MailmanDave
17 Years Experience
Long Island, NY
Male, 43
I am a City Letter Carrier for the US Postal Service in NY. I've been a city letter carrier for over 17 years and it is the best job I've ever had. I mostly work 5 days per week (sometimes includes a Saturday) and often have the opportunity for overtime, which is usually voluntary. The route I deliver has about 350 homes and I walk to each of their doors to deliver the mail. Please keep in mind that I don't have authority to speak for the USPS, so all opinions are solely mine, not my employer.
I believe it would be okay to write in a mailbox the number of the address in case it wasn't clear. They shouldn't be writing much else either on or or in the mailbox. This is my opinion and don't know the rules about this. As a letter carrier, my main frustration in delivering mail on a route I'm not familiar with is a missing house number. I have written numbers inside the lid of a mailbox in the past, but it was with a pen and hard to discern on dark metal. I don't think the name of the occupant should be written on the box by the letter carrier.
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I don't know what is technically the protocol for a carrier reminding themselves that a house is on hold. You make a good point. Most of our carriers have hold notes or cards they sequence in with the mail nearby so when they arrive at the house on hold, they would know to skip it. The note or card is then brought back to the PO for use the next day. I just memorize it from when I prepare the mail in the PO in the AM, but I would usually have no more than 10-15 houses at once who are on hold and their mail usually is left behind at the PO so there would be nothing to deliver even if I forgot the house was on hold.
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I don't think the mailman should have left you a notice saying that unless you are blocking someone's mailbox down the street. Even if you were blocking another mailbox down the street, I don't believe he has any authority to suspend delivery to your house because of it. We can leave notes in a mailbox though there are some official notes we can leave like "your mailbox needs attention." I don't know if you want to approach your letter carrier directly and explain that your car has nothing to do with blocking your mailbox (which you said isn't blocked, period). If mail delivery doesn't resume I would suggest contacting your delivery post office and speaking with a delivery supervisor about this. From what you've described, this sounds like an irrational situation.
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Kathy, usually they aren't in trouble when being followed. It's a fairly normal procedure done 1x a year. As far as giving him a good review, you could write a letter to the Postmaster at your local Post Office where Ken works or possibly the website www.usps.com has a "contact us" option. To be honest I don't know what would happen with such a letter, but I hope that Ken would at least hear about it and get a copy. If you don't see Ken being followed in the future you can rest assured he probably wasn't in trouble. I realize that you often aren't home when he makes the mail delivery.
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Jason, I'm no expert on the rules and regulations with reference to our union contract (NALC/USPS National Agreement), but I can give you my take on it and anecdotal experience. I feel that if the supervisor hasn't scheduled you before you left work on your previous work day to work your day off you have zero obligation to answer the phone or to come to work. I would probably recommend not even responding if you feel that there will be a conflict if you refuse to go to work. It makes perfect sense that you already had other plans, you are away for the day, had a MD's appt, etc, and you can't come to work. Just to be sure, you never have to tell mgmt what you were doing on your day off. My anecdotal experience is that nothing can be done with regards to discipline for not answering the phone or going to work on your NS day if you haven't been previously scheduled or mandated. I've never heard of an attempt to discipline someone for this.
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I agree that using postal delivery vehicles to deliver the mail curbside would be more efficient than door to door delivery by a walking letter carrier. There would be more gasoline consumed by these engines running for many hours per day but you would still probably save money versus the costs of a carrier walking door to door and not being able to deliver in the same number of houses in the same amount of time. I deliver mostly by walking from house to house and some neighborhoods in the town where I work have curbside delivery. Those routes do have more delivery points than the one I deliver. The two factors that I can think of for not transitioning everyone to curbside are as follows: 1) I've never heard of the USPS forcing anyone to move a mailbox from their house to the curbside. Who would incur that cost? There would probably be a lot of pushback from customers who have delivery to their front door. 2) Many neighborhoods don't have the streetscape to handle mounted (curbside) deliveries. If the houses are too close together you will have many cars parked on the street which make it difficult for the letter carrier to access the mailbox from the mail truck. In these cases, the letter carrier must perform a time-consuming dismount procedure if they want to deliver the mail to the house with a mailbox they can't access directly from the mail truck. It works fine in most suburban and rural areas but in a tighter density environment , the economics of it may not work. I, for one, love to walk from house to house and get exercise while delivering the mail, but understand your question about how curbside delivery could be more efficient. Thank you for the observant question.
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I didn't know that regulation approved USPS uniform shirts were available in thrift stores. I don't know the rules on whether or not they are allowed to be worn by non-USPS personnel.
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