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 don't know about this. You can request anything of the USPS, but it's probably a matter of policy or your individual letter carrier as to whether or not they will do that for you. We usually refrain from allowing people to pickup mail on any regular basis at the PO unless you go away on vacation, put your mail on "hold" and then pick up the mail at a future date (and that can be done just once per "hold" request). If your landlord would just be away for a few days, I'd deliver the mail to your personal home temporarily, but this has rarely come up for me and I can't comment for sure how others would respond to a similar request.
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From what you described there should be no problem in your landlord eventually receiving the check. It's possible that the letter carrier took the envelope thinking it was outgoing mail. Since it had a stamp on it and the landlord as a receiving address, they will likely get the check in a couple of delivery days. If a letter carrier sees an unstamped envelope in a mailbox they will often take it as outgoing mail without looking at the destination address. Thanks for your question.
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Sure you can keep your uniforms as far as I know, some carriers donate uniforms to other carriers, especially if it is unused or if it's outerwear. A carrier who just retired from my PO gave me a rain jacket. Some Union branches or offices have uniform closets for items no longer needed by ole tyre carriers. The choice is yours. I just don't know where you would wear most of the items that have the USPS insignia if you aren't employed there anymore.
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It depends when you drop the letter in the blue collection box. If it is before the daily pickup time (which is usually posted on a label somewhere on the box) then it is likely going to be on the same dispatch truck as if you put the letter in a box at the PO. The truck then goes to a centralized mail processing facility. If you put the letter in a blue collection mailbox after the daily cutoff time posted on the mailbox, but the local PO is still open, you'd probably be better off bringing the letter there for mailing. At most POs you can probably bring in letter up until 1700 for same-day processing.
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I will certainly tell you my experience, but keep in mind that everybody is different in how they handle a job and how hard they want to work and under what conditions. To sum up before I get into the details, I really like the job a lot, but the management and some co-workers aren't so great. When you first start out as a letter carrier, you will likely be a CCA , a city carrier asst, which doesn't guarantee you too many hrs/week, lower pay ($15.50/hr apprx) and minimal benefits. As time goes on and others retire or leave the USPS for various reasons you'd become a FT regular letter carrier with a guarantee of 40 hrs/wk minimum plus health, retirement, paid time off benefits. The pro of the job for me is that you get decent pay and benefits and security for a job that requires a low amt of education (though I do have a college degree), exercise on walking routes and much of the day (apprx 6 hours) away from the office not having to deal with co-workers or management who can be vile or aggravating. There are some very nice people I work with. I generally just see my co-workers for a couple of hours in the AM and maybe 10-20 minutes before we go home at apprx 4:30 PMG. Over the years I've had some health issues which required extended absences. While I can't say the employer was great to deal with during the absence I didn't worry about losing my job and was paid for some of the time I was out (using paid sick leave). Depending on where you work geographically, weather can be issue and you need to be prepared to be outside for many hours per day. The staffing at my office has been a bit low for awhile and there is a lack of quality workers replacing them. This has resulted in a lot of Overtime work available (a good thing or me), but also a lot of mandatory work even for those who don't want it (not so good). It's also difficult to get time off unless you have a vacation block picked out. I also happen to be a bit of a perfectionist with regards to delivering mail accurately and this job works well with my organizational skills. From my experience, more people like to be negative about the job than positive. I understand some of their complaints and feelings, but I choose to be positive and grateful for what I have and not dwell on the little stuff. I tune out then negativity the best I can and do my job. Good luck to you and please ask any more specific questions if you have them.
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I don't know what is technically the protocol for a carrier reminding themselves that a house is on hold. You make a good point. Most of our carriers have hold notes or cards they sequence in with the mail nearby so when they arrive at the house on hold, they would know to skip it. The note or card is then brought back to the PO for use the next day. I just memorize it from when I prepare the mail in the PO in the AM, but I would usually have no more than 10-15 houses at once who are on hold and their mail usually is left behind at the PO so there would be nothing to deliver even if I forgot the house was on hold.
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I think what you are asking me is if your landlord can put a stamp on an envelope and put it directly in your mailbox. I don't know the answer to that but mail should probably be processed through our mail delivery system. By putting postage on the envelope they are paying to have something put in a mailbox so I'm not sure that it's technically wrong. There is a possibility that if its in your mailbox with uncanceled postage on it, a letter carrier may assume it's outgoing mail and take it with them as we usually don't look at the destination address for outgoing mail. Thank you for writing.
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