OR - Postal clerks don't let glitch ruin customers' Christmas

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December 12, 2000

OR - Postal clerks don't let glitch ruin customers' Christmas

The computer Grinch picked the second-busiest mailing day of the year to play his tricks on a half-dozen post offices in Eugene. A middle-of-the-night computer update went haywire somehow, said Bill Lehmann, who manages customer relations for the Eugene and Salem operations.

That meant computer terminals at the customer service windows - which normally calculate mailing rates to points all over the country and then print out postage labels - went kaput several times for 15 to 20 minutes at a time Monday morning.

So clerks had to dust off scales and weigh the packages by hand. They had to pull out giant manuals, look up ZIP codes and calculate the postage rates.

"We were even putting stamps on packages," Lehmann said. "We had to lick them and stick them, so you can see it slows us down."

The system was back in full operation by noon, Lehmann said, so holiday gift senders didn't have to stand with their brown paper packages for too long.

Lehmann said he has faith that the post office computers will be ready for next Monday - traditionally the biggest mailing day of the year.

And if not, the clerks will rise to the challenge, Lehmann said, with rain, sleet, dark-of-night bravado.

"I know one thing: The mail will go through, be it computer or manual."

http://www.registerguard.com/news/20001212/3b.cr.postaldelay.1212.html

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), December 13, 2000


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