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.
In most apartments, just like houses, mail is delivered 6 days week (every day except Sundays and Holidays). If there is outgoing mail, it should be taken at that same time. Many apartment cluster boxes have a slot for outgoing mail. If not, the mail should be deposited in a blue collection box which are at the Post Office or in the street in various locations. With regards to asking a mail lady to sell you stamps, you can ask but we aren't required to carry stamps as city letter carriers. I carry a few with that I purchase with my own money and will put them on envelopes if someone has short-paid the postage or if they need a stamp. Sometimes I'll ask them for the money, sometimes I won't. The whole scenario doesn't happen too often. I am a stickler for the proper postage being affixed to mail so I sometimes I won't accept a letter with insufficient postage and leave a note or write on the envelope that add'l postage is required.
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As far as I know, the break rules for city carriers are similar nationwide. We are allowed 30 minutes for lunch, up to 2 10-minute breaks plus unlimited comfort breaks (to use a bathroom). It really wouldn't be odd if the carrier was home 2-3 times a day but only one time should be more than 10 minutes (lunch time). Some carriers may have a lot of downtime on their routes if they move quickly or the mail volume is light, but my experience is that it's not a huge amt of extra time. I'm sure others will disagree with me. To answer your second question, a child shouldn't be riding along in a USPS vehicle. If the carrier is using their own vehicle that may or may not be against the rules. Either way, nobody but authorized USPS employees should be touching the mail and putting it into a community box. I'm not sure how much would get done or how much this bothers you, but you could always call the Post Office and speak with a delivery supervisor, manager or Postmaster.
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I'm not sure where the slip part is but you likely mean the area below the part with the handle. I didn't think you could get a letter through there. Anyhow it's very likely that the mailman will get your letter when the collection box is emptied. The area I think you are referring to goes to the same area as if you opened the lid with the handle on the top and deposited,the envelope the correct way.
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If this is a trivia question, I don't know the answer. I don't actually know the answer either way. If this does occur it must be a pretty remote island as the USPS provides 6-day (Mon-Sat) delivery to most places in the USA.
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You could try again at your next available convenience when the PO is open and give it to a sales and service associate at the retail window. There are 2 other options I can think of: 1)Put the mail directly in the mailbox of the correct recipient. 2) Re-seal or tape the mail and put it in a blue collection box. If you want, you could put a note on the mail (like a post-it note) saying "opened by accident". Finally, you could put the mail back in your mailbox with a note saying "misdelivered" on top of the mail. Again, you could use a post-it note if you want. All in all, I'd say it's no big deal. We make errors in deliveries all the time. Many times the recipients may just discard the mail, so you are doing the correct thing by putting the mail back in the system to get correctly delivered.
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It is possible that the contents of the envelope stayed in the envelope and the item will reach its destination. If the papers fall out and there is no address on them to either return the papers to you or continue on to the intended recipient, those papers would probably wind up at a "nixie" or "dead letter" area and disposed of eventually.
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I don't know this answer since I don't work in the hiring area and don't know what the conversations are like. My guess from what I've seen is that it's not likely that a 4-day schedule will be allowed and then 2 days at school. The CCAs in our office have to sometimes work on Sunday delivering Amazon.com packages. I think that CCAs are supposed to be available on a very dynamic schedule so I don't know if you could get an agreement from the USPS to guarantee no work on the days you'd like to go to school. It doesn't hurt to ask and just because I haven't seen it done doesn't mean it's not possible. Good luck.
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