Christmas Rush Now Beginning in Tauranga Post Office Departments

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 15161, 19 December 1949, Page 3

Christmas Rush Now Beginning in Tauranga Post Office Departments

TOLL CALLS EXPECTED TO REACH RECORD NUMBER THIS SUMMER

as the staff of the Tanranga Post extra flow of work which is e mail room, which bears the brunt ds, more sorting stands and large ,f the extra rush. The telephone

'With tho apronch of Ch'ristm Office 1 is, now encountering the inevitable with this season. In tin of the attack, there are extra hat piles of mail bags as evuleneee o exchange is, as always, very busy but, there is an indication that the number of toll calls each day will reach a record late in December or early in the New Tear. As yet it is too early for any proper indication from the telegraph department as to how much work there will be this year but the number of messages handled each day is steadily creeping up. Friday was the bunest day of the week, as far as the mail room was concerned. This could be attributed to the usual influx from the rural districts, and the fact that the farmers coming into town would be doing their Christmas shopping and postine presents on the same day. Another factor for consideration is the fact that the majority of the working people in Tauranga - itself are paid on Wednesday or Thursday and this would also aflect the sliop- • nine days. In any case there was a notable increase in the number of packets and parcels which passed 1 over the post office counter and joined the smaller ones which started their journey via the mail boxes. , . /There has been a steady mciease In the number of letters and cat els nosted on each day of the last SSk on .Tuesday 8000 went through the automatic date-stampei while a further 2000 vverc handstamped to give a total ot 10- 000 _ On Thursday the total had i isen to 13 000 and indications were that Friday would be even higher. To 'cope with this extra demand,

extra stands for sorting mails have been set up in the mail room, , and trestles to hold the postmen’s deliveries have been erected. A number of school boys, out to earn during their holidays, have been taken on as assistants. Similar measures have had to be taken in the Telegraph Department and the full strength of the delivery staff will stand at 10. The majority of these will be primary school boys. Early last week 741 messages were handled in the Tauranga office. Of these 254 were for delivery in Tauranga, 151 were for re-trans-rnission and the remaining 336 were for outward transmission. The exchange has its problems too. On Monday 603 toll the highest number reached so far this summer —were made from Tauranga. It is anticipated that the number will reach the 700 mark earlv in January. If it does it will constitute a record in Tauranga. The number of inward tolls made is estimated to be equal to the outward.

Two new switchboard positions have been installed in the exchange to cope with the increased demand. Satisfaction with the work being done by the boys who were acting as temporary assistants was expressed by the Postmaster, Mr A. Crawford. Mr Crawford also paid tribute to the manner in which the permanent staff accepted the extra work at Christmas and remarked on how the “Christmas feeling” pervaded the office.