Postal Workers: Topeka, Kansas Post Office Building, 1980

[Music] most of the letters we mail begin their journey here at the corner mailbox several times a day mail is picked up by postal workers called city carriers their job is to bring the mail back to the post office [Music] be happy but some people bring their mail directly to the post office this woman is a Wendell Clerk she does many jobs for the customers she helps the mail packages and letters by weighing them and putting the proper postage on them thank you next week so the window clerk also sells postage stamps and many times helps customers with special problems that they may have during the informational special delivery yes we have a confidante hostess aerosol products and one of them is about special delivery you can have the whole thing has other information mail comes in all shapes and sizes and before it can be stamped it has to be sorted these men are postal clerks they separate those pieces of mail that are either too big or too small after the mail is sorted it has to be spent or cancelled this job is done by a postal clerk operating a machine when the letters of all them stand they are put in trays and sent to workers called distribution clerks they run an LS m and that stands for letter sorting machine this machine helps them to separate letters according to their zip codes zip codes are the numbers that we put on each letter to help the postal workers to deliver the mail faster the first number of the zip code is for a very large area of the United States the second and third numbers are for smaller areas and the last two numbers tell what town or zone within a city that the letter is going to do you know what your zip code is [Music] as each letter passes by the distribution clerks read the zip code and press the zip code number buttons on the machine the machine then moves the letter to a special slot where there are many other letters that have the same numbers or zip code there are many letters that have to be sorted and the distribution clerks have to work very fast do you think this job takes a lot of training would you like to run a letter sorting machine someday this man is a postal supervisor he doesn't handle the mail like the other workers do but his job is very important he has to make sure that all the other workers are doing their jobs he also must check the machines to see that they are all running properly he depends on his workers to help him move the mail and they rely on him if there are any problems if a machine breaks down it is up to him to find someone to fix it taking that LSM number one I'm a maintenance technician I don't handle the mail but my job is very important to those who do when a machine breaks down they depend on me to fix it as fast as I can because if one of these machines stops working then the mail stops moving that means that these workers won't have anything to do like all the other workers here I did a job that I've been specially trained for I may not be very good at sorting mail or running a letter sorting machine but they probably wouldn't be able to fix these machines as well as I can Perry the mechanic doesn't handle the mail either but that doesn't mean that his job isn't important these trucks and jeeps have to travel a lot of miles every day and it's my job to make sure they're in good running condition it's important that I come to work every day the drivers and mail carriers depend on me to always be on the job I kind of like the feeling of knowing that others rely on me to do my job many of these trucks will take the mail to nearby distribution centers but when letters have to travel longer distances they are sent by airplane these commercial planes carry people and mail the postal workers depend on the airplanes to help them deliver the mail and this pilot depends on these workers to be on time if they were to arrive late the plane would have to leave without the mail when mail from a plane or truck arrives it goes to a large distribution center where it is again sorted and run through machines the mail must move along many conveyors before it leaves the post-office and it is the job of this woman to see that all the equipment is working properly with the help of television monitors she can watch the mail as it moves through the building hey I got very little mail and some of its on that Charlie 9 by pushing the knobs on the control board she can start up the equipment or shut down a machine if necessary while you sleep these people work all night to get the mail ready for the morning delivery after the mail is sorted and bundled it goes to your post office that's where your mail will carry your works I come through the post office pretty early in the morning because I have a lot of work to do before I deliver the mail first I have to arrange the mail in proper order that takes a lot of time then I separate the letters of people that have moved or letters that have the wrong addresses on them there are a lot of other carriers like me at the post office most of us deliver the regular mail but others do special jobs Jack over there delivers Parcel Post that's what we call packages and other pieces of mail that are too big or too heavy for me to deliver John here does the job called special delivery he makes special trips to houses and businesses in your town that need mail in a hurry and Vicki is one of our rural carriers she delivers mail to people that live many miles apart like people on farms how is the mail delivered to where you live each day mail carriers cover over four million miles that's the same distance as going around the world 160 times and mail carriers deliver just about anything that you can think of yes and we even deliver chickens [Laughter] [Music]