Crazy Willie was sitting at a table in the break room, a pained look on his face as he read the APWU News Service Bulletin explaining the tentative agreement President Burrus had negotiated with the Postal Service.

"I'm trying to understand it," Willie said, "but I get kinda confused by all the big words they use and all the math. I was never good with math." He motioned me to sit down at the table. "Work with me on this."

"Ok, Willie. What do you need to know."

Willie scratched his chin. "Lemme see. I get a 1.3 percent pay raise the first year if I take advantage of this tremendous opportunity. How much is that?"

"You make about $40,000 a year, right?"

"About that," he answered.

"So you'd get roughly $520 extra a year. That would be about $1.40 a day, every day of the year."

Willie nodded his head.

"I gotcha. That would be about the price of a cup of coffee and a donut. OK. I understand now."

Willie continued, "It says here," he read slowly, "'The recently announced overpayments to the Civil Service Retirement System don't add a dime of revenue to Postal Service coffers," Burrus added.'

"What does coffers mean?"

"That means their treasury. It's like your bank account, Willie."

Willie looked up from the APWU News Service Bulletin.

"Didn't you tell me the Postal Service had found $27 billion they didn't know they had?"

"Yeah, they did. President Burrus forgot to mention that. But it's real money the Postal Service can now spend anyway they want. Next year, they expect to have a profit of $3.5 billion."

"That's a lot of money, isn't it?" Willie asked. "How much is that every day?"

"That would be about $10 million in profits everyday, Willie."

Willie was silent for a long while, deep in thought.

Finally he spoke.

"And I'm only getting a cup of coffee and a donut outta the deal?"

"Well, you gotta understand, Willie, everybody gets a cup of coffee and a donut everyday. Add it all up and it costs the Postal Service a lot of money."

"How much?"

I did some quick figuring.

"We've got about 350,000 workers in the bargaining unit. That would be about $550,000 a day for coffee and donuts for everyone."

Willie pulled a pen from his pocket and started scratching numbers on the APWU News Service Bulletin.

"A cup of coffee and a donut is 1.3 percent," he said to himself. "Times two is 2.6 percent. How much would it cost them to buy us two cups of coffee and two donuts a day?" he asked, looking up.

"That would cost the Postal Service about $1.1 million a day to buy each of us two cups of coffee and two donuts every day."

"A million-one from $10 million still leaves them with almost $9 million in profits a day, right?"

"That's right," I answered.

Willie frowned.

"So they could buy me two cups of coffee and two donuts a day and still make almost $9 million a day. But I'm only gonna get one cup of coffee and a donut. This looks like a tremendous opportunity for them. But not for me."

"Well, it's up to the members to decide that. That's why we get to vote on it."

Just then the boss came into the break room and Willie got up to go back to work.

"Hey Willie," the boss said. "When did they raise the price of coffee in the machine? You got a dime you can loan me?"