It may not be Santa’s workshop, but it’s a pretty close approximation.
On afternoons like Wednesday — at least afternoons in the midst of the holiday season — the U.S. Postal Service’s Processing and Distribution Center in the City of Industry is filled with people working in synchronization to ensure gifts get into the right hands on time.
Only instead of elves cobbling them together, it’s postal workers sorting packages and prepping them to head across country and oceans.
While the Postal Service isn’t seeing as many letters these days — thank you email and social media — it is delivering more parcels than ever, especially during this holiday season.
In Industry, a facility that handles packages from postal codes starting in 906 (Cypress, Buena Park and Stanton), 917 (from Rancho Cucamonga to Ontario to El Monte to Monterey Park) and 918 (Alhambra), the normal workforce of 700-plus people is buoyed by some 220 temporary workers hired just for the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, executive plant manager Eileen Veach said.
Veach’s days sometimes last from 4 p.m. ’til 4 a.m., and she’s not the only one putting in hours like those.
“I tell my family I won’t be doing laundry, making dinner or cleaning the house during this season,” she said.
Just how busy is it? During other times of the year, the Industry facility sees about 350,000 packages come through a day, Veach said. This holiday season, that average bumps up to about 510,000, and it’s expected to increase even more as Christmas draws closer, she said.
That’s a whopping 31 percent increase in packages from last year, Veach said.
While that might sound daunting, the Industry plant employees rise to the occasion, said Juan Martinez, lead operations support specialist.
“The employees know the importance of the holiday, and they know people count on us,” Martinez said.
The extra packages also means job security, Martinez said wryly.
In 2014, the Industry plant — then primarily focused on letters — was set to be decommissioned, but when demand for packages suddenly increased in 2015 with a rise in online shopping, the plant shifted its focus entirely on packages, Martinez said.
Most letters are now routed through Santa Ana, he added.
While Martinez doesn’t view himself as a surrogate Santa Claus, he said the Postal Service offers a way for locals to help Santa get gifts in the hands of children who write letters to Santa.
Operation Santa allows locals to help anonymously answer letters to Santa sent to the Postal Service and fulfill the “wish” therein. The Postal Service’s Los Angeles district office, 7001 S. Central Ave., will be open for letter “adoption” 9 a.m. to noon Thursday and Friday, and the Santa Ana district office, 3011 W. Sunflower Ave., will offer it 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday.
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