Ask a Mailman (City Letter Carrier) anything

I had concrete poured for a new driveway. I had the end of the driveway taped off with caution tape and cones. Our mail carrier cut across the lawn and left footprints in the wet cement. Would the post office be responsible for the cost to fix it?

Asked by Cleveland Rick about 9 years ago

First I'd like to say that it's unfortunate that you letter carrier accidentally stepped into the concrete you just had poured for a new driveway. I have done this myself but only with a recently resealed driveway and the result was just I tracked some sealant around the bottom of my shoes for a short while. I can't answer your question as to whether or not the USPS would be responsible for the cost to fix the driveway that was damaged by the letter carrier. I'd recommend calling or even visiting your local PO and speak with a delivery supervisor or the postmaster and tell them what happened. Bring a photo that you may have taken of the damage or have it on your mobile device. I wouldn't hold out much hope that the claims process is easy or that the person you speak with even knows about it. I'm guessing you may have to be a bit persistent or go up a chain of command to get someone who is knowledgeable about the USPS liability, if any. We are required to cut across lawns to deliver the mail when it's feasible to do so. For this reason I can see how a letter carrier may not realize that a new driveway has been poured as we often have our head down getting the mail ready for delivery at the next house. I just don't know if the USPS has any responsibility to fix your driveway. I can't imagine it's too inexpensive to have the concrete cut out and repoured.

474 Votes

How do you and the other letter carriers you know feel about all these extra parcels from SmartPost and SurePost that you're expected to deliver alongside the mail every day? Is it an annoyance? Sometimes if I order too much from Amazon I feel bad!

Asked by Scott over 9 years ago

Asking me and other letter carriers will likely get you 2 different answers. I think it's great to get the smartpost and surePost parcels to deliver alongside our regular mail. I view it as more business for the USPS, my employer. If my employer can get more business that would hopefully translate as better for the workers. I don't find it an annoyance whatsoever and know it's part of my job. If the volume of parcels gets too high I would possibly take longer to complete my route which translates into overtime pay which would be beneficial. The volume of parcels that I deliver is not overwhelming except around the holiday season. Amazon uses the USPS as well as other delivery companies to complete their delivery fulfillment. There are some coworkers who don't want to do any extra work and complain about everything so the extra parcels would annoy them. I feel they are close-minded and lazy. In so many cases I don't see the importance of US Mail nowadays with regards to financial statements and bills. That has been able to be done electronically for so many years now. Parcels are what our business should be happy to be delivering. Don't ever feel bad about ordering too much online. I know I wouldn't.

473 Votes

Carrier injured been on partial duty for Two years has been deemed unable to carry by doctor. When must she vacate the route. As of now she is casing for 40 min in the morning so I am not made full time. Frustrated cca

Asked by Bronco mail over 9 years ago

Bronco, I can't give you any definitive answer on this because I don't have knowledge of workers comp/OJI rules with respect to delivering a route or holding a route. I think because it was an OJI, the carrier's route is protected indefinitely unless they voluntarily give it up or retire on disability. This is a comment made with no reference to documentation so I don't know that I'm correct. I know being a CCA is not very desirable but if you have patience then eventually you will become a full-time regular. The size and seniority of your office makes a big difference in how quickly you will become regular. Your union (NALC) rep may know a little more about this subject but I make no promises about that either. Furthermore, they will correctly want to protect that route for the injured carrier as much as they are allowed to. This is probably not the answer you wanted to hear but it's my best guess. Patience is a virtue.

473 Votes

Thank you for your response! I already contacted the property manager and he told me to contact USPS, which I did over the 1-800... and they asked me to call the local Post office, I called and the lady just put me on hold and then hanged up.

Asked by Isaac almost 10 years ago

You're welcome Isaac. I'm sorry you didn't have a good experience with your local PO. I would recommend trying again as it's possible that the call was accidentally disconnected. Some offices are quite shorthanded but that doesn't excuse them for not just taking down some info, talking to your letter carrier when they have a chance and then getting back to you. You have a right to get your mail at a secure location in the centralized mailbox unit and I'm not sure what the reason for this foul up is since I don't have all of the facts.

472 Votes

A Hostel I was staying at said the postman automatically returns to sender (without delivering it) anything not addressed to the Hostel directly. Is this possible? or would the Hostel have to manually return it themselves?

Asked by Feeling Lied to almost 10 years ago

It is possible you've been lied to as your name suggests which I find to be very bad. Unfortunately I can't confirm if this is the case or not. I don't know of any rules either way as to why the postman would automatically return any mail that doesn't have the hostels name included in the address. It is pretty common for people to receive mail or packages at a hotel or some type of short-term stay facility. A woman who I work next to has a Comfort Inn that is part of her delivery route. I'm pretty sure she delivers any mail with the hotel's street address on it. It's then up to the hotel to notify the recipient that mail has arrived and then return any mail which may be for someone who is no longer there. I think that the letter carrier will accept any returned mail from the hotel and mark it "refused" or "attempted, not known" and it should go back to the sender. You ask "is this possible?" It certainly is possible as nothing surprises me about what happens at the USPS because the consistency of service among the employees and offices is not good in my opinion. I think we should deliver the mail as addressed (especially to a hotel, hostel, Airbnb, etc) and not worry about the names on the mail and let the receiving office decide whether to keep it, return it, or discard. Individual mail cannot be forwarded from a hotel or any business. In the future, if you want something mailed to a hostel, I'd recommend putting both your name and the name of the property you are staying at.

472 Votes

The mail at the company where I work is delivered to a curbside mailbox. It is a free-standing building; not a complex or high-rise, nor do we share the building with anyone else. I requested that our mail be picked up and delivered inside the business, but was told that can only happen if I have a physical disability that prevents me from retrieving mail from the mailbox. In my 30+ years of working, I have never known this to happen. It has always been delivered inside the building. We had a temporary carrier (while our usual carrier was out sick) that DID bring the mail inside. She stated that she documented our request at the post office and that our regular carrier would continue to deliver inside the business when he returned. This did not happen, and after speaking with him, he is unwilling to deliver the mail inside, citing the disability reason. We send and receive millions of dollars in checks each month. The mail is delivered to a locked portion of the mailbox, but the outgoing mail portion does not lock. Leaving the checks in the mailbox for pickup makes us very uncomfortable and yet at the moment, our only alternative seems to be to drive to the post office every day. What are the actual USPS regulations about delivering mail to businesses, and if it CAN be delivered inside, who do I contact since I’ve had no luck with the local post office or our mail carrier? Thank you!

Asked by Isabella over 9 years ago

I don't think I've ever had as detailed a question as yours Isabella. Unfortunately I don't have an answer for you and am not going to research your question as interesting as it is. I don't know postal delivery regulations and I find that when they exist they are adhered to arbitrarily. I understand your concern about leaving outgoing mail (including valuable checks) in an unsecured mailbox outside your office. For the most part we go in to businesses to deliver their mail and take any outgoing mail. There are some offices that have curbside boxes or multi-unit cluster boxes. I don't know that your office qualifies for indoor delivery (though I don't now what those requirements would be). You could call USPS consumer affairs but I don't know how much they can help. It'd be nice if you could at least find out the regulations and know if you are being fed misinformation or you truly don't "qualify" for delivery into your building.

471 Votes

Is it difficult to get granted a transfer? And do they make the "real" mailman cover the routes of the call offs,instead of so called slaves?

Asked by the gf of a shady mailman about 10 years ago

I don't know much about transferring between locations as I've never tried myself but I've seen it done quite a bit both into and out of my office. I believe you need to be off probation and maybe worked for a certain amt of time before being eligible to transfer. Also, whether or not a transfer is granted could depend on the staffing levels of the office you'd be leaving and/or the one you are requesting to transfer to. Usually transfers result in you losing local seniority so you go to the bottom of the list for carries as far as vacation requests and work assignment choices. With regards to your other questions, I'd never call anyone one slaves at the USPS? If you are implying the CCAs have to cover the routes for call offs, it depends on the managements and the staffing needs. As a regular carrier I usually fill in to do parts of routes that need coverage on any particular day and will be paid overtime to do this after finishing my own route. So when you say slave nobody is being forced to do this job. In my particular post office the staffing is perpetually not that good so both the CCA (of which we have very few) and the regular letter carriers fill in as needed. One main difference is that as a regular letter carrier you would rarely be forced to do overtime work if you choose not to and are not on the OTDL (overtime desired list).

470 Votes

Mailman (City Letter Carrier)

Ask me anything!

What do YOU do?

I had concrete poured for a new driveway. I had the end of the driveway taped off with caution tape and cones. Our mail carrier cut across the lawn and left footprints in the wet cement. Would the post office be responsible for the cost to fix it?

How do you and the other letter carriers you know feel about all these extra parcels from SmartPost and SurePost that you're expected to deliver alongside the mail every day? Is it an annoyance? Sometimes if I order too much from Amazon I feel bad!

Carrier injured been on partial duty for Two years has been deemed unable to carry by doctor. When must she vacate the route. As of now she is casing for 40 min in the morning so I am not made full time. Frustrated cca

Thank you for your response! I already contacted the property manager and he told me to contact USPS, which I did over the 1-800... and they asked me to call the local Post office, I called and the lady just put me on hold and then hanged up.

Also on Jobstr...

A Hostel I was staying at said the postman automatically returns to sender (without delivering it) anything not addressed to the Hostel directly. Is this possible? or would the Hostel have to manually return it themselves?

Is it difficult to get granted a transfer? And do they make the "real" mailman cover the routes of the call offs,instead of so called slaves?

Mailman (City Letter Carrier)

Ask me anything!

What do YOU do?

I had concrete poured for a new driveway. I had the end of the driveway taped off with caution tape and cones. Our mail carrier cut across the lawn and left footprints in the wet cement. Would the post office be responsible for the cost to fix it?

How do you and the other letter carriers you know feel about all these extra parcels from SmartPost and SurePost that you're expected to deliver alongside the mail every day? Is it an annoyance? Sometimes if I order too much from Amazon I feel bad!

Carrier injured been on partial duty for Two years has been deemed unable to carry by doctor. When must she vacate the route. As of now she is casing for 40 min in the morning so I am not made full time. Frustrated cca

Thank you for your response! I already contacted the property manager and he told me to contact USPS, which I did over the 1-800... and they asked me to call the local Post office, I called and the lady just put me on hold and then hanged up.

Also on Jobstr...

A Hostel I was staying at said the postman automatically returns to sender (without delivering it) anything not addressed to the Hostel directly. Is this possible? or would the Hostel have to manually return it themselves?

Is it difficult to get granted a transfer? And do they make the "real" mailman cover the routes of the call offs,instead of so called slaves?

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