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.
If you mean that you live in an apartment complex or community where it is served by a cluster box which contains many addresses then I can tell you it isn't illegal at all to walk up to a letter carrier. It actually never is unless you plan to threaten or harm the individual and that could result in you doing something illegal. If we are putting mail into a cluster box (aka NDBCU) it could be annoying to us if we have a lot of mail to sort plus we may not give you your mail directly. I hope this answers your question.
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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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Kathy, usually they aren't in trouble when being followed. It's a fairly normal procedure done 1x a year. As far as giving him a good review, you could write a letter to the Postmaster at your local Post Office where Ken works or possibly the website www.usps.com has a "contact us" option. To be honest I don't know what would happen with such a letter, but I hope that Ken would at least hear about it and get a copy. If you don't see Ken being followed in the future you can rest assured he probably wasn't in trouble. I realize that you often aren't home when he makes the mail delivery.
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I don't have the answer because it differs from person to person. If the substitute carrier is conscientious and verifies the address on the mail the mailbox that he's leaving the mail in then it would probably be a low difference between the two. Some regular carriers make plenty of mistakes because they are in a hurry or maybe don't care. I am very conscientious but still make mistakes. When a substitute delivers my route, the results vary. Some days you think "great job" and other days it's "why don't they read the address and be more careful". Misdeliveries are a big pet peeve of mine. One reason is that you don't know if the errant recipient will put the mailpiece back for correct delivery or may just ignore or discard it. I don't feel enough education is put to our employees how important proper mail delivery is. I am fortunate now to have the same substitute carrier each week if I'm off and not asked to work overtime. He is very conscientious and reads all of the carrier alert cards I give him. Other substitute carriers have been good and bad.
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In the LLV, which is the most common vehicle for delivery that is used, there is no second seat. The exception to that is that at our post office we up have 1 Long Life Vehicle with a seat in the cargo area which is behind the mail tray that is in the front left of the vehicle. We use that vehicle as a spare in case one breaks down or is needed by auxiliary help. The other reason it is used is when a supervisor comes with you for the day to inspect your route delivery. Sometimes they will follow you in their own car, but they often will just sit in the second seat. The cargo area opens up to the drivers area with a sliding door which I leave open all of the times.
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Usually a point of delivery that has been establish (whether it be a group of cluster boxes in a trailer park or individual mailboxes at each trailer) doesn't get changed easily. I wouldn't accept a request like that to be made as that makes us less efficient and if it's done for one customer, others could claim they want it delivered to the house as well.
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Generally it would be up to 3 days for a letter to be delivered if mailed from CA to WI. To answer your question, the letter mailed on Monday AM should be delivered on Thursday. I'm not sure about this but I think First-class Mail standards are 2-4 days for delivery.
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