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.
Mike, I believe it takes several months before your probation is over and you receive a uniform allowance. I don't know for sure what the uniform regulations are, but the CCAs in my office where jeans and t-shirts mainly. They should tell you at orientation what is acceptable and not acceptable. The shoes must not be open-toed. I may have worn sneakers during my probationary period. The shoes that are purchased with the uniform allowance can easily cost $80 and up. Good luck to you and work safely.
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I am not sure. If the letter carrier is using a postal delivery vehicle like a 2-ton truck or LLV (long-life vehicle), they will usually deliver a parcel before or after they deliver the mail and smaller parcels on that street or area. If they are a foot carrier with a walk-out route that means they don't drive a delivery vehicle and another postal employee, usually a Parcel Post carrier, would deliver the large parcel separately. Thanks for your question.
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It depends when you drop the letter in the blue collection box. If it is before the daily pickup time (which is usually posted on a label somewhere on the box) then it is likely going to be on the same dispatch truck as if you put the letter in a box at the PO. The truck then goes to a centralized mail processing facility. If you put the letter in a blue collection mailbox after the daily cutoff time posted on the mailbox, but the local PO is still open, you'd probably be better off bringing the letter there for mailing. At most POs you can probably bring in letter up until 1700 for same-day processing.
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It doesn't make sense why a USPS letter carrier would put a question mark on one of the envelopes that is identical to the first one. It's common for people to get multiple letters from the same company. I would only put a question mark on the envelope if I wasn't sure if the name on the envelope was correct for the address it is to be delivered to. In your example, I don't think I'd put a question mark on either piece of mail. Also, if other mail to your address has your name on it, I don't see any reason for the question mark. If it only happens once or twice I wouldn't think about it. If it happens each month and it concerns you, you could cal the local PO and talk to the delivery supervisor to see if they have any insight.
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From what you described there should be no problem in your landlord eventually receiving the check. It's possible that the letter carrier took the envelope thinking it was outgoing mail. Since it had a stamp on it and the landlord as a receiving address, they will likely get the check in a couple of delivery days. If a letter carrier sees an unstamped envelope in a mailbox they will often take it as outgoing mail without looking at the destination address. Thanks for your question.
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Two good questions that are easy to answer. 1) there is no radio in the LLV which I drive. It's possible some postal vehicles have radios but not the one I use. Some carriers bring a portable radio with them or listen on their mobile devices to music or podcasts. I listen to podcasts while delivering the mail. I have one ear with the earphone in it and the other left open so I can hear any traffic or people looking to get my attention. We are probably not supposed to work with both ears covered.
2) I get both a pension and a 401(K) type program since I'm employed by a quasi-governmental organization. The pension is called FERS (federal employees retirement system) and the 401(K)-type program is called the Thrift Savings Plan. Along with Social Security, they make up the 3 "legs" of the retirement system under which I'm covered. The TSP offers a lot of potential growth because you can contribute a lot of your earnings plus the USPS matches some of your contributions. You choose how aggressive of an investor you want to be with your TSP contributions. Thanks for your questions and asking something I actually know about. Many of the questions here I can only answer by my experience not necessarily what the rules may be or how different people would act in a situation.
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I will certainly tell you my experience, but keep in mind that everybody is different in how they handle a job and how hard they want to work and under what conditions. To sum up before I get into the details, I really like the job a lot, but the management and some co-workers aren't so great. When you first start out as a letter carrier, you will likely be a CCA , a city carrier asst, which doesn't guarantee you too many hrs/week, lower pay ($15.50/hr apprx) and minimal benefits. As time goes on and others retire or leave the USPS for various reasons you'd become a FT regular letter carrier with a guarantee of 40 hrs/wk minimum plus health, retirement, paid time off benefits. The pro of the job for me is that you get decent pay and benefits and security for a job that requires a low amt of education (though I do have a college degree), exercise on walking routes and much of the day (apprx 6 hours) away from the office not having to deal with co-workers or management who can be vile or aggravating. There are some very nice people I work with. I generally just see my co-workers for a couple of hours in the AM and maybe 10-20 minutes before we go home at apprx 4:30 PMG. Over the years I've had some health issues which required extended absences. While I can't say the employer was great to deal with during the absence I didn't worry about losing my job and was paid for some of the time I was out (using paid sick leave). Depending on where you work geographically, weather can be issue and you need to be prepared to be outside for many hours per day. The staffing at my office has been a bit low for awhile and there is a lack of quality workers replacing them. This has resulted in a lot of Overtime work available (a good thing or me), but also a lot of mandatory work even for those who don't want it (not so good). It's also difficult to get time off unless you have a vacation block picked out. I also happen to be a bit of a perfectionist with regards to delivering mail accurately and this job works well with my organizational skills. From my experience, more people like to be negative about the job than positive. I understand some of their complaints and feelings, but I choose to be positive and grateful for what I have and not dwell on the little stuff. I tune out then negativity the best I can and do my job. Good luck to you and please ask any more specific questions if you have them.
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