelopes — there’s a good chance someone would’ve noticed that little boo-boo.

The demonstration, by the way, is at 4:30 p.m. at 10 North Post Street.