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.
I’d heard about our LLV’s catching fire in the last few years. I suppose it has to do with parts maybe rusting and wiring becoming frayed. They also mentioned possibly fuel leaking out which could ignite the fire. The only thing I know about the fires from social media or the news. It would definitely be scary since you can see how thoroughly the vehicles were damaged or incinerated. Fortunately, if all goes to plan we should start to get fleet replacement vehicles in 2022 (according to the link you sent me). I’m not sure how many years it would take to manufacture 180k vehicles or whatever the contract is for. Our current fleet of LLVs were manufactured between 1987-1994. Thanks for bringing this video to my attention.
On the postal route, not particularly. I’m pretty easy going. I don’t really care when people just talk to you because you aren’t just a body. I mean they aren’t conversant and just want to talk about their accomplishments around the house, etc. Truthfully, it’s a waste of my time so I can tolerate it in small doses. If they get too long winded, I walk away and don’t give an excuse. I realize that wasn’t your question Rarely do I ever get complaints about my delivery or the time I arrive. The latter is out of my control. Mail is quite unimportant these days so many people don’t care when, or even, if they get a delivery. I can’t think of any stupid complaints. Every now and then there is a complaint or comment about mail being wet due to sweat on my arm. I don’t find that an unreasonable complaint, so for that customer, I try to keep her mail dry.
I have a feeling that you might be correct about this. I have been thinking about that in the past but never decided to look into it. Maybe one day this whole site will disappear and my nearly 1200 questions answered will be for nothing. I never hear from the the siren operatoes though it never really concerned me. The sire never seems updated. I just checked their twitter account. The last posting or retweet was from 6 years ago. I certainly feel like a bit of a sucker to have continued here for so long. I’d probably have reached more people by doing a Reddit AMA. Thanks for bringing up this subject.
Usually, the second person in the truck would be a supervisor doing a route delivery observation. This happens about one time per year. In our office, the supervisor often follows along with their own vehicle and may walk near you while you make your deliveries. Other times it may be a trainee who is “shadowing” a seasoned employee to learn how the job is done. In the larger delivery vehicles there is sometimes a package helper to make parcel deliveries easier and possibly more efficient. In my office, I rarely see 2 employees in one vehicle so I can’t comment much further.
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i haven’t heard of those stories and I believe they are few and far between. Also, I have no idea how people could get their hands on ballots and what they would actually do with them. I believe many absentee ballots need to be signed by the voter. The signature would then be (in theory) be matched against the signature on file for when the voter registered. I have full faith in the USPS role in voting by mail. There is about one month to go before the 2020 general election. It’s a bit early of course but I haven’t heard of too many major issues. The GOP, specifically President Trump, is trying to fan the flames of doubt for mail-in ballots. It is a false narrative. Voter fraud in general is rare. Multiple independent research has indicated this.
I understand your frustration that the letter carrier does not wipe his feet before going to your door and there is mud on your steps. It is quite inconsiderate for them not to wipe their feet especially as you have provided a mat for that purpose. You could put up a sign near the mailbox saying “please wipe your feet on the mat provided” or if you see the new letter carrier you could mention it to them directly. I don’t know why they wouldn’t oblige to a simple request. Is there anywhere to move your mailbox so that they don’t have to walk up your steps and get the area all muddy. I rarely pay attention to what I’m walking through and tracking to a customers door. I’m pretty sure if they said something to me, I’d be more considerate. I don’t work in a particularly muddy area so I don’t know that this would pertain to me. You could take your complaint to the district level which oversees individual post offices. I don’t know that your complaint will get anywhere. My confidence level in satisfactory resolution of USPS customer complaints is a mixed bag. Thanks for writing.
Your letter carrier doesn’t generally have access to your new address if you have filled out a forwarding order (change of address request) via www.usps.com. If you were to manually fill out a paper COA request, it’s possible the letter carrier may get a copy of it. I sometimes get a list of the current forwarding orders on file for my route. The list does have the new address for anybody who moved in the last year and submitted a forwarding order. That information is confidential and should never be released to anybody except via official summons or other legal matter. I would be confident that your letter carrier would keep that information private. Most of the time they don’t even have access to that information.
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