Organizations Compared Within This Document Include the

¶ … organizations compared within this document include the Little River United States Post Office and the Miami Shores United States Post Office. These two post offices are less than two miles from one another. Still, the former is in the city of Miami, whereas the latter is in the city of Miami Shores Village and is a suburb of the former. One can argue that the roles within these two articles are virtually identical.

There are postal clerks who work inside each of these post offices; there are various postal representatives who are responsible for ensuring that mail is both delivered and received. There are managers in supervisory positions at each of these public organizations. The principle difference in the roles is that there are more employees at virtually every position at the post office in Miami (which is located in the Little River section of Miami).

This fact is not surprising, since the physical facilities of the post office in Miami are bigger than that of its Miami Shores counterpart. Despite their relative close proximity, there are distinct cultures at the post offices in Miami and in Miami Shores. That at the latter is decidedly more laid back than at the other. Very rarely do more than two employees work at the counters inside the Miami Shores office. Customers are not required to show identification when making purchases with credit cards.

There is no partition between the counter in which employees work and the customers on the other side of it. In comparison, the post office at the Little River station is much more formal. Customers can not make credit card purchases without showing identification, which may be perceived as an instance of "informal red tape" (Baldwin, 1990, p. 7). There is a thick partition separating the customers from the counter upon which the postal workers labor.

Additionally, this post office can accommodate up to seven customers at a time -- with the requisite number of postal workers to accommodate their various needs. The purposes of these two organizations are virtually identical -- to fulfill the post office needs of its customers. However, there is quite a difference in those customers, which is predominantly associated with the fact that the city of Miami is substantially larger than the city of Miami Shores Village.

The Little River post office helps to accommodate that greater amount of customers by offering Saturday service -- something that the other post office does not do. It is critical to note that such Saturday service includes conventional counter service to 1:30 P.M., as well as P.O. Box access. The social and economic contexts of these post offices are also important to understand.

Miami Shores is a small suburb with incredible wealth -- much more than the Little River area of Miami -- which might explain its laidback culture and "the efforts of public administrators.