Local Delivery Workers Help Bring the Holidays Home
(L-R: Lynn Lentz, Zach Otto, Terri Maass, Jennifer Lassahn, and Tammy Comnick)
Sure, you know Comet and Cupid, but do you know the other fine folks working so hard to get your holiday packages and cards delivered on time? No, we’re not talking about Buddy the Elf, either. Real men and women from both the United States Postal Service and private shipping companies work twice as hard during the holiday season. According to USPS.com, over 20 million packages are shipped daily during the month of December. With Adobe Analytics reporting Cyber Monday now outpacing Black Friday at $12.4 billion in sales to $9.8 billion in sales, getting those packages sent out in a timely manner to the extended relatives burdens the entire mail system.
For Zach Otto, manager at the Mapleton Post Office, he’s seen a lot of changes at the post office over the past 26 years. The use of scanners and GPS helps pinpoint packages from drop off to delivery. Typically the local post office employs 5 Full-time drivers, four subs, and four clerks, but during the Holiday season, Otto finds himself doing more than his managerial work with scheduling and working the window and often helps with the overflow delivery.
Checking it Twice
With so many packages being shipped, the onus on proper packaging falls on the consumer. While the USPS and private delivery companies often offer $100 of insurance on a package, it is up to the customer to insure the integrity of the package and the shipping material like bubble wrap. Some of the factors for shipping cost are affected by weight, dimension, and the destination, with 70 lbs serving as a major price threshold. Massop Electric serves as a shipping point for both UPS and Spee-Dee Delivery. While UPS has the capacity for guaranteed shipping and international delivery, Spee-Dee Delivery can ship to the five-state region for half the price as its competitors. A major shipping crime: “no paper wrapped packages,” Christa Springer, Cindy Massop, and Coleen Lindemann all echoed simultaneously. Otto also emphasized this point by stating that reusing packaging is acceptable, but all previous labels must be removed or the computer scanning systems might get confused.
“You packed your package,” Christa Springer explained. “If the company did not package the package, the responsibility is on the customer.” Companies will often assist in helping consumers properly pack to avoid ending up on the island of misfit toys. “We had a guy show up one day with a doll house he’d built for his granddaughter,” Colleen Lindemann added. “You cannot send that without it being in a package or in a box.” Purchasing insurance is often a wise investment if the item is expensive or fragile.
A Winter Wonderland
For Jennifer Lassahn, a 20-year-veteran driver with the USPS, the holiday delivery season is old hat. Her route, RR3, typically is a hundred miles of driving a day, but during December, she’ll often have to return three times to fill her vehicle with packages. With Amazon orders flooding the delivery tubs, Mondays are especially challenging since two-days worth of packages gather for delivery. Scanning the packages and the use of GPS allows the office to know where their drivers are during the day.
A typical shift begins with the arrival of the Amazon truck, which sees all four drivers and the clerk dividing up the packages between P.O. Box, rural, and in-town delivery. Then it all comes down to the weather. “We do our best in bad weather, but some days there’s only so much we can do. If a road is impassable, we have to wait for the plows.” Lassahn explained that they are never “tell us” to deliver in poor weather and are encouraged to “use our judgment” with where they can and can’t get to following storms.
Residents can help matters in three areas. According to Lassahn, ice on driveways can be a major hazard when delivering packages that don’t fit in mailboxes. The compressed snow and ice left by vehicles leaving garages are some of the most likely culprits in slipping. While the drivers do wear ice cleats, a little salt to create a path would greatly help drivers. For Zach Otto, who fills in when needed, having easy to read house numbers is important to him and the sub drivers. With drivers making 400-450 deliveries in a route, easy access to mailboxes is another factor.
A Blue Christmas
Was your gift not what you wanted? Or ordered? With today’s easy return policies, many people can print off a return label (don’t just show your phone) and send it back for refund. Massop Electric offers a return drop off location in Mapleton. They are open M-F 8-5, with the UPS driver stopping by around noon and Spee-Dee Delivery around 2-3 PM. For both private delivery and the USPS, the “ship by” dates are quickly approaching, typically around December 16, but for procrastinators, paying a little more can get a person out of a bind.
Otto recommends signing up for a new service called “Informed Visibility” which informs customers when a package enters the system and when it is expected to be delivered.
Lynn Lentz sorts through traditional personal mail.
Prior to departure, Jennifer Lassahn scans her parcels.
Terri Maass fills her vehicle as full as possible to cut down on the number of trips back to the post office.
(Originally Published with the Maple River Messenger)
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