Handwritten letters impress the president
Is a handwritten letter still important? You bet! It’s a lesson that much of corporate America should take to heart-reading letters from customers is still a way of separating the atmosphere of the executive suite from the needs and concerns of the real world.
And it’s a way to get President Obama’s attention. According to The Washington Post, the president takes two binders to his residence each day. One is a binder full of memorandums, position papers, and background on pressing issues. The other is a purple folder with letters containing thoughts, worries, and aspirations of 10 Americans-selected by his staff from among the 20,000 the White House receives each day.
The president reads some of these handwritten letters to his wife and some he passes back to the staff for response or for inclusion in speech material. Each week about 15 correspondents get a personal handwritten response!
Handwritten letters are not the only way Americans communicate; they also use the telephone and email. But it’s only the handwritten messages that get into the purple folder since the president prefers to read handwritten letters!
For more information about purchasing stamps, stamps by mail, postal regulations, a free subscription to USA Philatelic magazine, Post Office events, the location of the nearest postal store or contract unit, or for answers to your specific Postal Service questions, contact USPS at 1-800-275-8777, or visit www.usps.com. To schedule a presentation for your community, club or group on how the Postal Service brings the Post Office to your home or office computer, call 239-573-9638.
Mr. Zip’s Tip: The Postal Service has been rated by the American public as the most trusted government agency according to the 2008 Privacy Trust Study of the U.S. Government, conducted by the Ponemon Institute.
An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that visits every address in the nation 146 million homes and businesses. It has 37,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses, not tax dollars. The Postal Service has annual revenues of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.