Oakland USPS processing facility says it's ready for holiday season rush

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- For postal workers around the country, the busiest time of year has arrived.

At the United States Postal Service's Oakland processing facility, more than 1,000 employees are working everyday this month to deliver a little holiday magic.

"We're anticipating all the way up to seven million parcels just for this holiday season," said Abdul Mohaiman.

Mohaiman is the facility's manager of processing support.

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He says to prepare for the holidays, the facility has added several new processing and sorting machines.

Over the next couple of weeks, they'll help keep mail flowing to thousands of households around the East and North bays.

"In January, we start preparing. We start bringing the machines. We start developing our plans to deliver a good product for our customers," Mohaiman said.

With so much going on at these mail processing facilities, USPS has some tips to make sure your packages get delivered on time. Because you never know what kind of precious cargo may be inside.

Mohaiman says if you want your holiday packages to be received on time, the most important thing is to get them out early.

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The closer we get to Christmas, the more likely they could be delayed.

"When it's fragile items, make sure you're using reinforced boxes. When it's letters, make sure we refrain from using the glittery ink because the machines have an issue picking up some of those zip codes. And also using the correct zip codes," Mohaiman said.

And while this time of year is stressful for many USPS employees, they say it's worth it.

Helping to connect people with their loved ones.

"What we do is we bind families from coast to coast. We are not just employees of the postal service, we are also users of the postal service. We receive those gift cards, those packages, and we send them off to our loved ones," said Kristina Uppal.

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