curiousbrain
Well-Known Member
Some observations on SurePost.
The center where I am employed services a large metropolitan area, and multiple post offices; most are of average size, and one of them happens to be a very large post office. This large post office probably receives over a thousand SurePost packages a day; we can barely fit them all into an 800 - some of the boxes are enormous. When the dimensions are not a problem, the sheer volume is extremely overwhelming - small sort has a real problem with all the processing before the shift is set to end, and when we try to process them all down on the belt(s) it is a precarious exercise, to put it mildly.
This is during peak - we have a route devoted to this one stop. From what I hear, routes are hard to come by, and devoting one to a single stop is a tough sell; even if the driver can then go help other people after this stop, it is still a huge pain in the arse because they have to unload a thousand or more packages, scan bags and large boxes, and load up the mail carts or what not. During the "normal" season, the regular route that services this stop is so blown out by the post office that the individual barely has room to fit his NDA into the truck, and it's the biggest truck in the building.
There is an intersection of factors here which contribute to this mess, some of which are probably above my pay grade; including perhaps: route limits and large SurePost packages.
SurePost may or may not go the way of the dodo, that is for others to decide; what I do know, operationally speaking however, is that some changes need to be made to the way the vast volume is handled; bagging every 6 to twelve parcels is not working; the driver wastes a ton of time mucking around at the post office.
The center where I am employed services a large metropolitan area, and multiple post offices; most are of average size, and one of them happens to be a very large post office. This large post office probably receives over a thousand SurePost packages a day; we can barely fit them all into an 800 - some of the boxes are enormous. When the dimensions are not a problem, the sheer volume is extremely overwhelming - small sort has a real problem with all the processing before the shift is set to end, and when we try to process them all down on the belt(s) it is a precarious exercise, to put it mildly.
This is during peak - we have a route devoted to this one stop. From what I hear, routes are hard to come by, and devoting one to a single stop is a tough sell; even if the driver can then go help other people after this stop, it is still a huge pain in the arse because they have to unload a thousand or more packages, scan bags and large boxes, and load up the mail carts or what not. During the "normal" season, the regular route that services this stop is so blown out by the post office that the individual barely has room to fit his NDA into the truck, and it's the biggest truck in the building.
There is an intersection of factors here which contribute to this mess, some of which are probably above my pay grade; including perhaps: route limits and large SurePost packages.
SurePost may or may not go the way of the dodo, that is for others to decide; what I do know, operationally speaking however, is that some changes need to be made to the way the vast volume is handled; bagging every 6 to twelve parcels is not working; the driver wastes a ton of time mucking around at the post office.