PLEASE NOTE: THAT THE FIGURES BELOW PROVIDED BY THE U.S. POSTAL SERVICE ONLY REFLECT ABOUT 50% OF TOTAL MAIL VOLUME. House Post Office Handles 8.4 Million Letters Every Month At 230 in the morning, the Longworth mailroom awakens. House Post Office employees arrive to begin a new day. U.S. Postal Service mailtrucks begin to unload. Nineteen and a half hours later the mailroom will once again be silent. During that time, well over 285,000 pieces of mail will be handled by the House Post Office employees. The process involved is surprisingly complex. The mail is unloaded and taken to be x-rayed. All mail is scanned to insure there are no explosive or other dangerous devices. The mail, in trays, is then taken to the primary sorting area. The "primary sorter" takes a stack of letters from the tray and sorts them into 10 cubicles. All the cubicles are broken down by building and floor. This eliminates the need to memorize the exact room location of every Member and committee. The "case-man" then takes the letters from the cubicles to the "cas:" area and sorts them by room number. The case-man knows only the roorn numbers of Members and committees on a particular floor in a particular building. Letters which were mis-pitched" are returned to the primary sorter or given to the supervisor. Once the mail is pitched into the correct cases, the process is repeated with other floors and buildings. At 6:30 am, all the mail which has been pitched since 2:30 am is bundled, put on mailcarts and delivered. This process is repeated at 9.00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and at 2:00 p.m. The three steps of x-ray, primary sort and case sort continue throughout the day until 9:30 p.m., when the last Postal Service mailtruck is dispatched from the House Post Office to the City Post Office. This is a brief over view of how "outside" mail is handled and processed by the House Post Office. This simple process becomes complex because of the sheer volume of mail handled each day. Constituent mail alone averages over 3 million pieces per month. Not included in this count is mail which comes from Government agencies, the Library of Congress, CRS, the Supreme and special delivery mail. There is also "inside mail" such as Dear Colleague" letters, letters from one office to another, • Incoming constituent mail has increased from over 15 million pieces in 1970 to the approximate known volume of over 53 million in 1976. During this time, the number of employees actually processing the mail has decreased. In 1970, the House Post Office made deliveries to 630 different stops; the number of stops by 1977 increased to 725. . The House Post Office now delivers all "special delivery" letters promptly to the Members' offices. (Prior to this, the City Post Office delivered the "special delivery" letters at 8:00 a.m. If the Member's office wasn't open, then the the letter was held until the next day or the next...) • Since 1972, a special messenger service delivers mail directly to the Social Security Administration in Baltimore and the State Department. This saves at least 4 days in bypassing the Government Mails Section of the City Post Office. . Since 1972, full counter service is available until 6:00 p.m. during the week and until 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays. Rota said many House staffs have indicated that the extended hours have helped them handle their workloads more efficiently. These items are even more significant in comparison with the decrease in services provided by the regular Postal Service. How is the House Post Office able to provide these additional services? Rota explains that several management techniques have been applied. One was in adjusting the work schedules for all House Post Office employees to allow for 7 days-a-week service: they work 12 straight days before they have a weekend off. Also, overlapping shifts were initiated by the present postmaster with the approval of the House Administration Committee. "These and other dynamic ideas." a knowledgeable source stated to STAFF, "account for how the House Post Office has managed to do so much with so little." The mailroom is in operation from 2:30 a.m. until 10:00 p.m., 7 days a week with the exception of Christmas Day, New Year's Congressional Records, newspapers, committee notices, and Day, and Inaugural Day every fourth year. 1000 When asked why it was necessary to have 7 days-a-week If all kinds of mail are included, the approximate total pieces service, the postmaster replied "Because we don't have any dmail handled by the House Post Office comes to well over 84 on in any average month. "In a day and a half." House Prst master Robert Rota noted, "the Speaker alone received over 52.000 letters." Other interesting and noteworthy items include: The House Post Office mailroom employee sorts an average of 1,200 pieces of nail per hour as compared to his counterpart in the regular Postal Service who sorts an average of 800 pirces. place to store excess mail coming from the City Post Office." (Remember: in 1 day, over 285,000 constituent letters will be delivered to the House Post Office.) "We can't afford to get behind in the mail," Rota stated, "because then there is twice as much to handle the next day." On the other hand, many staff people have been irritated because a particular letter has taken 3 to 4 days to be delivered from one Member's office to another. Usually, the reason for the delay is that "inside mail" is placed in the "outside mail" House Post Office (continued) box in the Member's office. All such mail is immediately sent to the City Post Office. The letter then goes through the regular process in the City Post Office, eventually ending up in the House Post Office mailroom. A major problem for the House Post Office is staff mail which lacks a room number or Member's name. The amount is massive. It takes two employees just to process this type of mail daily. They must go to the computer printout listing the names of all current employees of the House and their locations. This information is noted on the letter and given to the primary sorter who then pitches it to the proper address. Asked whether the House Post Office has made any major "goofs," Postmaster Rota responded candidly, "Yes, we have." Then he paused and continued, "But only one of a kind!" Rota recently sent a questionnaire to all Members. As of this writing, there has been a 75 percent return, a surprisingly large response. The responses have not yet been tabulated. Among the questions asked are several designed to facilitate mail sent from the Washington office of the individual Repre sentative to his or her home district. This will be accomplished by maintaining a current listing of all the Zip Codes within the Congressional District for labeling purposes. Once the list is completed, mail will be sent directly to the zone (the last two digits on the Zip Code) rather than first going to the State and Sectional Center where it would be then sorted by zone. Stated Rota, "After I was first elected in 1972 as the House Postmaster, I conducted an in-depth study of how post offices throughout the United States operated. I took the best methods and tailored them to meet the needs of the House Post Office." One of the most noteworthy results of Rota's applied management is House Post Office employee morale, as demonstrated by quite low absenteeism: prior to his election and for a short time after, absenteeism averaged 22 people per day. It is now down to only 2 or 3. In noting these statistics, Rota emphasized that he was not critical of any of his predecessors, but rather credited the expanded authority he has received as an important factor in helping him implement the current improvements. How To Get Best Service From House Post Office 1. Check all outgoing mail -be sure to put inside mail in "INSIDE MAIL" box and outside mail in the "OUTSIDE MAIL" box. 2. Do address inside mail to another staff member in care of the Member or committee for whom he 'she works. 3. Don't plan on mail being picked 4. Do call House Postmaster's office 5. Do call the Post Office if you are experiencing problems with your mail service. |