Letter: Mail Carriers Overworked

If you live in Redondo Beach, have you noticed over the past two-and-a-half weeks that your mail delivery might be arriving at midnight, 10 p.m. or 8 p.m.—or not at all? We have.

I found out that Redondo Beach, until 2 1/2 weeks ago, had 50 delivery areas. Now there are 35 areas. Because the postal service has reduced the number of areas,  mail carriers are forced to work until 10 p.m. or midnight. We have gone without mail a couple of times.

These poor mail carriers are working 12-14 hours a day to get the job done, and sometimes they aren't. This means they are walking many hours a day. These postal workers have to go in and separate the mail for their area, which is taking longer because they have a bigger area, and then go out to deliver, which of course is taking longer. We saw one male postal carrier with a lantern on his hat, delivering mail on the next block at 10:30 p.m. last week.

This is insane and has to stop. Today, the newspaper reported the financial problems the USPS is having and I understand these issues are grave. I just hope they don't put their workers into graves.

Vicky Oetzell
Redondo Beach

Letters to the editor do not necessarily reflect the views of Redondo Beach Patch. Letters must be less than 500 words and are subject to editing for space, spelling, punctuation and grammar. Also, anonymous letters will not be published, so remember to include your real name. You can email your letter to Redondo Beach Patch editor Nicole Mooradian at nicole.mooradian@patch.com.