How Does a USPS Worker Spend a Workday?
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Types of jobs
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When a United States Postal Service (USPS) employee arrives at work, he will be doing one of three jobs: sorting, delivering or servicing the mail. The service workers staff the front desks as customer service agents. The sorters work in sort stations dividing the mail into zip codes to be loaded onto delivery vehicles. The carriers deliver the sorted mail to businesses and residences on daily routes.
Service worker daily duties
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A customer service worker, or postal clerk, spends his day providing postage service to customers at the front desk of the post office. This involves selling stamps, stationery and money orders, as well as the weighing of packages to be delivered and applying the postmark. Other duties include registering, certifying and insuring the mail. These tasks are repeated throughout the workday, depending on the needs of the customer.
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Mail sorter daily duties
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The USPS mail sorter, or mail processor, stands in front of a sorting station reading zip codes and addresses and putting the envelopes and packages into the corresponding slots of the sort box for the carriers' routes or to be picked up by the customer at the the P.O. box in the station. Processors also operate high-tech machinery that can sort mail by reading bar codes on the envelopes as well as loading and unloading trucks of incoming and outgoing mail. The work of a mail processor is extremely repetitive and has been known to cause medical problems of the extremities for long-time workers, such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
Mail carrier daily duties
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Spending most of his time outdoors and working long hours from dawn till dusk, the mail carrier delivers the mail on predetermined routes six day a week, Monday through Saturday, with all federal holidays off. The carrier drives a mail truck from the station after the mail has been presorted by the processors. In rural areas the carrier will use his own car to deliver the route and be reimbursed for the expense. At certain points in dense urban areas, the carrier will park the truck and deliver the mail on foot, with a knapsack containing the mail slung over his shoulder. The carrier is also responsible for collecting outgoing mail and returning it to the station to be sorted for delivery.
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