Come dogs and address changes, the post office employees deliver
Staff Writer
The back room of a post office may not be the most obvious place to start cracking irate postal-worker jokes, but the employees of the Logan Post Office don’t seem to mind. It may be that this sense of humor also allows them to deal with the various quirks and frustrations of their job. The first employee arrives in the office as early as 1 a.m., they brave weather, dogs and changes of addresses to keep birthday checks, credit card applications and bills in mailboxes across the city. With the Jan. 7 increase in postage cost, the post office voluntarily provided an extra service. A couple hundred letters come through with short postage. Rather than sending the letters back, some mail carriers bought sheets of one-cent stamps and put them on the letters, said city carrier Ron Hoffler. A variety of interesting postage has come through the post office, including pennies taped to the envelope and envelopes covered in one-cent stamps. If someone tapes money to the envelope, the carrier has to stand in line and buy a stamp and put it on the letter. “Most of the carriers here are really good natured and will do what they can to get the letter to you,” said substitute office supervisor, Dale Hansen. Because of the university, the Logan post office has the additional challenge of finding students who move and do not turn in change of address slips. “That’s probably one of my biggest pet peeves. With the turnover of USU students, we end up filling out thousands of change of address forms,” said Hansen. A change of address requires filling out a short form and leaving it in the mailbox for a letter carrier to pick up. Letters can be forwarded to a new address for free for a year and returned to sender for another six months. Another major obstacle for carriers are dogs. “In Logan, the main reason mail doesn’t get delivered is dogs. If a carrier feels that he is threatened by a dog he doesn’t have to deliver it,” Hansen said. “A dog can be friendly to everyone else, but there is something about carriers … the dog feels like its territory is being invaded.” Most of the carriers carry pepper spray with them on their routes for dog control. Even a minor bite can cost the dog owner around $400 to pay for the carrier’s shots and time off work, Hoffler said. Dog owners get three chances to take care of the dog. After that they have to go to the post office to pick up their mail. “I would say most of the carriers have had a dog bite,” said Dan Lindhart, a supervisor with the Logan City Post Office. Christmas is undoubtedly the busiest time for the post office. The season begins in October as Christmas catalogs begin going out, Dell said. In November, when the catalogs stop, the Christmas cards start. The first couple of weeks of December, gift-givers rush the post office front windows. The rush transfers to the back room when gifts and cards begin to arrive. This year the post office worked Christmas Eve so more packages would make it by Christmas Day. There were even some packages delivered Christmas Day, Lindhart said. The Logan area mail is handled by two offices, Logan and North Logan. Everything south of 1000 North and east of 600 West is delivered by the Logan City Post Office. From sender to receiver, the mail goes through several hands, both human and mechanical. When carriers bring the mail back from their routes it is sorted into one of three bins: letters, packages or priority packages. Priority packages are sent directly to the airport for delivery. Twice a day, the other mail is put on a truck to Salt Lake to get post marked. If the letter has a bar code on it, a machine sorts it by zip codes. The sorting system called delivery point sequence (DPS) has only been used in this area for the last three or four years, Dell said. Mail without a bar code is sorted by hand in the Logan Post Office. Before the DPS system the post office sorted 110 to 300 feet of mail per day. Now the clerks sort about 30 to 35 feet of mail a day. Once the mail is sorted into routes, it’s returned to the hands of the letter carriers and goes on to the mailbox. All together, 86 people are employed by the Logan and North Logan post offices, which cover 33 routes. Each route includes around 500 to 700 houses, Dell said. Next fall, the Logan Post Office will move to a larger location around the corner from its current one. It will not be hiring any new employees, but will have more room to expand and have post office boxes and a postal store, Dell said.