Mail delays frustrate letter carriers, customers

01:34 PM CDT on Wednesday, October 27, 2004

By Jeremy Desel / 11 News

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Sunset Tuesday marked the end of another long day for those that deliver your mail. But this day ends, carriers say, with mail undelivered.

KHOU

Letter carriers returned Tuesday night with several carts full of undelivered mail.

One carrier, who wished to remain unidentified, said that out of her seven trays of mail, only three were delivered Tuesday. What happened to the remaining trays? They were taken back into the station.

Carriers in Cypress say they were called back in at six o'clock. They returned to the station with tray after tray of mail that would have to wait another day for delivery.

The callback is a result of different trouble here Monday night -- carriers finally returning from their routes after dark because, they say, short-staffed clerks were behind getting mail to them.

"Our district policy states that we should be back in the office by five, but as you can see, we still have carriers that are out carrying mail until eight or nine o'clock at night," says carrier Sharon Anderson.

Postal service management says it's aware of the problems in Cypress. "Well, we had a service failure in Cypress yesterday. Bottom line is that it's a management problem. We're taking the appropriate action to fix it," says USPS spokesperson David Levin.

That action includes sending eight personnel from other offices to help on Wednesday. Carriers hope that is true.

"We're working two, even three routes. We have to split up and work them because there's not enough people," says the anonymous carrier.

The heart of the matter is staffing. Carriers say it's been bad like this at Cypress, especially on Mondays and Tuesdays, for over a year. Postal management says it's hard to hire and keep these carriers because they're mainly rural routes and mainly part-time. The explosive growth in the area has only added to the problem.