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.
Hello GrannyBlu72! It was fine to drop the letter to your granddaughter in the Priority Express Blue Box on the street. That probably happens all of the time and the letter carrier who collects it would just put that envelope into the regular mail processing stream. As long as you used proper postage for what you mailed and put the correct address on the envelope, the letter will get to your granddaughter. When she receives it, however, is a different story. The letter would likely be collected from that blue collection box on Monday and if sent to the regional mail processing facility (which most mail is sent to even if addressed to the same town that it is mailed in), the turnaround time is usually 2 days. It is likely your granddaughter will receive the letter Wednesday. Until recently, mail within a certain processing area would take just 1-day to reach it's destination.
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Yes, if a school is open or not has no direct bearing on whether or not the US Mail gets delivered. That being said, if a school is closed due to extreme weather, it is possible that we can't deliver the mail either. Generally it would take a pretty heavy snowfall and unplowed roads to stop us from delivering the mail. In my career as a letter carrier, we have only suspended delivery a few times due to poor weather. Our delivery vehicles are very poor on icy and snowy roads which is quite unsafe and makes me a bit nervous to drive in those poor conditions.
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Another good question that I'll fail miserably at. It's hard to find good gloves that will keep your ha ss warm and dry plus allow you to easily finger the mail. While I walk I wear a pretty regular glove on the hand where I hold the mail and then may leave the hand I use to finger the mail exposed but put it in my pocket between houses to keep it somewhat warm. You may also purchase single use hand warmers which you can keep in your pocket and they should last you the whole work day. Some carriers wear sealskin type gloves. I've never tried some so I can't comment on how good they are. Basically I own many pairs of gloves and just do a lot of experimenting to get it right. If it's raining try and bring multiple pair so you can exchange out wet gloves for dry gloves.
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I don't know the procedures for determining whether a not a building is "officially" considered multi-unit for mail deliver purposes. I once had a person who was leasing part of a house of I could put his mail into a separate mailbox on the side of a house and I said no. The house is considered one address and all of the mail goes in a single box. The landlord can separate the mail. I would think if it's a 2-family house and the boxes are clearly marked as "apt 1" and "apt 2" or something similarly distinctive and the mail is addressed accordingly it may be okay. I truly don't know what constitutes multi-unit or not as far as mail delivery goes. I also don't know if the stairs have any effect to the answer. It's not uncommon to walk up stairs to deliver mail so I can't outright say no due to the stairs separating the mailboxes of the 2 units.
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Bradan, Congratulations on surviving the winter! That can't have been fun at all. I'm just glad it's over also. As much as the heat isn't fun, I prefer it over the cold. I know there are others who feel quite differently about that. As far as tips go, my main tips are: 1) Drink plenty of water or some other liquids. I've heard different schools of thought whether or not Gatorade is good. My joke is that on the internet you can find anybody to support your opinion. I would guess that it works but there is a very high sugar content. The key is to stay hydrated.
2) Wear a hat to block the sun off your head and face. I wear a cowboy-type hat which works well. I fold the edges up by the ear so it doesn't look so funny but there is a tradeoff in that I'm exposing more of my face to the sun. I'm not sure what the official name of the hat is. You could also wear a white mesh pith helmet. Baseball caps will help as well but not cover too much of your face or neck for sun exposure. I also wear sunglasses most of the time.
3) Wear as light clothes as possible. I usually wear shorts in the warm weather and a short-sleeve uniform shirt with a t-shirt underneath.
Those are the basic tips that I can think of. Make sure to ask or take a cue from your fellow carriers, as I'm far from being an expert on this. On the very hot and humid days I consume water without even thinking about it, usually bringing about 2 liters with me plus some orange juice to drink with lunch.
Good luck to you. During July and August there is so much extra work to do because of our fellow workers going on vacation. We never seem to have enough help. I'm sure that story is repeated in many Post Offices nationwide.
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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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I think it should be approximately 3 days for First Class Mail from Wisconsin to California. Our mail transportation is pretty reliable when it comes to meeting our delivery service goals as long as the mail isn't missorted or misdelivered.
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