Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 4, 1991 TAG: 9104040267
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER/ NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The Pulaski postmaster admits that he seldom writes personal letters in this age of instant long-distant telephone access. Probably 85 percent of what the Post Office delivers today is business mail, he said.
But he still finds himself hanging on to certain letters he has received over time, rereading them on occasion and considering passing them on to his family someday. "As the years go by, they become more and more precious to me," he said.
And he points out how many military people who served in Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf have talked about letters from home.
"Apparently that's meant a lot to those kids over there," he said. "Sometimes we don't realize how much personal letters mean to people."
Bailey, 53, has been postmaster here for two years. The Pulaski building, opened in 1917, is one of the region's older post offices - as evidenced by the height of its lobby's ceiling and the ornate look of some of its clerk windows - although there have been several additions to it over the years.
Until 1982, it was a regional center for sorting mail. Now all its mail is sorted in Roanoke except for that dropped in its local delivery slot. It has 26 employees.
Bailey lives in Christiansburg and has commuted to Post Office work in Blacksburg, Radford and Dublin, where he was postmaster for 10 years before coming here.
Pulaski is one of eight Post Offices in Pulaski County. The others are at Dublin, Belsprings, Parrott, Draper, Hiwassee, New River and Newbern.
The main difference between those facilities and Pulaski is that they have all rural carriers. Pulaski has five rural carriers, such as Clara Quesinberry who delivers to 632 mailboxes on a 57-mile route, and six city routes. A city carrier generally works an 8-hour day using government vehicles. Rural carriers drive their own and their pay is based on periodic evaluations of such criteria as how many customers they serve, how far they drive and how much mail they deliver.
Bailey got interested in a postal career when he saw the fringe benefits a friend got from the Postal Service, such as job stability and five weeks of annual vacation. "I had one at the time," he said.
As mail volume increases, he expects to see continued mechanization of the sorting process. "That's one thing I've seen a lot of changes in over the last 30 years."
But optical scanners do have some drawbacks. "Our scanners can't read all types of handwriting," he said, but new ones coming on line will be able to read more.
Most business mail has the address typed, anyway, he noted. A lot of business mail also uses the nine-digit ZIP Codes that help speed delivery.
Is the non-business letter writer likely to have to start using nine digits routinely instead of the current five-digit ZIP? Bailey thinks not. "I don't think we can impose that on our customers," he said, although someday there may be incentives in the form of reduced postage.
The first five digits of a ZIP Code pinpoint towns or parts of larger communities; the last four can narrow the delivery down to a particular street. For Post Office box renters, it narrows the address down to the specific box.
A nine-digit ZIP actually provides enough information by itself for mail to be delivered to the proper postal box, Bailey said.
by CNB