Bismarck “Snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” EVEN 12:40am?

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"  Postal carriers have had that saying attached to their job for quite a while

I know, just another simple expression we have heard a trillion times, and if you are like most of us you haven't given it much thought. Yesterday I saw a post on a social media group page, on Facebook. This woman had written in saying that she saw her postal carrier in the neighborhood where she lives, delivering mail as LATE or as EARLY  as 12:40 AM. That just blew me away. I thought about it for most of the day, you would think there would be some kind of mandatory time of night that they would have to finish. I don't even have a clue what time ( carriers ) actually start out their shifts. As you can imagine, there were many awesome replies of respect written by others to this initial post. So today my curiosity came to a peak, and I picked up the phone and called Mandan Post Office.

"I have a simple question, can a postal carrier actually be out and about delivering mail at 12:40 in the morning?"

The pleasant woman that answered the phone had a quick reply back - "After 12 hours on the job it's up to the individual carrier if he or she wants to continue..."  My first thought was, how many do you know that would have the commitment and drive to finish their route completely, after 12 hours, and so early in the morning? Pretty hard to comprehend, isn't it? Getting back to what I said earlier about taking things for granted, on a daily basis, from week-week, weather seasons change, I say respect is absolutely called for when thanking our postal carriers in Bismarck and Mandan who do an amazing job getting to mail to us - through 40-50 mph winds, snow storms, rain, the summer heat, and even at 12:40 in the morning.