GOING AT TOP SPEED

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 77, 23 December 1937, Page 6

GOING AT TOP SPEED

Jfusy Period for P. and T. Department RECORD BUSINESS Christmas means additional work for the Post and Telegraph Department, «nd in the hot weather of this week tho staff at the Hastings Post Office is reaiising to the full just how hard that work is. Nearly every department '•s going at top speed, with the brunt of the seasonal rush falling upon the mail room, counter, and telegraph staff, m ail of whieh departments there are •ither additional staffs or longer hours being worked tD cope with business. Practieally the only indication that the general public sees of the highpressure work at the Post Office is on the counter. There, in the telegrams, toUs, packets, and stamps five picked men are at work instead of the usual two. While queues have not been •xperienced at Hastings in this depart. jnent, the five counter men are on the jnove all the time attending to the jrants of a continual etream of clients. Tn the money-order branch, there i3 mo extra staff, but there are moments duirng the day when the number of those wanting to transact savings bank "business, to buy money orders or postal xotes, or to draw pensions, piles up so that the men are kept f everishly on the move. The big rush on the moneyorder counter came on Tuesday, when pensions were paid. TJsually pensiondrawing draws out over a week or even * fortnight, but this week everyone wanted his or her pension for Christmas, and pensions were paid out to more than 1000 people in a day. .Behind the officials engaged in weighing packets stands a big trolley into wMch the packets are tossed when weighed and stamped. . At the rate of progress in the last two days, the troll*y becomes filled about every quarter hour. In the mail foom, the staff is augment'4df but the rush continues all day, with certain periods just prior to the closing of the mail when all hands are performirig their various duties at top speed. The clatter of the automatic frankiug machine sounds almost continuously, so great is the number of letters and postal packets going out.

All mails are franked at the sort-; ing table and they are then placed in the various bags by an expert who tosses them into the bags with seeming *ase but which in xeality is the result of long hours spent at tho sorting table. The bags are not placed widely apart but are, in fact, all very close together. They are all hung over one iteel frame. The co-ordination of the oye and the hand of the sorter make It unnecessary for him to concentrate oa the name-plates above each bag and h* lands the goods in their correct.bags •very time. Pragile goods are, of couTse, not s*bjected to this treatment but are hhndled with extreme care and placed in baskets heavily stamped with the nar ture of goods, "Pragile." In a room upstairs there aTe two men •eated side by side, one of them running nimble fingers over a typewriter keyboard which punches little holes in a ribbon of tape, the other cutting into lengths the endless chain of words which ticks from another machine onto his table. They are the operators of the telegraph branch, transmitting and leeelving respectively on the Creed teleprinter. These men are the usual ■taff employed at the Post Office, the only change in this branch being the employment of additional messengers, but whereas on an ordinary day theV handle about 200 telegrams, to-day that number will be nearer 800. The postmen's branch is now employIng 16 postmen and helpers, as against the nine usually employed. Bulky mails mre dealt with by a troubleman in a van, who is engaged leaving mails a1;.| various pre-arranged points on the postal run so that the men may make one trip instead of having to return to the office at intervals because the bulk of mail is too much for them. Parceis are also delivered by van. It appears certain, from the indications of greatly increased business at the Post Office that previous records for mail handling, savings-bank transactions, telegraph business, and moneyorder business, that Christmas 1937 will ■et a new record high mark for poc\ and telegraph business.