I was reading a Blondie comic strip yesterday. (Hopefully you can view it on this link - http://www.blondie.com/dailies/index.asp?month=6&year=2008&comic=2008-6-19.)

In the strip, the mailman tells Dagwood how he is a part of a great communication network - and then he states - "Eliminate me and what have you got left."

Dag's reply - "E-mail." He also could have said text messages, blogs, Facebook, Myspace, FedEx, UPS, DHL, couriers (possibly including pigeons), smoke signals, etc.

While the postoffice is facing challenges that any delivery company faces these days, it has floated different ideas as potential solutions - cutting home delivery to 4 days being among them. I don't claim to have a grasp on the range and depth of issues that the postal service has to deal with, but it does seem to me that cutting service is not a way to increase your value and your use in the marketplace.

However, back to Dagwood's mailman's comment....Anytime that any of us in the marketplace have a "you can't do without me" complex, we are in danger of finding out just how well things can be done without us.

A great degree of our relavance is in proportion to the service and satisfaction that we provide to clients and customers. If we get arrogant and feel that they "have to" have us to survive, we give our customers reasons to look for alternatives and create the very opening that our competition is looking for.

A safeguard: saying (and meaning and showing) "thank you" to those who allow us to provide them with goods and services