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 want to apply to be a letter carrier, the process begins at www.usps.com and look for an employment or careers tab. It has been many years since I applied so I don't know the process now. There is an exam, interview, and medical (including a drug test). I don't believe the process is that difficult based on the quality of employees that I've seen get hired lately. If you are hired as a City Carrier Assistant (CCA), you can expect to start out just filling in where needed when routes are overburdened with mail or carriers are out for some reason (injury, vacation, jury duty, military service). It means being very flexible with your schedule and sometimes working as much as 7 days/week. We have regular mail delivery Mon-Sat and then some offices deliver Amazon.com parcels on Sunday. You can apply anytime for the position so I wouldn't necessarily drop college right away. Earning a degree can make you more marketable in other feels. Working as a letter carrier doesn't require any higher education as far as I know. When you start out the pay is approximately $16/hr and there are virtually zero benefits except a small amount of paid time off. There is hardly any guarantee of hours to work and it could take awhile before you become a full-time regular employee which can be worthwhile. I do really like the job, but I did get a bachelors degree many years earlier. I didn't know what career I wanted to have and ultimately wound up at the USPS when I was 27 years old with a lot of encouragement from my father and friends. Working safely and accurately are two important attributes to the job. Good luck to you and please post any more questions you may have!
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I am going to have to pass on answering this question with any authority because I don't know the union contract when it comes to this subject. It's also possible that a local agreement governs what is done. It makes sense to me that an unassigned regular can hold down a vacant route until it is put up for bid. They also shouldn't be bumped off that route unless it's the non-scheduled day for that route. In that situation the comp person would usually do the route on the day they are supposed to. If there is no available routes to do on a comp persons group of 5 routes there is usually another route for them to cover. The above is just based on what I've seen done at the PO where I work. I can't even say that my info is accurate. We usually treat hold downs to mean that the carrier holding it down has many of the rights as the regular carrier on the route, but not necessarily all. This is where it gets confusing to me about bumping rights.
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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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It's pretty rare but sometimes a phone number is printed on the outside of the envelope. I've never heard of a mailman calling a customer to tell him about a certified letter but that doesn't mean it can't happen. If we can't deliver a certified letter the normal procedure is to leave a form called a PS 3849 in your mail receptacle informing you of our delivery attempt and how to go about receiving the certified letter. If I were you I'd ignore the VM unless they were very specific and it's something you were expecting. They also could have looked up your phone number but it's not part of our normal procedure and if it was a mobile # it wouldn't show up on any directory.
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I don't think we should refuse delivery for that but I can't say for sure what we are allowed to do. As long as I felt that the door was secure enough and the dog wouldn't get out I would make the delivery. When you say you've never received a notice, do you mean you have never been told that the dog is an issue? I'm not sure what kind of notice you mean. Maybe the letter carrier refused mail delivery and never said the dog was an issue. I have a few places where I deliver to very loud barking dogs but I have never really had to refuse delivery due to this. It is often stressed by postal management to be very careful near dogs so I can understand if a letter carrier is apprehensive about it, but I can't say what they should do in the situation you described.
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It depends on what other job/career options you may have and how they compare with the USPS. I have somewhat of a bias because I enjoy working here and it has been a great career. I do realize, however, that being a CCA isn't easy and it's a non-career position and only pays moderately to begin (currently $16.06/hr). Regarding the USPS financial situation, I don't think that should impact your choice. The USPS isn't going away anytime soon. While I'm sure it's losing plenty of $$ often there is still as much work as I can remember. There will likely be changes that happen years from now but I don't know what they'd look like. I've never seen a layoff or RIF since I've been employed by the USPS. Good luck to you Hobbz whichever job/career path you choose.
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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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