Hard Day

I had a hard day at the Post Office yesterday. I knew it was going to be a rough one. The day after a holiday always is. Holidays are bad for mail carriers because they'll have 2 days worth of mail to deliver when they come in. 2 other things worked to make things worse yesterday. The second was the DPS (deliver to point service) mail. It came over an hour late. You would say that shouldn't be a problem since DPS mail is already sorted. Yes it is BUT, the carrier still has to break it down for each address or address group. In yesterday's situation, I had to break it down to over 300 individual addresses. That takes any where between 45 minutes to an hour and a half depending on how heavy it is. Yesterday, because of the holiday, the volume was heavy so it longer to break it down. Lastly, the Christmas season began to hit. What does everyone like to receive during Christmas? Presents! For a mail carrier, presents are a mixed blessing. They're good for the Postal Service because they make more money for it than say a first class letter. They're bad in that they require more time. Usually, you can't just stick them in the mailbox and be done with them. The mail carrier will have to get out of their mail truck and take them to the door of the residence. If the neighborhood is bad and the recipient isn't home, they'll have to write up a 3849 (I think that's the right number) and leave it at the door so the person can pick up their package at the Post Office the next day. All of this takes time and time is one thing the carrier is racing against in the race to get back to the Post Office and finish up. Also, in the case of a substitute, unless you're hitting 40 hours that week, the longer you take to deliver your mail the more time you give to the Postal Service for free. Yesterday, I probably gave the Post Office 3 free hours. No one likes working for free barring volunteer work. So, that wasn't a lot of fun in that way.

Thankfully, I got the route done, wrapped things up at the Post Office i.e. turned in my outgoing mail, my accountables including my mailbox key and clocked out on my timesheet. Today, it should be easier barring having to be back an hour sooner because of the outgoing truck leaving sooner. I'll still need to hustle to get the job done but, it won't as bad as yesterday. Cheers all!