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.
It should come to your residential address. There are probably millions of people who run businesses from their home address and it's no issue as far as I know to receive mail at a residential address for a business. If you were concerned about this, you could put a visible note inside or on your mailbox with the name of your company or saying "accepting mail for (insert name of company) so that there is no confusion to your letter carrier. There really shouldn't be any confusion. I just deliver the mail by address and if the recipient or company name is incorrect they could leave the mail out for me to have it returned to the sender.
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I'd recommend that if you received the mail for someone who previously lived at your residence but didn't put in a forward for you to put the mail back in your mailbox and you can write on it "moved" or "doesn't live here anymore". The letter carrier should take it and not redeliver it to you. You also have the option to discard since nobody would really know but I feel that is the wrong thing to do. By putting the mail back in the mailbox you alert the letter carrier that the person has moved from that address.
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I can't quote the statute that says it is illegal for the letter carrier to discuss with others the fact that your sister was in jail, however it is entirely inappropriate and probably against postal regulations re: sanctity and confidentiality of the mail. I see mail going to/from prison while delivering the mail but never say a word to anybody about it. I'm not sure if you want to discuss it with your letter carrier to tell him how wrong it was to say anything to anybody. I also don't know it it would go anywhere if you complained to the USPS about his behavior. Legally, you may also need proof or witnesses if in fact it is illegal what the letter carrier divulged to others. I know I'd be very upset if I found out my letter carrier was talking about things they should be confidential about, but not sure what avenue I would take to resolve it.
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Thanks for the compliment PK. I've been delivering mail for more than 16 years now. I've had a lot of personal ups and downs, mostly off the job, but glad to have continued to work and have the job security of the USPS. If you mean delivering mail for 7 hours, I think that would be hard for most people. But if you mean 7 hours street time that is a bit different because then you'd factor in loading time,lunch and breaks and travel time to/from your route. The route I deliver is approximately 6:40 total but only 5:20 Apprx is actually delivering mail. It's not too exhausting except if the mail load is heavy. My hints are to try to be as organized as you can, don't engage in too much small talk with the customers, and get a good nights rest and have a healthy breakfast. That all works for me. Everybody is different plus the difficulty of the route may vary between cities. I deliver on a flat terrain besides walking up steps to the mailboxes. If you have to walk a lot of hills that could make you more tired. Good luck to you and what might be a 7-hour route could take you longer or shorter based on the above factors.
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Yes, I've heard of nothing to the contrary and I know that many of the younger letter carriers have tattoos and piercings.
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I can't say for sure why the drastic difference in the time your mail is delivered. If it's the same letter carrier who is coming at different times I can see a couple of hours difference but your description is up to 5.5 hrs difference. Normally the mail is sorted before we start delivering. Any mail which we pick up during the day as outgoing mail doesn't need to be separated. We just bring it back and give it to a dispatch clerk. At times we are shorthanded at the USPS so that results in us doing additional assignments possibly before delivering our own routes. This could be up to a couple of hours but that doesn't seem to be the norm where I work. Please remember that I can't speak for what happens at other postal facilities. One further comment is that we are supposed to deliver the mail in a specific route order. If your letter carrier doesn't do that it could result in different delivery times. The holiday season for cards isn't as busy as it used to be. We now deliver a significant quantity of parcels which could also take up time.
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Liz, I am no expert in giving advice on how to get more work as an RCA. I believe if you work, you get one-day of pay. There are no partial days. The nature of being a Rural Carrier Asssociate is that there are no guarantees of hours that I'm aware of per week. You are utilized to cover days off for career rural carriers if they call in sick, have annual leave, or have a day off each week or every other week. It can be frustrating not getting much work. My advice is to have a great attitude, be prompt in your attendance for work and do as accurate a job as possible when delivering the mail. Each office is different in how much work the employees get, especially when it's a non-career position like RCA or CCA (City Carrier Assistant). If there are CCA positions available nearby, you may want to consider it. They may work more frequently and can be paid for part of a workday if there are only a few hours of work available. From what I observe and read on FB groups, most CCAs are overworked, not underworked (which is your situation). Another option is to see if any RCA work is available in nearby Post Offices. We have one RCA who works in at least 2 Post Offices. Please mention to the manager or Postmaster that you are eager to have any available work as an RCA. Good luck and please be patient. You are brand new to the USPS.
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