Post Office Puts Stamp of Disapproval on Surly Slogan

Manufacturers’ representatives Roy Sunday and Richard O’Brien offer “Service With a Snarl. High Prices--Rotten Delivery. Stupid Salesmen.” But they must be doing something right since their Haddonfield, N.J.-based company has been in business since 1960 and brought in $12 million in sales last year. But the U.S. Postal Service found nothing amusing in their tongue-in-cheek slogan and ordered Sunday-O’Brien to remove it from its metered mail as a violation of domestic mail regulations. “ ‘Service With a Snarl’ can be defamatory towards any service-oriented group,” including postal workers themselves, said Philadelphia postal official Robert Iezzi. Beaten but unbowed, the company will continue to give away pens bearing the motto. “We’re just an offbeat group,” Sunday said. “Any company with the initials SOB has to have a sense of humor.”

--It seems that some people just can’t accept gifts graciously. When Hamtramck, Mich., officials let it be known that they had no money left over to buy flags after spending $50,000 on 20 new flagpoles, patriots from all over the country unfurled their wallets and sent them donations of cash and flags. Ski Demski of Long Beach, Calif., alone said he spent $1,500 to buy 20 flags for the heavily Polish enclave. But now Hamtramck Mayor Robert Kozaren has another complaint: The city has too many flags. “And they’re the wrong size,” he said.

--Agnes R. Hill, principal of the William Paca Elementary School in Baltimore has gotten high marks for her attendance record: She hasn’t missed a day of work in 27 years. “I just feel I have to be there,” Hill said. She feels equally strongly about pupil attendance and has offered savings bonds and gift certificates to encourage her students to come to school, like her, day after day after day.

--Neither Hill nor anyone else can likely hold a candle to Roger H. Lonergan of Barre, Mass., a 78-year-old civil engineer at a reservoir intake station who has 50 years on the job and hasn’t taken a vacation in 37 years. Lonergan, who has outlasted 16 governors and three state agencies set up to oversee the massive reservoir, said of his impeccable record: “It’s not that bad a job. I’ve been pretty well satisfied with it and it’s not my nature to jump around from place to place.” The state has recognized Lonergan’s service by renaming the facility in his honor.