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.
It is possible that the mail from Prudential is delayed due to the storm or because there is no apt. # on the address. I am not sure which would be more likely. I don't know how strict your post office or letter carrier is on delivering to multi-unit buildings with no apt # on the mail. I would think that if they know what unit the letter should go to it would be a good idea to just deliver it there. In general it is important to put your apt # on your address, but I think you know that. I'd recommend giving it a few more days before worrying that the check is really lost. Thanks for the question.
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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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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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I have not had an office to deliver on a regular basis so I can't comment as to how far a letter carrier is supposed to go I to an office to deliver or retrieve outgoing mail. Usually I'd expect to mostly deliver to a mail room or reception desk. As far as getting paid by the foot, I can assure you if it is a city letter carrier they are being paid "on the clock" meaning it has nothing to do with distance traveled on foot, but only by time working. A rural letter carrier may have a different way to calculate their pay where I don't know the details. If your letter carrier is wearing the traditional blue uniform, it is likely they are a city carrier and if the location of your postage machine took them longer to access, they'd actually be paid more money because it took them longer. I am being picayune but I hope you understand the point. Some mail carriers are just lazy, will feed you a line, or genuinely know some of the rules about office delivery.
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Not at all. As far as I know, there is no requirement for any return address or partial return address. It is important for the destination address to be complete. This mainly would be an issue if you wanted to receive the item back to you in case it was undeliverable for any reason. I'd recommend putting a return address on a letter that is being mailed, but it's your decision and you probably have your reasons for not wanting to put one on the letter that you are mailing.
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The USPS uses a lot of automation to sort the mail and I think it's looking for the address in the middle of the envelope as to where to send the item. In your example, I would recommended using a new envelope. Write your address (which will be considered the return address) in the upper left hand corner of the envelope. Put the recipients address in the center of the envelope and the sufficient postage in the upper right hand corner.
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