Punching the Clock: Special delivery

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Although the United States Postal service has never actually had an official motto, I doubt any other would be more appropriate.

I spent my afternoon Wednesday working at the Norwich Post Office.

“We have been and continue to be the most publicly trusted government agency,” said Norwich Post Master Sharon Harris.

Sharon explained that in a number of government surveys to the public, people consistently said they held more faith in the Postal Service than any other service agency.

The Norwich Post Office is the largest in the area, delivering, on average, 35,000 pieces of mail daily to 7,700 different locations.

The breadth of its domain expands from halfway between North Norwich and Sherburne to the Halfway House towards Oxford and up to County Rt. 8 over Polkville Hill.

“The safety of our employees and the security of the mail are our two highest priorities,” said Sharon. She went on to explain that the protection of private information, such as banking numbers, social security numbers and tax information was even more important today because of an increasing identity theft problem. “We deliver the mail and equally as important we protect people’s confidential information,” Harris said.

I began my morning traveling the regularly-beaten mail carrier path with Chad Robinson. Chad has been a mail carrier for four and a half years, often acting as a temporary fill in for the local area. “I’ve worked in Oneonta, Syracuse, and a lot of other places,” said Robinson.

Before leaving on our morning rounds Chad gave me the trademark carrier mail bag (which I was told doubles as a canine protection device) and a can of dog mace. The mace is supposed to keep aggressive dogs from attacking mail carriers and the spray is colored bright orange to mark the dog so authorities can later locate it.