After a prolonged period of not having enough staff, the Vashon Post Office has hired and trained new window clerks, and post office officials say they are prepared for this busy season.

“We have a full complement (of retail clerks), and we expect to meet the holiday rush accordingly,” said Ernie Swanson, a spokesman for the United States Postal Service.

In recent months, post office patrons have frequently encountered long lines — and long waits — to pick up and receive mail at the window and complete other transactions.

Swanson said lack of staffing occurred because Vashon has been without a career postmaster for several months, and those serving in the interim position on a rotating basis did not make hiring staff a priority.

“Apparently it did not get the attention it should have,” he said.

The process to hire a postmaster for Vashon is underway, he added, but could not say how much longer it would be before someone is hired and in place.

Looking to the holidays, Swanson said that while there will no doubt be a rush to mail packages in the coming weeks, additional clerks are in place to deal with the demand.

“We will have the three windows staffed full time,” he said.

This is a marked increase over recent months, as Vashon had been down to three clerks to staff both the Burton and main branches, he said.

In addition to new staff members on board, new lockers have arrived at the main Vashon post office and are waiting to be installed, Swanson said. Once the lockers are in place, patrons with post office boxes will once again be given keys to pick up parcels in the lockers instead of waiting in the line to retrieve larger items. He did not indicate when the lockers will be installed.

Swanson noted that the postal service aims to have customers wait only a short time for assistance.

“Our target is to have you wait no longer than three minutes,” he said.

Post Office employees are not allowed to talk to the press, and last week staff at the Vashon Post Office politely declined to do so. However, a former substitute rural carrier, who asked not to be named, spoke about some of the systemic problems she encountered in her three years working there. She resigned her position earlier this year.

She agreed that the lack of permanent postmaster contributed to the staffing issues, as employees left without being replaced. And adding new staff is a cumbersome process, she said, with testing, off-island training and a background check required; for her, the hiring and training process stretched to four months.

Over time, there were fewer and fewer clerks to help the carriers sort the mail as well as wait on customers. As staff dwindled, drivers were also affected, she said. Vashon has seven routes, and if a driver quit or took time off, others needed to fill in. At its worst, she said, substitute drivers were asked not to complete just their own routes, typically a 10-hour process, but then they would have to split other routes that had not been completed.

“I was working 10 hours a day and sometimes as much as 12, six days a week,” she said. “It was ridiculous.”

The holiday season, with its many catalogs and packages, is particularly stressful, and requires longer and harder hours from all post office employees.

Most customers are kind, she said, but a small percent are not.

“It doesn’t help,” she said. “For the most part, employees are working really hard and doing the best they can for the customer,” she said.

Holiday shipping dates

To ensure that holiday mail and packages are delivered in time for Christmas, the postal service recommends customers follow these deadlines for domestic shipping: Dec. 19 for First-Class Mail, Dec. 21 for Priority Mail and Dec. 23 for Priority Mail Express.