Breaking the Myth: How Mail Carriers Navigate Their Daily Routes
Are you skeptical about how a single mail carrier can deliver as many as 200 letters a day? Let's dive into the realities of a mail carrier's workload and the incredible efficiency that allows them to manage such a heavy volume of mail.
As a seasoned mail carrier, I have personally delivered over 2000 mail letters in a single day. My route is no joke, with 1023 points of call. But this is just the beginning. Add to that parcels, oversized registered items, A.O's (Alternative Order items), and unaddressed admail, and you're talking about a volume equivalent to far more than two hundred letters per day.
During the sorting test on the second day of my training, I was tasked with sorting 120 letters in 10 minutes, with only one acceptable error. I managed to get five tries in, needing three attempts, and outperformed four other individuals who failed the test and were never seen again. The expectation is clear: a mail carrier must deliver quickly and accurately.
Let's debunk the myth that a mail carrier can only deliver 200 letters per day. If this were the case, the wage to deliver each letter would be astronomically high - approximately 80 cents per letter. Given that this is low ball mail, any independent analysis would show that, with proper sorting and distribution, delivering two hundred letters for a drop is perfectly feasible.
To be more precise, I managed to deliver 480 boxes on my mail route. While a dozen or so may not receive any mail, the majority of customers receive at least 2 or 3 pieces of mail, often more. This is not an unusual scenario, so yes, we do deliver far more than 200 pieces a day. In fact, I averaged between 3000 and 3500 pieces a day over my career. Averaging around 2000 deliveries is more like it.
Breaking it down further, my route consisted of 835 deliveries, some door-to-door and others through cluster boxes. But even this wasn't the largest route in my station. Other routes, all cluster box operations, had over 1200 deliveries per day. Imagine the volume of mail these routes handle!
Now, let's not forget that the numbers above are just for letters. We're also dealing with magazines, grocery store ads, flyers, and parcels. And with political season in full swing, the sheer volume of political advertisements you receive today can be multiplied by the number of deliveries on a typical route.
And for a visual, imagine these trays that can hold up to 600 letters. The seven trays you see is often a typical day's mail for one mail carrier. It goes to show the incredible efficiency required to handle such a significant volume of mail.
If a mail carrier were to deliver only 200 letters a day, they would most likely be fired. The demands of the job are steep, but the rewards of ensuring every home receives their mail on time and efficiently are unparalleled.
Understanding the workload and efficiency of mail carriers is crucial for appreciating the hard work and dedication behind the scenes of our postal system. The days of merely 200 letters per day are a myth, replaced by a reality where mail carriers juggle a staggering number of deliveries, ensuring that every piece of mail reaches its destination in a timely and accurate manner.