Mailman (City Letter Carrier)

Mailman (City Letter Carrier)

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.

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Last Answer on February 18, 2022

Best Rated

Hi, Dave. I just accept a CCA position in Manhattan district in New York City. Do I need to drive the 2 ton postal van? Even though I have my driver's license for more than 10 years. I've never driven a car this size. Especially in a city like NY

Asked by David almost 10 years ago

Congratulations on being offered and accepting the CCA position. I don't know what you'd be required to drive in Manhattan. In our office all carriers are trained on the LLV and on the 2-ton postal truck, but I haven't driven the latter in years and would be reluctant to if asked due to my lack of familiarity with it and I, too, don't like the size of it. In Manhattan I don't like to drive at all. It is so congested and some streets are pretty narrow. Besides the 2-ton I don't see too many other postal vehicles driven in Manhattan. Many CCAs work on Sunday's delivering Amazon parcels which requires driving. You may ask at orientation about this or if you felt comfortable you could ask a letter carrier that you might see delivering in Manhattan the same question which you posted here. Always wear your seatbelt and good luck David!

495 Votes

Thank you so much for a speedy answer. Thank you for answering all these questions! One other question I would have is, what do you do when a house does not have a mailbox?

Asked by Dee about 9 years ago

My pleasure to answer yours and others questions, Dee! It's easy to respond quickly as I don't get an overwhelming number of questions. I also don't like to have a backlog of emails either. Anyhow, to answer your question the correct thing to do is to not deliver the mail and have it returned to the sender with the endorsement "No Mail Receptacle". I don't come across this situation very often. I sometimes fill in on another route and there is one house with no mailbox. I just rubber band the mail and leave it on their bench by a front door. I think if it was on my postal route I'd request the customer install a mailbox to have mail delivery service.

495 Votes

Does your mail still get delivered if the carrier is on vacation?

Asked by Cliff almost 9 years ago

Cliff, mail gets delivered if a letter carrier is on vacation. There is usually a replacement letter carrier who will cover the route of the regular letter carrier who is on vacation. If there isn't enough staffing available, the route which the regular carrier is on vacation from my be split between other letter carriers. For this reason your mail should still be delivered but possibly at a very different time than the regular letter carrier does.

495 Votes

our mailman gives all tenants mail to lady at office to sort and put in boxes and even meets her down the road if she in big hurry is that proper?

Asked by mary over 9 years ago

I guess that's okay if the lady in the apt. office has access to the mailboxes. Some buildings and apt. complexes have different procedures about who delivers the mail. I don't know how that is determined. Where I deliver mail, any multi-unit building or complex has the mail delivered to each unit by a USPS employee. The building or apt. complex staff has no access to the cluster boxes. I can see how this differs because we generally don't deliver mail on university campuses to each students mailbox. The same would go for an extended stay hotel or long-term care facility. I just hope you haven't had delivery issues with receiving your mail from the lady who puts it into your box. This would be unfortunate because if you complained to the USPS about this, they may say ask the lady in the apt. office who may or may not be easy to deal with. Thank you for your question.

494 Votes

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Can the mailman return my mail because I don't pick it up everyday as he says?

Asked by Nat over 9 years ago

Your mail shouldn't be returned because you don't pick it up daily. I've never heard of any obligation one has to pick up their mail at any specific interval. If the mailbox fills up, I know mail can be returned but I'm not sure if that means the overflow mail or the mail in the box already. In my experience it's very common for mail to be left in the mailbox for days. It doesn't bother me one bit and it's rare that the mailbox gets so full that action must be taken. Without knowing any further details, it sounds like your letter carrier is being a jerk and looking for conflict rather than providing quality service.

494 Votes

What should I do if I am out on a route and have a question?

Asked by Dee about 9 years ago

Dee, that just happened to me today. I was given part of another route to deliver, but along with the mail on the other route which I was suposed to deliver was additional mail that wasn't part of my extra assignment. Not knowing if I was approved to deliver that additional mail, I called the delivery supervisor at the Post Office and asked for further guidance. She said to go ahead and deliver it and that wouldn't be an issue with me taking longer than I was supposed to. Basically, just call the post office and ask for the delivery supervisor. When they send you out to deliver mail, your supervisor should give you the office phone number to call if there are any questions. It's pretty common for me to call the PO and vice versa if we have questions. I would hope your supervisors are just as receptive as it is part of their job to assist you with anything you may not be sure of. I also have the cell #'s of some of my co-workers who I'll call/text if I have a question they might know the answer to.

494 Votes

Can I hide a po box from a mailman I know whose route is not in my zip code or neighborhood? Can any mailman look up the address or po box of any person in the city he delivers mail? Are knowing things like this not restricted to people in his route?

Asked by Angie almost 10 years ago

I don't know about this. I have never been interested or been asked to find out if a particular person owns a PO Box. I would say that we can't look up in a database to see if a person owns a PO Box.I do have access to the actual PO Boxes where I work and can see from the labels at the clerk side of the PO Box who the current renter of the PO Box is, but don't know of any internal database that I'd have access to. Anybody can go online (general Google search) to search for the address where a person lives and that may yield a result, but it wouldn't likely result in any PO Box info.

492 Votes

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