Mailman (City Letter Carrier)

Mailman (City Letter Carrier)

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.

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1237 Questions

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Last Answer on February 18, 2022

Best Rated

if you are a us postal service worker can you solicit your own business while delivering your route?

Asked by Pepito over 10 years ago

I think it is inappropriate to solicit your own business while delivering a route for the USPS. I haven't heard of anyone being disciplined for doing this, but I would think that it is technically not allowed. I know of a couple of co-workers who do home improvements, landscaping, or sprinkler work as side jobs but don't know if they actually try to get business while delivering mail. If they want to do a postcard mailing to try and get business I suppose that would be fine as long as proper postage was paid for the mailing and they didn't just put their own postcards in mailboxes while delivering the mail and not affixing postage to it.

The mail man came to my house before I could put the 2 letter I needed to mail out so I chased him down since I heard the truck. He looked at the 2 letters and then dumped it into a white bin by his legs. Is this what's supposed to happen?

Asked by Kim about 10 years ago

Kim, that is generally what would happen if you came up to my postal vehicle to hand me outgoing letters. I have a small square tray which is raised on 4 sides where I put the outgoing letters and bring back to the post office for dispatch. Some use a bin or a larger tray depending on the outgoing mail volume. So in a word, nothing to worry about it and good question.

If the adress on the envelope of the letter I'm trying to send dosent match my address will the mail man still take it?

Asked by Emely over 10 years ago

They should take it. I've never heard of that being an issue. As long as there is sufficient postage it should be accepted. I think most letter carriers don't even look at the to/from address on an envelope when they collect mail from a person or collection box. Furthermore, I know of no requirement to even have a return address on anything that is mailed. Thanks for your question.

I am a unit owner in a 114 unit condo. An owner operates a rental business in her unit. She has erected a "hotel" sign and has all 114 owners mail delivered to her, and then delivers the mail to each unit. Is this illegal?

Asked by jmasick@hotmail.com about 11 years ago

I am not familiar with any rules that would or wouldn't allow this. On the surface it seems odd that you wouldn't be able to receive your mail directly from the USPS, but this may be the way the condo is set up. When you say an owner operates a rental business in her unit, do you mean she arranges for people to rent other condo units short-term, kind of like a rental agent? Either way, I'm not sure how this affects mail delivery. An alternative to having your mail delivered to this single unit would be to rent a PO Box. Sure it is more costly than just getting your mail delivered to the condo complex, but there is reliability and privacy/security with a PO Box.

Daughter of a deceased employee submitted an employee generated mlna with letter attached indicating father had past. I did mlna on the mail, then 2 days a fwd was put thru. Do l now fwd or mlna and will that mlna come back in dps or to office.

Asked by jvitto48 over 10 years ago

I would forward any mail you receive from this point forward since you now have a valid COA for that former employee who is now deceased. Any mail that was previously put through with the MLNA may not come back at all and was returned to the sender. If the mail happens to come back to your office I would then forward it. This is all just my opinion. I'd ask the clerk who handles forwards in your office or a supervisor, but they may also just give an opinion without knowing if there is a correct procedure.

Can my mailman hand my package to my neighbor for her to give to me, without my permission ?

Asked by sunnywithachanceofrain over 10 years ago

I generally wouldn't do that unless I knew the neighbors were friends with each other and could be trusted to give the package to the correct recipient. I've never been in this situation since I can leave packages at a customers house without someone home to receive it. I don't know technically what we are allowed to do without your permission but we are trusted to protect the US mail and deliver it safely to the correct address.

If the mail man doesn't find the address does he keep the mail at post office?

Asked by Tenzin chonyi over 10 years ago

Maybe for a day or so to see if anybody in the PO knows where that address is. Being that I deliver mail to the same neighborhood each day I know if a piece of mail has a valid address on it or not. It's possible if there is a replacement letter carrier delivering mail on a certain day and they can't find an address they will bring back the mail and then possibly the regular letter carrier on the route or somebody else would know where the address is. More often than not when mail has an address that can't be found (or the address doesn't even exist), we will endorse the mail as "NSN" which means "No Such Number" and it will be returned to the sender. The USPS has a national database of all valid addresses so we usually know at the PO if an address exists or not.