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.
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.
I don't know how much your license suspension will affect your job chances with the USPS. You do need a valid driver license to be a letter carrier as far as I know. You said you have fixed the suspension for texting while driving recently. I don't know if you need to provide this information to the USPS proactively or only if they ask. I would think somewhere along the application process they'd ask you questions about your past driving history and possibly request a motor vehicle department drivers abstract which has your history of suspensions convictions violations, etc. Please be sure to answer all questions honestly and possibly have proof available that your license is no longer suspended. Good luck to you and put that phone down while driving. I understand it's tempting.
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.
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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When the letter carrier comes to pick up your package, they will unlikely have a priority box with them. Most of us carrier no supplies in our postal vehicle. I think you can also edit the pickup request because it sounds like you won't have the Priority Mail package ready for them. You can probably edit or cancel the pickup request if you won't be mailing the item today. If you have any other box you can use that as well unless you have selected the Flat Rate Option for your packaging. If you did select a Flat Rate option you need to use a Priority Mail Flat Rate Box or envelope.
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.
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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