Many elves needed to move that mail

On Monday alone, about 2-million cards and letters pass through one Tampa mail facility.

[Times photo: Kathleen Flynn] Postal worker Marisol Hester of Tampa kept busy in the main post office in downtown St. Petersburg on Monday. Hester said hundreds of customers showed up to mail packages, but "it felt like thousands."

By BRADY DENNIS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 17, 2002

TAMPA -- If you ventured into Tampa Bay post offices Monday, their busiest day of the year, you probably saw some unusual scenes:

Lines of people with cell phones glued to their ears; mountains of boxes; people dropping hundreds of cards in a huge wrapped letter bin, like coins in a slot machine.

Busiest day a smooth one at Pasco post office Post offices shovel blizzard of presents

Free coffee and holiday cookies; smiling postal workers in Santa hats; a decorated Christmas tree in the lobby; TV news crews filming the crowds.

It was busy. It was hectic. But it wasn't that bad, was it?

It was if you worked in "the zoo," the 300,000-square-foot plant at the main post office near Tampa International Airport. More than 2-million cards and letters from around the bay area were expected to pass through the facility on Monday.

"Christmas is nothing like it was 10 years ago," said Carl Downing, who manages the plant, one of the largest in the Southeast. "We used to have to hire an army of employees."

Now, the behind-the-scenes operation is a whirring widget factory, where cards and bills and Dear John letters snake through a maze of machinery, along the walls and overhead, at a blinding pace.

Workers in gloves and sweat shirts dodge forklifts and unload truck after truck of Hallmark wishes, dumping them onto miles of conveyors and sorters and scanners.

Downing said a worker can process about 1,000 pieces of mail an hour. His machines, which hummed nonstop Monday, can do 35,000. But it still takes manpower.

"(The workers) know this is coming, so it's sort of a challenge," he said. "We sort of have fun with it. We see how fast we can do it."

Post offices across the country were expected to handle about 280-million cards and letters Monday, with more than 5-billion total during the holiday season.

The rush will continue all week.

Officials said that starting Wednesday, people need to use Priority Mail to get packages delivered before Christmas. Beginning this weekend, it might take overnight mail to get the job done.

Henny Oschmann of Oldsmar was sending presents -- including Dalmatian rain boots and a model plane -- to her two grandchildren in North Carolina.

She said she doesn't mind the lines.

"It's just part of the holiday," she said. "As long as the people are pleasant."

Tampa postmaster Rich Rome, a 34-year veteran, said the holiday hustle "doesn't change much from year to year."

The zoo still springs to life, churning out letters at a breakneck pace. People still wait until the last minute.

"It's the American thing to do," he said.

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