Hannah Joy

Carson Post Office is adding two more lock boxes, replacing the sorting table and trash cans. Some local citizens are upset over the removal of the trash cans but staff at the local USPS explain how the privilege was being abused.

The trash can provided in the small office was for citizens to throw away their junk mail and other mail related items, however workers repeatedly found it full of household garbage. People come to the post office and clean out their car, dumping everything from dirty diapers to rotting food into the provided can and fill up the dumpster leaving no room for the post office’s own waste needs.

With the holiday season bringing in up to five pallets a day of gifts and mail, the understaffed post office workers had to come up with solutions to help ease their up to 76 hours work week. These employees work these long hours sometimes without a lunch break. The rural post office has been very short staffed and has never recovered or adjusted to the increase in mail that began during the covid shutdowns. To many it appears that the postal service is just a monopoly that, like many government programs, lacks innovation and fiscally responsible management. Further, because of union agreements, when an employee comes in on overtime even for 10 minutes they are required to be paid for four hours at overtime pay.

In the past yellow cards would be left in your box to indicate that you have a larger package that needs to be picked up. However during the holiday season, because packages require three separate scans and are being picked up so quickly, workers are no longer putting them in the post office boxes. Instead, they are asking customers to check at the front desk when they come in.

The additional two lock boxes should help ease the burden on these post office elves.

UPS has three drivers out during this holiday season and many don’t realize that the Carson Post Office is not connected with UPS deliveries. There have been many instances in which the UPS drivers drop off packages at the bay in the back of the post office without even notifying the workers inside.

According to the Skamania County Sheriff Reports during the first week of December, a customer came in and threatened a worker after not receiving his package. “After attempting to speak with the customer, the subject motioned like he was going to strike the employee and then said he was going to kill him.”

When asked about the incident the worker confirmed that he tried to give the man instructions on how to properly write his address for delivery to the post office. The man claims that the package was not delivered to his home and was sitting at the post office. The post office employee tried to explain that they do not have any control over UPS packages.

The irate man accused him of stealing the package and yelled “Give me the (expletive) package, I know you have it” and proceeded to punch the counter and allegedly pulled his arm back to assault the worker. No injuries were reported.

It’s not all bad news on the post office front. The employees want to thank the community members that have showered them with cookies and gifts as well as appreciation for all of their hard work.

To help ease the confusion of how to write your address for senders who will not accept a P.O. Box for an address, the post office has the following advice: Write your address like the example below, making sure that you only put your post office box number (example uses P.O. Box #123) behind your name and behind your home address.