Neither snow, nor rain . . . OK, snow can be pretty bad, postal worker says

By Tonnie Dixon

February 29, 2008 | Shoveling the sidewalk when it snows makes one government worker's job a whole lot smoother.

"No one shovels their sidewalks, on my route at least. Some of them are really good but you know when you're tromping up and down stairs that have 8 inches of snow on them, it makes things harder," said Shara Swan, who has worked full time for the U.S. Postal Service for eight years. Four of the most recent years, Swan has been a letter carrier.

New snow brings a new routine for Swan who wakes up around 5:30 a.m. to shovel the freshly fallen snow off her car and driveway to be able to get to work.

Swan begins her route around 8:30 a.m. and averages about six and a half hours outside or in a letter carrier car delivering mail almost every day of the week excluding Sunday, of course. Her regular delivery route consists of the block across the street from the Logan LDS Temple and looks and feels like a hill right out of San Francisco.

"It's really steep," Swan said, "and our trucks are a little different than most people would think."

They are a bit "squirmy," Swan says, on the slick, snowy roads because they are rear-wheel-drive and they have the anti-lock brakes on the front.

"Figure that one out," she said. "The front end will stop and the back end wants to keep going, so even though you stop it kind of pushes you farther."

Although Swan drives a letter carrier car, which is really a 1988 Jeep Cherokee, she spends most her day walking from mailbox to mailbox delivering residential mail to houses.

"I don't do any driving," Swan said "So I walk the whole way."

Swan parks her Jeep and does what the Postal Service calls "relays" in which she carries a block's worth of mail and makes her rounds delivering around the block.

When Logan was small, the Postal Service offered to deliver mail right to the doorstep. Now, however, it is trying to steer away from that service because of the growing population and time it wastes.

Wearing snow footwear that looks like thick-soled moon boots, Swan explained the other type of boots she wears on slippery days, "yaktrax," which have the same design as cleats. On days after it has rained the sidewalks can turn into ice, so she wears the yaktrax for more traction.

She compares her adventures in the yaktrax to snow sports.

"It's kind of like ice skating, skiing and snowshoeing all in one!" Swan said. "Kind of a fun workout!"

Swan described being outside all day in the winter weather as a "biting, numbing" feeling.

"Your fingers will stop working and your brain kind of stops working," Swan said. "It gets so cold that it numbs your mind and it numbs your body."

Talking herself through it is one way Swan said she copes with the frigid temperatures.

"All you do is say, ‘OK, just one more step. I'll just pick up my foot one more time one more time until you can get through your day.'"

Baths that are warmer than a hot tub and filled to capacity is one way Swan copes with the frigid winter weather on days she doesn't consider very fun.

"I sit in the hot water with only my nose poking out," Swan said.

Unlike a child flying a kite, wind is Swan's worst enemy.

"It makes your sinuses hurt and your eyes, and your tears almost freeze in your eyes so you spend the whole day blinking with aching eyes," Swan said.

Doing everything she can just to warm up is Swan's goal most every day in the winter.

"Sometimes you have to go [indoors] and just warm up so you'll take your lunch [break] and go somewhere just to defrost for a little while," Swan said.

Wearing double-layered thermals under snow pants and a heavy duty coat, Swan says it takes everything to keep her legs warm.

"We call it 'butt freezing cold' at my house," Swan said. "My feet stay warm because they're moving and my top stays warm because I can extra bundle it, and my fingers, if I can keep them moving and keep gloves on them, do OK but my legs from the thigh down to my [knee-high] boots get cold."

Swan said the reason she enjoys her job is being outdoors, despite the weather.

"I'm an outside person and so there's not anything I would rather do," Swan said.

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