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 didn't realize you'd be doing such a large mailing. I believe that amt of postcards would qualify for a discount but sometimes it depends on the quantity of pieces for a certain area, how the mailing is prepared, and where you enter it into the system (some large mailings are cheaper to drop off at a mail plant vs. a local PO). The name for a bulk mailing discount is usually called presort standard and presort first class Mail. The standard doesn't get handled as quickly as first class mail which is why it's cheaper. I am sure the answer is quite a bit more complex than what I've told you. Some resources that I'd look for are the Direct Marketing Association or search for "USPS bulk mailing discounts" or "basics of bulk mailing USPS". If stamps or meters are not affixed to your postcards you can't just drop them in a mailbox. The mailing would need to be processed through the BMEU (business mail entry unit). You may also need to get a bulk mailing permit to use an indicia and get a discount. I don't know these details at all. You ask good questions but my area of knowledge has more to do with the job of a city letter carrier. That is why I'm not being any more specific. Anything I've typed here is what I've learned over the years by asking my associates similar questions that you have asked. None of this knowledge is necessary to be a letter carrier.
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I am not sure if you are joking in this question. I am a city letter carrier and don't spy on anybody. It is true that we may know a lot about the people we deliver mail to, but that is confidential in nature and wouldn't share that with anybody. You would never want your personal information shared with others about what you receive in the mail, would you? We must remain professional so we have the trust of the people we serve.
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I believe it would be rare for someone to receive mail at your address when they didn't put on a forwarding order and then to actually know about it. Certainly mail could be mis-delivered to your house, but how would that person know unless you contacted them somehow? I deliver mail only as addressed with a couple of exceptions. If I can see that the sender addressed it wrong (usually a wrong house #, but the correct street), I would likely deliver it to the address where the person lives. Even if someone moved in the same town but didn't put in a forwarding order, we aren't allowed to just "hand off" the mail to their new address. I did recently notice that a woman (her parents live on the route I deliver) had a piece of mail with her name on it but the address to be delivered to was in Maryland. I know the woman is now receiving mail at her parents home and likely has a forwarding order from Maryland to her parents house in NY. The letter may have been automatically re-routed to NY with the new addresses bar code put on the envelope and the letter then arrived in the computer-sorted mail for the NY address. I just delivered it knowing that the surnames matched. I hope this answers your question and thanks for writing.
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The most anything should take across the USA is 3-4 days I think. If you mail the postcards on Thursday I think there is a good chance they will arrive by Monday. Most first-class mail, which would include your postcards, usually takes 2 days locally and up to 4 days nationally as far as I know. As long as the postage is sufficient (.35 or .49) and the mail is addressed properly, the USPS does a very good job of meeting those service standards.
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I can't say for sure if we come later on Fridays or not. It usually depends on the staffing and mail volume as to what time we deliver the mail. At the PO where I work, Friday is usually like most other weekdays for mail delivery time. On Saturday, the mail may come earlier because postal routes may have closed busineses so they can start the residential delivery sooner.
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I would give it back to you if I know who you are, or you can positively ID yourself, and if I can easily retrieve the letter. It's rarely happened to me and in each case in gave back the letter(s) to the sender. I can't speak to how another letter carrier would react to your request and I don't know if there are any rules specifically allowing or prohibiting this. We are not trained on how to handle this request as far as I can remember.
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I don't see why it wouldn't be legal. The important parts are that the destination address, return address, and postage are in the correct places and clearly readable. Besides that I believe you may write a message on the outside of an envelope.
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