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.
You bad bad person Aila! Seeing that you were just 6 years old and you returned it all, there are worse crimes you could have committed. I am glad you know by now not to touch any mail or mailboxes that aren't yours. It is horrible to think of mail being taken out of mailboxes illegally. I consider it sacred, even if, in all honesty, it's not so important to a lot of people today and has been replaced a lot by technology. With regard to how it works for mailmen, I'm not sure what you mean. I have never been involved with a mail theft incident during my career. If I did I would likely tell my supervisor about it and follow their directives. Thanks for writing And stay away from those mailboxes ;-)
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Albert, your message posted 2x so I will answer it once and then copy and paste it. I currently work 7 hours a day as I am on a limited schedule for personal reasons. A regular city letter carrier can expect to work 8 hours per day (plus 30 min. unpaid lunch), 5 days per week. The 5 days may not be consecutive since mail is delivered 6 days per week. As a new hire, you will likely be a CCA (city carrier assistant) who has a very varied schedule and I'm not sure they are guaranteed any hours. I believe starting pay is about $16/hour for a CCA, with very few benefits, if any. Once you are promoted to a regular city carrier, the salary increasea to about $23/hour and tops out at about $28.50/hr after a certain amt. of years. These salaries are set in accordance with a labor agreement between the USPS and the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), which is our union. You also get benefits once you become a regular city letter carrier as opposed to a CCA. If you visit the website www.nalc.org they have pay charts listed or you can probably just do a google search or look on www.glassdoor.com. Good luck in what is a pretty good career in my opinion.
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Sorry to say that we can't guarantee arrival of a birthday card on a specific date when mailed via regular class mail. We do, however, have a decent record of getting most letters delivered the next day when mailed from the same city, and 2-3 days when mailed from further away. To play it safe I'd mail the card 2 days in advance and, if you prefer, you can write "Do Not Open Until Your Birthday" on the outside of it. You are a thoughtful friend. Good Luck!
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I think you will likely receive the item but there may be a delay of several days. The letter will first likely go to the PO that the ZIP corresponds to. The clerks at that office would then need to send the letter back to a central mail facility where it might be manually corrected (the proper ZIP being researched and put on the envelope) and then continue to the intended destination. I'm not sure I have the procedure correct. It's also possible the letter could be returned to the sender with the endorsement of "No Such Street in this ZIP code" but I've never seen that before.
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I don't know the answer to this question. In the PO where I work, the supervisors manage when bulk mail is distributed for delivery and we will deliver it on that day unless there is some extenuating circumstance why we can't. I notice that most bulk mail that comes to our PO is usually delivered within 3-4 days, often earlier. 10 days seems like an awfully long time for bulk mail to be sitting around no matter the time sensitivity or not. When your mailing is given to a BMEU (Bulk Mail Entry Unit), do they have any straight answer either? I agree that this is poor service if you can't get any range of time or reason why it's taking so long to be delivered. I do acknowledge that bulk mailings do get put to the bottom of the list as far as priority of which class of mail to deliver, but there isn't a huge amount of First-Class Mail and Periodical mail to go through that a bulk mailing should take so long. I'm just speaking from the perspective of where I work and can't really comment on the operations of another post office.
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JD, good job for sticking with it for 7 years so far. There are many people who couldn't handle even one NE winter. I have trouble myself with the very cold weather, plus snow, and ice. The LLVs are horrible with snow in handling especially on any inclines. I have felt the way you have several times, and I have also felt the opposite as well (meaning I love the career). I admit it is difficult at times when you aren't feeling satisfied to stick with this career. Here is my advice, but keep in mind I don't know your personal living/financial situation. Being a city carrier and making apprx $50K+ a year seems to be a decent salary with benefits and union protections. I know it's a physically hard job, but you could apply to transfer to a less harsh area climate wise. My parents have been a big influence on me when I was on the verge of resigning on a few occasions. They said that it won't be easy to find a similar paying job without any special skills. I've also had to seek professional help in the past couple of years which has been worthwhile. This is probably more information then you want to know but as of now I am glad that I didn't go through with the rash decision of quitting the USPS. Have you thought about switching to the clerk craft? Would you rather maybe work inside as a Sales and Service Associate? There are pros and cons to that as well. I do feel bad for anybody who is unhappy with their position, but am hopeful they can stick with it and maybe their feelings will change for the better. I would have a very hard time working too long if I weren't satisfied at the position. Please try to keep your head up and dress appropriately for the weather. Thanks for writing.
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From what I understand, most city carriers that need a vehicle to deliver the mail will use a USPS vehicle. We do have CCAs that use their own car to deliver the mail on walking routes when there aren't any USPS vehicles available for them to use. They can get reimbursed for some of their expenses when doing this. In some offices rural letter carriers have no choice but to use their own vehicles to deliver their rural routes. For ease of maintenance and not having to wear down my own vehicle, I definitely prefer using a USPS vehicle at work. I don't have a choice in the matter. Gasoline is paid for using a fleet credit card and maintenance is handled by a contracted mechanic. Thank you for your question.
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