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.
Yes, we deliver on 12/24/15 Thursday. At the office where I work, we will try to be done by 1600. After that, we will next deliver mail on Saturday 12/26/15. Christmas Eve is a regular work day except that our retail window may close earlier than usual.
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If a neighborhood has cluster boxes, it's usually a group of 6-30 addresses per cluster box. I actually made up that number. Where I deliver to cluster boxes, they range from 4-16 addresses per cluster box. As the letter carrier, I have a key which opens up the cluster box fully and then i can sort all of the mail for those addresses at one time. The boxes are usually well labeled inside (with the cluster panel open) to know where to put the mail. It's important for the letter carrier to know whether to put the mail either above or below the address if the slots are stacked vertically. I have seen my fellow letter carriers, and I'm sure myself make errors in deliveries to cluster boxes. I also live in an apartment building where mail is delivered into cluster boxes near the elevators. It can get more tedious than walking from door to door delivering mail but it is more efficient to deliver mail to cluster box units.
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If you have received incorrect mail in your PO Box, you can do a few things. You can write on the envelope, "addressee unknown" and push it back through the PO Box so it lands on the floor or leave it in an outgoing mail collection box. Either way, the PO Box clerk should see that it doesn't belong to you after you have written on it and either forward it or return it to the sender. You could probably also keep the mail but that may not be ethical especially if it was important mail. I'm sure many PO Boxes get closed and the renter doesn't leave forwarding instructions.
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To be honest Henry, I don't know what happens when you drop a UPS package off in a USPS collection box by mistake. The logical thing would be for us to hand it off to UPS somehow. UPS drop boxes and drivers are pretty easy to find in NYC. You say there is no UPS tracking information that's been updated. Like you said, I doubt it will be turning up anywhere but I don't know what would happen to it unless it's sitting on some pile of errantly mailed items at a mail sorting facility. Nothing surprises me at the USPS when it comes to missing items. I hate to be a pessimist but I hear enough stories of us errantly delivering mail or packages and then who knows what the recipient does with it, if anything. I try to be very accurate and diligent with my deliveries as do most of my co-workers but it just takes a few screw-ups to ruin the journey of a package or letter which was properly mailed. I know I got off on a tangent here. Maybe you could wait another week before considering it lost or call the USPS customer service phone number. I'm not sure how much help they can be in this situation.
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I can't say for sure what should have happened with the check that was mailed to the wrong address. It is bad that the check was cashed by an unintended party. A letter carrier doesn't always know who lives at each address and there are many days where a replacement carrier or CCA (City Carrier Assistant) is delivering the mail. If I'm not sure that piece of mail should go the address on the envelope, I will likely deliver it anyway with a "?" written next to the name. Hopefully the resident at the address would put the envelope back in the mail if it doesn't belong to them and write "doesn't live here" on the outside.
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Dee, that just happened to me today. I was given part of another route to deliver, but along with the mail on the other route which I was suposed to deliver was additional mail that wasn't part of my extra assignment. Not knowing if I was approved to deliver that additional mail, I called the delivery supervisor at the Post Office and asked for further guidance. She said to go ahead and deliver it and that wouldn't be an issue with me taking longer than I was supposed to. Basically, just call the post office and ask for the delivery supervisor. When they send you out to deliver mail, your supervisor should give you the office phone number to call if there are any questions. It's pretty common for me to call the PO and vice versa if we have questions. I would hope your supervisors are just as receptive as it is part of their job to assist you with anything you may not be sure of. I also have the cell #'s of some of my co-workers who I'll call/text if I have a question they might know the answer to.
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That sounds somehwat accurate. I am no expert when it comes to administering the ODL. It also seems to change from office to office as to what counts and what doesn't count for OT. In our office if you are next up to be asked in for your NS day and you are unavailable or refuse then you'd be "marked" for an 8-hour opportunity. As for where you'd be on the list the following week, it depends how many of the other carriers in your group came in on Tuesday. If all of the other three car came in (or refused) on their NS day it's possible you'd still be first for next week. In our office the total amt of OT hrs you worked for the quarter (which would include pieces on other routes) also affects where you are placed each week on the list for the NS day. Those with the lowest amt of OT hrs in a quarter are usually asked first for their NS day. I hope this helps a little bit but your office may operate differently.
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