Letter carriers for the Bradford Post Office will have a little
extra time to sleep before they begin a busy workday.

On Saturday, letter carriers will begin work at 7:30 a.m., 30
minutes later than the current 7 a.m. start. Over the last four
years, the starting time for letter carriers has gone from 6:30 to
7 and now to 7:30 a.m.

Chad Olson, the officer in charge at the Bradford Post Office
while Postmaster Dana Klein is away for the next two to seven
months, said their goal is not to make the letter carriers not want
to go to work, but to make it more efficient and better for their
employees and customers.

“Some days just because of the window of operation and
transportation, the time to operate,” is affected, Olson said.
“We’re going through some different changes. We’re looking to make
the operation a little bit more efficient and better for all our
customers. We want the people to want to use our post office. We
hope they like their delivery and are hopefully getting a good
product.”

“We want to get the carriers on the street at a reasonable time
that is good for businesses and customers and everyone else,” said
Charlie McCreadie, senior operations manager for the Erie District.
But when some of the letter carriers arrive at 7 a.m., “they’re
sitting there waiting for mail.”

McCreadie explained that the mail is processed at the district
office in Erie and transported to Bradford, where the mail is
processed further – both with machines and manually. The starting
time for the letter carriers depends on the workload and on
transportation.

“Bradford is losing several minutes per carrier per day because
of that down time where they have nothing to do,” McCreadie said.
“Some of the carriers modify their work pace to work on how much
mail is there. This hurts the efficiency of the office, so that’s
why we’re moving to the later start time. We would like 90 percent
of their workload to be there when they come in.”

McCreadie said that most post offices throughout the United
States are having letter carriers start later because of this,
sometimes starting as late as 7:45 or 8 a.m. He said some letter
carriers still start at 7 a.m. at certain post offices, but those
post offices have more of the workload sorted and available for
them at that time so there’s no wait for the letter carriers.

Olson also pointed out that there has been a lot of
restructuring on the clerk side of the post office to make things
more efficient.

McCreadie and Olson said the later start really shouldn’t affect
the time people get the mail.

“They’re leaving just a hair later,” McCreadie said. “We like to
deliver the mail within an hour time frame. They really weren’t
busy (at the 7 a.m. start), but starting at 7:30 a.m., they should
be busy the whole time. (Leaving 10 or 15 minutes later may mean)
some people may get their mail 10 or 15 minutes later, but they’re
all due back in the building (and) have to be off the street by 5
p.m. every day of the week.”

But one letter carrier that talked to The Era was concerned that
people looking for checks in the mail may be affected by a later
delivery of 30 minutes to an hour. He said currently some letter
carriers are out after 5:30 p.m., when it gets dark in the winter
time, and as late as 7 p.m. He said some streets like Main Street
are no problem in the morning hours but become a major corridor
during lunch time, making it longer for carriers to get through the
route.

He also eluded to the later time causing health issues or stress
on older letter carriers or those with health problems working
harder to get the mail out on time.

“It’s a change of behavior for a lot of these folks,” Olson
said. “They’ve done the same thing for so long it doesn’t always
exactly stick right away. They have to relearn it, and it takes
time. We’re trying to have as little impact on them as much as
possible. We’re not looking to traumatize the employees. We don’t
want to lose (the veterans’) knowledge.”

Olson did admit, though, the change to the 7:30 a.m. start may
not be the best timing with vacations coming up and some of the
staff retiring.

If the time change does affect when people get their mail, the
letter carrier encouraged customers to come to the Post Office and
fill out a customer complaint card.