Understaffing, sorting issues and increased volume of packages are among several causes of the ongoing mail delivery problems in the Cape Girardeau area.
Three mail carrier positions need to be filled and there is still too much mail for currently employed carriers to handle. Recently added routes have resulted in sorting issues requiring manual sorting, which contributes to delays. Carriers often work long days and must cover multiple routes on top of additional packages that must be delivered.
According to Greg Davidson, a United States Postal Service clerk and local union representative, the post office can’t handle the amount of mail with the current number of carriers. Davidson said the blame often goes to “people being sick and not coming to work,” but there are days when “everybody’s here and we just fall short.” Additionally, regular days off and vacations can add to the burden.
“Maybe nobody called out, but we’ve got two people on vacation, and the whole system fails. We try to get 5 or 6,000 parcels done, and maybe we get 2,000 parcels done. (Carriers) try to make it up on Sundays because Amazon goes out on Sundays, but it’s awful,” Davidson said. “Then we have our manual letters. The woman whose job is to work on manual letters was on vacation last week, and we did her work.
“The machines in St. Louis can’t sort every letter, so there are some trays that come down every single day — quite a few trays — that have to be sorted manually to each carrier. I was out here Saturday morning, and I saw Monday’s letters, I saw Tuesday’s letters, I saw Wednesday’s letters and, of course, the Fourth of July, there weren’t any. There was nothing for Thursday, but then there’s Friday letters and there’s this Saturday’s letters.”