Is Christmas Over With Yet?

I don’t know about you but Christmastime used to be my favorite time of year – until I started working for the USPS! Now I dread every holiday season with the constant flood of packages that not only add to the daily stress of the job but also take a toll on our rural mail carrier vehicles.

Of course 2020 just happens to be the worst year for many things and that includes the number of packages our office has been receiving each day. People seem to be sitting on the arses at home and just ordering whatever comes to mind. If you’re that bored, I know who could use some help across the country – the United States Post Office.

Our office recently set a one-day record for packages delivered at over 3,800! This is insane considering the population of our town is only about 14,000. How have you been handling this holiday season? Have you noticed an enormous increase in packages – especially Amazon?

There have been many times the past few weeks where I have ended up making 3 trips a day just to deliver packages because they load my vehicle worse than a Texas flood! I remember telling my postmaster several years ago when they announced the big Amazon partnership and told her it’s going to lead to issues because rural mail carriers are not equipped to handle this huge volume increase in packages.

It would be different if they would be providing us with USPS vehicles but the majority of rural letter carriers are forced to use their own vehicles and it’s getting to the point where I could use a semi trailer many days! I don’t see this changing anytime soon so it’s something for you newbies to be aware of if you’re considering working for the USPS as a rural mail carrier.

My colleague Robbie likes to say that “We used to be mailmen – now we are package delivery people.” Give us some brown uniforms and some big brown trucks and set us free. 🙂