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Watching the USPS sorting system is mesmerizing [video]

Posted by / January 1, 2016

Have you ever wondered how the USPS manages to deliver millions of letters and packages? Here’s an inside look into its massive, complex sorting system.

Full story at USPS TV.

More great tech.

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  • Thomas F.Myers

    This postal video is really great.I makes me want to say thank you to my mother,father,and my aunts and uncle and cousins who worked at the post office.It also makes me admire my fellow postal workers who do a great job day in and day out

  • sleepy1

    This was interesting,. need to show other people this so they can appreciate the system.

  • sgtcharlie

    What a great movie. More people need to see this. Thanks guysfor a job well done.

  • DC

    USPS ROCKS!

  • Gwill

    Great job by the postal service

  • Great video. But left out a lot. Like that machines sort 60-75% of letters/flats/packages and the clerks/city carriers/rural carriers sort and case(put in street order) manually the rest. There is still a lot of MANUAL sorting and handling.

  • David J Martin

    I wish I had made a video of my experience working at Postal headquarters in Wash, DC. Let’s just say it was slightly different than this.
    It was like a bad episode of Sanford and Son, and my experience was not unique.

  • Oscar

    They should make a real life video of a newbie on the street with the “supervisor” (who has never delivered mail) screaming at the newbie that they can be fired at any time …….. OR show the newbie casing the mail in the morning with the screaming supervisor standing behind them saying they aren’t fast enough and need to be on the street.

  • C Arthur

    No wonder the system is screwed up… This video shows all blacks…..they do not think like a normal person…you cannot expect a black to process things correctly…..most of the time…thank god the union is so strong – they would be fired if they had a real job.

  • Way cool….i have worked there for many years and never have seen the inside workings of the automation.
    Now i know how it is done. Our ‘Flats’ are not sorted we do it ourselves so this video is only for a select few cities.
    They are Slow to implement it….

  • Damian666

    USPS tracking is the worst. When you try to track your package, it is often inaccurate.

  • Dan Gerona

    Good marketing for USPS. The post office is a horrible place where to work. They treat their employees like these machines, like manually sorting non-machineable mails as fast as these machines. All you get after years of working there is backaches and shoulder pains. Management style is dictatorial and there is no meaningful human relationships in the workplace.

  • Danilo Gerona

    The most horrible workplace. Management style is dictatorial and they treat their employees like machines. There are a lot you don’t see and not shown in the video. There are a lot of mails that cannot be sorted by machines and should be manually sorted and supervisors want carriers and clerks to sort as fast as these machines. There are some carriers who deliver mails up to midnight!
    There is no meaningful human relationships among employees because everybody should move like robots.

  • They says USPS loss billion of dollars each year? maybe they should jack up the price for mailing? They still the cheapest way to mail your stuffs.

  • Despi A Kounas

    the video was awesome, and boggles the mind as to how the uSps is able to sort and get letters, flats and packages to the right place. I trust the uSPS to get me mail to where it has to go, to pay my bills.i don’t trust the internet,as too many companies have been hacked into.
    Bravo USPS!!!!!

  • I.R.Profitable

    Yes please raise the rates for mail the post office must process not my organized trayed, tagged, and already prepared bulk mail.

  • very informative and uplifting. but also left out some things. as with all jobs there are good things and not so good. key is to stay positive and focused. being a carrier can be a great job. one thing I don’t like is how I see management treat their employees. Without getting into”bashing the boss”, I’d say continue to persevere. Stand up and be proud of doing a good job and be confident having done so.The rewards will come.

  • Terrie Munsey

    Amazing isn’t it? I know I am at the very end of the line “I AM A USPS LETTER CARRIER”. I love my job and work my A.. off every day at work. So please remember what your mail goes through before you get it. It very rarely is the Letter Carriers fault if something is wrong. Since we are at the end of the line we want to give you, our customers, the best service possible. For the most part I think we do, but sometimes……. things go wrong and items are broke or miss-delivered. Please remember we are human too. We (letter carriers) are under a lot of pressure from management to go faster and faster,and do more and more everyday. Things have changed a lot since I started in 1991 and service has become 2nd to speed. So, I all am saying is, “If you have a problem try talking to your carrier first if you can. Most of us want to serve our customers and do a great job”. Sometimes this is hard when we are under pressure from management to hurry up and be back by 5pm. Sorry, I am rambling. Being a Letter Carrier is a hard and rewarding job thanks only to YOU our customers.

  • David Adeyemi

    The United States Postal Service is the best Postal Service in the world. This video reminds me of the processing equipments in Brooklyn, New York. The only difference being that the mail is processed by Robots and it was very fascinating. All jokes apart, we all should be proud to be an employee of this great organization. Though, Management can be silly sometimes by micro-managing the workroom floor.

  • bil paul

    It’s good that the automated machinery sorts more and more of the letter mail. That means that the letter carriers can spend more time out of the post office delivering. When I was a letter carrier back in the 1970s it seemed like we spent half our time sorting mail. And if you’re a beginning letter carrier you can get shifted from route to route frequently — and figuring out the sorting for new routes was frustrating. I think we got more Christmas cards this year than last, so maybe sending physical mail is coming back into fashion.

  • C barnett

    Gotta love negative people. They make you appreciate all you have and how fortunate you are.

  • B Skinner

    Very good video for the public but does lack some of the process. As mentioned above a certain percentage of the mail is done manually . Due to the size of a piece or the automated equipment simply can’t read the address .
    Also this office is definitely in a very large city , I work at a small GMF and we’re not nearly as automated .
    On our APBS we key roughly 25% of the parcels due to no barcode or extremely small print the camera’s can’t see .
    I’ve been there 30 years and have seen the whole automation process develope . From LSM’s to the now DBCS’s and can say the USPS does a great job in getting the mail out .
    Thanks to our senior people who really care .
    I’m just afraid that between the newer people ( not all but most ) who could care less and don’t have a good work ethic and supervision mostly in the upper tier who only care about their bonus , the system as a whole in the near future is bleak .
    The USPS is a great organization but needs to get back to appreciating its employees and not treating them like their machines.

  • TempestGB

    This is amazing. My father has worked at the Post Office in Detroit for over 30 years and I always wondered how things worked. My Dad has turned down many manager and supervisor positions and that shows how great and how hard-working he is. Thanks for this video.

  • Manjit

    Proud to be a postal worker.

  • Brings back memories, worked 25 years at USPS, best job in the world, a lot of knowledge gained !!

  • Proud Postal Worker! I am a manager, and not all are the same. I appreciate the hard work my employees do a daily basis!! This is a great video, but there is so much more work done by all employees that it does not cover. Also I have worked in every craft…PMR, RURAL, CLERK, CITY CARRIER, 204B, SUPERVISOR AND NOW POSTMASTER! So as a manager I do know what it is like to be a carrier, to get chewed on from both sides, to deliver mail in rain, to hurry! I still love my job. Thank God daily that I have one!!

  • You should make a video of when grandma sends that unsealed birthday card where the contents fly out while traveling through the machine and the empty envelope with the unsealed flap flapping away and getting jammed causing the mortgage payment in the envelope immediately following grandmas chaos to be shredded beyond recognition.