You've got mail

COLUMBUS - The large, well-lit room with a shiny black floor is strewn from one end to the other with bins and boxes and shelves full or waiting to be filled with packages, magazines, newspapers and letters. There seems to be as many slots as in a Vegas casino.

Postal employee Ken Lisko stands in the middle of a sea of bins, glances at a package, and tosses it in one direction or another.

"Need some teeth?" he asks, shaking a box addressed to a dentist. The Post Office delivers much more than bills and Good Housekeeping. Chickens, peacocks, and even their eggs are sent via the U.S. Postal Service. There are exercise machines, kitchen wares and countless, nondescript parcels wrapped in brown paper, giving no clue as to their contents.

Lisko has been at work since 4 a.m. Two hours have passed and two co-workers arrive. Constellations are still visible in the sky while they and drivers from surrounding towns unload the first truckful of mail that has arrived, made up mostly of packages and flat mail larger than envelopes. There was some poultry, but it was sent off to Schuyler.

A few more employees trickle in and by 7:30, most of the carriers have arrived to finish sorting what is left of the first daily shipment.

The letters are supposed to arrive by 8 a.m. in a truck from Norfolk, and the carriers wait.

As the hands of the clock slowly tick past the scheduled time, Postmaster Ron Reilly starts to get nervous. He steps out onto the dock, and tells those waiting out there that the truck dispatched on time.

Neither snow, nor rain, nor surprise truck inspections by the state patrol stays these couriers.

"Department of Transportation check," Reilly said. "They've got all the trucks pulled over by the side of the road."

When the truck does arrive, an organized frenzy of activity erupts as the rural and city carriers set to work sorting the last arrival. It won't take long. In Norfolk, the mail is separated and marked according to the layout of the Columbus Post Office slots of mail, and the particular routes each carrier follows.

Carrier Supervisor Eric Korus said there is a system in place to figure out how much extra mail can be taken by the carriers and still allow them to finish their routes on time.

"They have a system figured out. Every foot of flats is 115 pieces," he said, while a foot of letters is about 227 pieces. It takes 15 minutes to deliver one foot, and the times the carriers are to walk out the door and return hours later is marked to the minute. If it is a slow mail day, they make sure to deliver the standard, or "junk" mail, which can wait up to two days for delivery.

Rural Routes

Roger Mueller nestles into the passenger seat, one long leg next to the door and the other stretched across the car to the drivers side to work the pedals. Between his legs on the floor of the car, tucked into the dashboard, and piled high everywhere else are letters, flat mail, packages and the like.

Unlike city carriers who punch a clock and keep a tight schedule, the rural drivers are more like contracted employees. Every year the average amount of mail they deliver is calculated along with the mileage of the route, to determine how long it should take them to complete their daily delivery. They are paid according to that time, no matter how long it takes them.

But the general consensus is, you can set your clock by Mueller's delivery.

Indeed, he takes the truck's late delivery hard, imagining the people along his route waiting longer than usual.

For Mueller, many of those people are friends and relatives he has grown up with. His route takes him by his childhood home, and the areas where he and his extended family were raised. He said he asked them 20 years ago when he took that route if they would mind.

"When you handle their mail you know their lives. You know if they pay their bills on time or what church they go to," Mueller said.

As he drives along, he points out familiar places, including former schools that have been converted into homes.

"District 25," he said, pointing to a two-story house with beige siding. "My old schoolhouse. And now I'm delivering mail here. Who would have thought?"

There are, indeed, a few people along his path who are out waiting for his arrival. He apologizes, and periodically comments, "We're 12 minutes behind," as he tries to make up some time.

Tapping the clock in his car, he comments, "This is about five seconds slow," while his wristwatch is behind by an hour, a result of a tricky mechanism that prevents him from changing it when daylight savings time comes.

"I don't look at the hour anyway," he said. "I'm a minute person."

City Routes

The morning was brisk, but the city carriers all had their uniform shorts on for the day. At 11 a.m., Dick Farnham is stepping through a neighborhood (City Route 10), just south of 23rd Street.

His is what is called a "park and loop" route. He has a truck full of mail, and parks it at a corner of four blocks. After picking up the mail for one loop, he delivers it, ends up back at the truck, and picks up the post for the next loop.

Magazines and flats he cradles in his arm, with the letters in the same hand. As he walks, he rifles through the two stacks, double checking names and addresses.

"By the time you walk from one house to the next, you're supposed to have the mail ready," Farnham said.

Reilly said he gets some complaints from city residents because they set mail out to be picked up, but the carrier walks by. Carriers are not obligated to pick up mail at residences that do not receive any post on a particular day. If they notice the outgoing letters, they may as a courtesy, but as Farnham walks his concentration is focused on making a manageable pile of the next delivery, which he whips into the boxes with one hand. The flair and finesse may not be visible to the naked eye, but it is a cumbersome pile of various sized envelopes and magazines, and when the weather is windy, he said, "You hug the mail."

Post Office guidelines dictate that the mail should arrive at every house at nearly the same time every day. There are bar codes in particular boxes along the route that the carrier must scan with a hand-held device that records the time, so managers can tell if the carrier is keeping to the schedule.

"A lot of people think we're lazy because we don't walk on the sidewalk. It would be easier because you don't turn your ankles," Farnham said. But the guidelines dictate cutting corners along the way, which means taking the straight route from one house to the next. There are some homes, however, where the owner has requested that the carriers keep off the grass. Their wishes are heeded.

On days like Thursday, when the sky was clear, the sun bright, and a cool breeze blowing, Farnham said he loves his job. The hard days are rainy and chilly, or particularly cold days in the winter.

Although he said he only occasionally receives complaints about wet mail, Farnham said, "If I can't keep myself dry, I can't keep their mail dry. Sometimes their mail is soaking wet but if it is, their mail carrier's soaked to the bone, too."

Some also complain about standard, or "junk" mail.

"But that's our bread and butter," he said. "If we didn't get it, the price of first class stamps would go up."

Overall, though, Farnham said if he didn't like his job and the people he worked with, he wouldn't still be there after 30 years. His co-workers are people of good morals and integrity.

"If you can't trust a letter carrier," he said, finishing his sentence with a shrug.

Back at the office...

With most of the carriers still on their appointed rounds during the morning and afternoon, the sorting area at the Post Office seems especially empty when compared to the buzz of the morning activity.

But out front is a different story. At the counter, Kris Schrad waits on customers who need stamps, packages delivered, and other business from the Post Office.

She explains a money order to a first-timer, and express mail to another customer.

"Yes, Denver, it will get there overnight," Schrad said.

Greeting another woman by name, Schrad responds to her request for stamps, "You like the rose and lilac ones, don't you? I know you don't like the magnolia ones."

Her personal knowledge of her customers is something Schrad prides herself on.

"I'm the main window clerk. Ron (Reilly) always jokes, 'You know everyone in town and you've only been here three years.'"

Just like the carriers, Schrad said she learns a lot about people from the business they conduct at her counter.

"You know the business people who come in, a lot of e-bay users come in, money orders. You get a lot of people who hold their mail, business people who are in and out of town."

As she helps another customer to resend a returned letter to his daughter, Schrad asks him if he would like a receipt.

He shakes his head and shrugs it off.

"If you can't trust the post office, who can you trust?" he asked.

Reach Heather Koontz at 563-7528 or hkoontz@columbustelegram.com.