Seems as though the U.S. Postal Service is not immune to the kind of griping that occurs among the working folks’ ranks at most companies.

I was talking the other day to a letter carrier about the impending end to Saturday mail delivery. He doesn’t like the idea one little bit. The mailman told me the USPS is too top-heavy with executives who sit around and “do nothing” to collect their high-dollar salaries. The service needs to skim a few of those empty suits off the top of the chain of command before deciding when, where and how to cut the money it says it needs to save, according to the letter carrier.

Then he launched into the end of Saturday mail delivery.

“I’ve been delivering mail for 34 years and I’ll tell you it’s the worst thing they could do,” he said. My mail-delivery acquaintance told me “they think they’re going to save $2 billion a year by ending Saturday delivery, but they’re going to lose $5 billion a year in contracts they won’t be able to keep.” He explained that companies pay big money to ensure their mail gets delivered on certain days. Saturday, he suggested, is one of those days. I didn’t think to ask him which companies shell out that kind of money.

For me, the end of Saturday mail delivery isn’t that big a loss. And I surely would hate to see the Postal Service go under for keeps because it cannot save enough money to stay afloat.

The villain? It’s the Internet, which has greatly reduced people’s mail volume. Fewer of us write actual letters these days, or pay our bills using “snail mail.”

Time will tell if a veteran mail carrier has it right or if the “do-nothing” brass at the top end actually knows what it’s doing.