The crunch of December eases
On the day after Christmas, Butler's postal workers let out a sigh of relief. They had survived another Christmas season.
Butler's post office handled 138,250 packages between Dec. 1 and Dec. 21, the most recent data available to city carrier supervisor Tony Kriley. That figure, according to a data report Kriley provided Wednesday, marks a 9 percent increase in packages handled over last year.
But now is the time to relax again. Last January, the office handled 23,811 packages, just under half the 48,889 packages that workers handled last week.
Jack Hutchinson, the office's lead clerk and a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service, attributes the growing December business to online sales.
“We've got 15, 20 people that come here every day with an armful of packages of things they've sold,” he said.
Hutchinson said they'll still have some busy days ahead. He estimated that for about 10 days after Christmas, the post office deals with returned gifts. Then, it will have another 10 days of corrected gifts repurchased in their proper size or color.
While the number of packages has increased exponentially, other mail sources seem to be dwindling. Hutchinson said the post office sees far fewer Christmas cards these days compared to years past.
“The volume of letters, just regular letters that are mailed by the public, is 30 percent of what it used to be,” Hutchinson said.
The postal service's contract with Amazon means that the Butler office has been bringing in part-time mail carriers for Sunday deliveries. Some days this month brought several thousand packages mailed through the company. On Sunday, four shipments from Amazon arrived.
“People have just gotten used to the fact that the post office is going to get it there in two or three days, so they wait until the last minute,” Burkovich said. “There's just so much all at one time. A short period of time.”
Paul Burkovich, a city mail carrier in Butler, said he felt the increase in packages this season.“It was a lot more than last year,” Burkovich said. “A lot more parcels.”But on Wednesday, relief had seemingly arrived. As he walked between businesses on West Cunningham Street, Burkovich said he already had far fewer packages to deliver than last week.“Everything is going to be back to normal in a couple days,” he said. “The stress of December is done.”Celeste Phillips, the office's officer in charge on Wednesday, noted that several blue bins holding mail carriers' daily workloads were empty for the first time in six weeks.“It actually seems too quiet,” she joked to a co-worker.She points to retail shopping trends to blame for increasing numbers of packages.“Unfortunately, there are less stores around town,” Phillips said. “You can do your online shopping from your couch.”Butler's post office has 41 full-time mail carriers, she said, and 14 part-time carriers. In all, 76 people work there.Those carriers work 30 city routes and 13 rural routes.So, what's the next big challenge for local mail carriers?“Now we have to worry about winter conditions coming,” Phillips said.
