The last week of November we went on a tour of our
local post office. We invited the Bennetts and the kids they were watching, all total with us there were eight kids (6 and under) and two adults.
Post Master Tom was super nice and patient with our group. He started off by showing the kids models of the mail truck and mail boxes. He then showed us a slide show of things they do and struggle with to get our mail to us. Some examples were weather, other drivers, wildlife and dogs. We learned that dogs are prone to bite mailmen so they have to take precautions to avoid getting bitten. It was really informative!
This is a map of the area that our Cheney mail carriers cover. There are five who cover the main town and seven who cover the rural areas. (If you click and enlarge the picture you can see the routes Cheney covers are colored)
This area is where they sort our mail. Each person is responsible for sorting their own mail on their route. They start around 7 am at the office sorting and getting ready to go out. We were also told that sometimes they have partnerships with other companies and do a "last mile" drop off for them. So the companies contract the post office to get the packages out to the recipient instead of going door to door themselves.
Other things we learned:
-The current location they're at is the third place the office has been located at here in Cheney. This building was built specifically for them in the 1960s.
- The mail carriers know their "families" well enough that if someone can't read the address they can say "First name starts with J and located on 8th st." and people know who that person is!! That's a lot of names to learn!!
We had a great time! Tom even gave the kids rulers, pencils and a candy cane as we left. The kids enjoyed it even if they can't fully appreciate everything. When William did his journal report about the trip he wrote that one thing he learn was that mailmen don't like dogs cause they bite them!!
