San Jose US postal worker gets Christmas packages to their destination
Bay Area post offices were packed with people trying to beat holiday shipping deadlines on Wednesday. The increased number of packages being mailed increases the workload for local postal employees.
Nahima Aguiniga works as a USPS letter carrier six days a week in San Jose. She has been working for the postal service for the past seven years.
"My route has 513 residentials," Aguiniga told CBS News Bay Area. "I walk about 14 miles on average, just on my route alone."
She said while walking so much every day can be physically taxing, she knows she is serving a purpose.
"It's part of the job like any other job. You know, it gets tiring after a while, but you do it because at the end of the day, you get some satisfaction out if it," she said.
A spokesperson with the USPS said that Aguiniga has been averaging at least 1,000 package deliveries every week. Additionally, just last week and this week alone, the Berryessa postal office in San Jose has processed 30,000 packages.
"I'm the last stop of where Christmas presents go. So I have to make sure that I deliver them. Because, like it or not, there's that Christmas present...and I have to be the one delivering it," Aguiniga said.
Before she joined the postal service, Aguiniga was doing something completely different. She was working in the cafeteria at Intel.
"I worked there for about five years. Before I decided to go and take the risk of joining the postal service. It was the best decision I made," she said.
Residents said Aguiniga has always been caring to everyone, and now call her a lifelong friend.
"When she didn't see my dad for a long time because he was sick, she asked and was worried about him. Because that's what it is, she knows us and she cares about us," San Jose resident Mercedes Tan told CBS News Bay Area.
"It's nice to hear that what you do matters to certain people you know and the impact that you cause," Aguiniga said. "They know about my son being in the military, and my daughter and stuff like that. So they know when I'm not here. They know when I'm here."
For Aguiniga, it's so much more than just delivering mail.
"Sometimes you think that you know, you're just walking down the streets and people don't notice you? But obviously they do," she said.
She added that she is grateful that she is cared for by the friends she's made along the way in the San Jose neighborhood.