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.
To be honest with you, I don't know that there is any way to get the letter carrier removed from your neighborhood for the reason given. Has this affected the delivery of mail to your house? If so, I would recommend talking to a delivery supervisor or manager at your local post office. As long as your dogs are secure and the screen won't break and your mailbox isn't too close to the door, the letter carrier should deliver your mail as they would anyone else. I am not sure who has the ultimate authority whether or not it's "safe enough" to make the delivery. The USPS management does take a very proactive stance to stop letter carrier from being bitten by dogs, but we should be delivering the mail unless it is unsafe to do so. I should clarify that the decision might be up to the individual letter carrier whether or not they feel it is safe or not. I am quite afraid of dogs myself but have never not delivered mail due to a dog on the property. They have always been behind a screen or storm door or on a leash where they can't get to me. I know my answer to you is a bit vague, but carrier safety is the number one priority. Having said that there is sometimes a varying opinion on what is safe and what isn't and I'm not sure who gets to make the ultimate decision.
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If I were in motion, I'd safely pull over, put on my four-way flashers, and then get out to investigate. It's possible that my gas cap is hanging out the side of the LLV, the back gate isn't secure, or maybe I'm dragging something. It could also be something that I haven't thought of. If the motorist is still around I'd ask them what they are pointing out. If it seemed to be some type of phony diversion tactic, I'd try to get far away from the motorist pointing and then investigate safely.
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I've never heard of your pay getting docked for not delivering mail on time. I think only Express Mail (aka Priority Mail Express) does have a delivery time guarantee and the sender can request a refund if that commitment isn't met. We can get disciplined at our office (letter of warning/suspension/termination) if we fail to deliver a time guarantee mail item, but I've rarely ever heard of anyone getting anything beyond a warning for this. This type of mail is a premium service so we must give it our utmost attention and care. Good luck in orientation. Here is just a life lesson in general: Don't believe everything you hear. I'm a big skeptic in so much I hear at work unless a reliable source. I actually might annoy people because I believe so little at times.
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I sign customer's names on accountable mail or packages that need a signature if I know them and they'd likely want that done. I frequently do this but technically it's not allowed unless the recipient has given previous written authorization to do this. So far, it's never been a problem in my career that I've signed for an item, but I don't expect others to do the same. As far as if this can screw over a customer, I don't know. I suppose if you signed for a package for a customer and then never delivered it to them it could be a problem. I think in that case the letter carrier would be questioned because the intended recipient never received the item and will say it's not their signature on the PS 3849 or electronic signature record.
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I don't know at all about the requirements for what vehicles are allowed for delivering US Mail. We use Postal-owned vehicles where I work. When I was first hired we sometimes used our own vehicles for mail delivery and didn't know of any requirements. We were only doing park and loop and foot routes with our own vehicles. The rural route carriers had privately owned right hand drive vehicles for mail delivery. I would recommend looking at the website or contacting the NRLCA, the National Rural Letter Carriers Association. I know that city carriers (which I am) would sign a CDOA which was a Carrier Drive Out Agreement that would stipulate what is required and what the compensation would be for using your own vehicle.
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I am going to have to pass on answering this question with any authority because I don't know the union contract when it comes to this subject. It's also possible that a local agreement governs what is done. It makes sense to me that an unassigned regular can hold down a vacant route until it is put up for bid. They also shouldn't be bumped off that route unless it's the non-scheduled day for that route. In that situation the comp person would usually do the route on the day they are supposed to. If there is no available routes to do on a comp persons group of 5 routes there is usually another route for them to cover. The above is just based on what I've seen done at the PO where I work. I can't even say that my info is accurate. We usually treat hold downs to mean that the carrier holding it down has many of the rights as the regular carrier on the route, but not necessarily all. This is where it gets confusing to me about bumping rights.
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Thanks for the compliment PK. I've been delivering mail for more than 16 years now. I've had a lot of personal ups and downs, mostly off the job, but glad to have continued to work and have the job security of the USPS. If you mean delivering mail for 7 hours, I think that would be hard for most people. But if you mean 7 hours street time that is a bit different because then you'd factor in loading time,lunch and breaks and travel time to/from your route. The route I deliver is approximately 6:40 total but only 5:20 Apprx is actually delivering mail. It's not too exhausting except if the mail load is heavy. My hints are to try to be as organized as you can, don't engage in too much small talk with the customers, and get a good nights rest and have a healthy breakfast. That all works for me. Everybody is different plus the difficulty of the route may vary between cities. I deliver on a flat terrain besides walking up steps to the mailboxes. If you have to walk a lot of hills that could make you more tired. Good luck to you and what might be a 7-hour route could take you longer or shorter based on the above factors.
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