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.
When you mail a letter it goes through a fairly extensive sorting process until it reaches the destination post office that does the actual delivery of the letter to the addressee. That is the way it works in the US and I imagine it is similar in other countries. Once the letter reaches the final post office, it is then sorted to the route which covers the address. The letter carrier for that route usually will have a map with them or a GPS or smartphone to help them find the address if they aren't familiar with the area. In the post office where I work, many of the streets are delivered by the same letter carriers each day so we know where the mail goes to. It is also helpful and important if the street signs are clear as well as the house/apt #'s are labeled well.
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Linda, thanks for writing and I'm sorry that you are going through an unfortunate situation. I don't know why your new mailman wouldn't be delivering all of the mail to your house. If he's not delivering it to your house, I wonder where it is going. It is not legal to be doing anything else with the mail except deliver it to the proper addressee. You spoke with the Postmaster, not the Postmaster General. The PMG is the top administrator of the USPS in Washington, DC. Have you asked your mailman what may be happening to your mail? I doubt that you will get any type of satisfactory answers. The next step if you don't get any satisfaction from your local post office is to try to contact the region or area office that oversees your post office. Another option is the Postal Inspectors who would investigate any criminal activity like mail fraud or theft of mail. I don't have a lot of conifdence in these offices really doing too much in your situation but if you feel it is serious enough I wouldn't think twice about reporting it. Thanks for writing.
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I am not sure how you would get the full name of your postman. I read that he won't give you his last name. I have no idea whether or not he has any obligation to do so. I gladly would give it out, if asked. It is also on my ID badge that I wear. I feel that it should be available to the public, but I am sure you will find great disagreement among my colleagues. If you were to call the PO and ask them, I have a feeling they wouldn't give it to you either. Some people get very private about certain matters, yet they will join Facebook and broadcast a lot about their personal lives. That's about all of the insight I have on this subject. Thanks for writing.
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Hello Joy. The area where you took the photo is probably serviced by a rural carrier or HCR (highway contract routr). These positions are different than the one I am employed as even though we all serve the same function. It makes sense to me that the barrel would be used for packages because I don't think carriers are required to deliver mail to a house that is more than a certain amt of feet from the road. The barrel is a convenient way for the customer to receive packages without having to drive to a post office which is many mlies away and has limited hours. It would also protect the package from damage in inclement weather. I can't confirm this is what the barrel is for.
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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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Emily, I'm not sure what combination lock you are referring to. Is it one of those old fashioned ones on a PO Box? Whether it is that one or one on a mailbox at your residence won't change my answer. I was just curious. I haven't heard that it is technically illegal to hand someone mail but I'm not versed in the legalities of this subject. I can see that the USPS may be hesitant in handing mail to someone without confirming their identity or being personally known to the employee. If you have a physical disability which prevents you from getting your mail, it would make sense to have some alternate method provided but I don't know how far the USPS is required to go in accommodating you. If you are unsatisfied with the response from your local PO, I would recommend going up the chain at your PO such as talking to the Postmaster or their boss. I don't know what their response will be given the varied nature of our personnel.
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I am not really sure of the procedure that your letter carrier is supposed to follow if your specific mail slot becomes full. I understand that they probably didn't want to bring it back to the PO where it can be held usually up to 30 days before being sent back to the senders due to a full mailbox. The carrier probably felt that it was a safe environment to leave it in the junk cubby even though that area was possibly accessible to anybody. I hope that no mail was missing that you can tell. You made no mention of that so I presume you think it was all there. Technically the letter carrier should have been on the safe side and brought the mail back to the PO since you live in a multi-unit building, but I often have the "no harm, no foul" attitude meaning it's no big deal as long as nothing looks as if it was tampered with. I know that others will disagree with me on this comment. It is similar with packages to be delivered. In the area I work in, it seems to be a very safe suburban environment so parcels are left when nobody is home as long as there is no signature required. In other areas where mail/package theft may be an issue the USPS may require somebody at an address in order to release a package.
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