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.
You're welcome. I just always like to state here that I have never read the National Agreement between the USPS and the National Association of Letter Carriers so a lot of what I say is based on what I've seen at my particular PO as well and by attending some local union meetings. I do a little research online but I'm not lawyer and am not dedicated enough to research deeply to see if there are rules on certain issue mentioned in the National Agreement. Congratulations on getting a route assignment.
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John, I would say it breaks a code of confidentiality that we are expected to maintain as letter carriers. We are rarely reminded of this but I'm pretty sure we shouldn't give out that information. As to whether it's illegal or not I can't comment on that. In the past I have given out little bits of information about some neighbors to others but it's rare and I shouldn't have done that. I do realize that some neighbors are friends with each other and others aren't. It's always better to be on the safe side as a letter carrier not to give out information about anyone else. One can't get in trouble that way. On another note, I rarely would comment to a customer as to what I'm delivering them when I see them. For example,I wouldn't say "your phone bill is here or looks like your wife was ordering from Kohl's again". As much as those comments may seem benign I try to be mostly professional when speaking with customers.
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I can't say for sure what your letter carrier would do if you wrote that note. I'm not even sure what I'd do. I don't always pay attention to notes written by customers because some of them are ones we aren't allowed to honor. An example would be "no junk mail". Who am I to judge what is or isn't junk mail. Furthermore, we are paid to provide a service by the mailer, not the recipient. I realize that isn't your question. I generally will put any package in a mailbox that fits. Other than that, I will leave it by the front door. I rarely come across any notice re: package placement for a customer but perhaps I'd leave it at the side of the house if it was easy and safe to access and didn't take much longer of time. As I say with most of my answers, I can't comment what another letter carrier would do. It wouldn't hurt to leave the note and see what happens.
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I'm sorry to hear about your relationship not doing well with your boyfriend. It is horrible that he will mark your mail "return to sender" without your permission. I don't know the legality of what he is doing or if charges can be filed. You could contact your local PO and advise them of the situation, but I have no idea what can be done about it. The practical, but not necessarily convenient or affordable, way to resolve this is to rent a PO Box which only you'd have access to.
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I'm not sure why you have recently started getting standard mail addressed to a tenant from 5 years ago. It's possible that name and address was on somebody's mailing list which was then sold to other companies/organizations. One option is to put the mail back in the mailstream or mailbox and write "person doesn't live here" on the envelope. A conscientious letter carrier would make note of it and only deliver mail addressed to you (the current tenant). Another option is to just discard/recycle the unwanted mail. Most standard mail doesn't get returned to the sender if unwanted by the recipient. We put it into a big recycle bin at work and I think it gets shipped off to a processing or recycling facility. The rate a mailer pays for standard mail usually doesn't include any type of address or return service to notify them of outdated names on their mailing lists.
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Now you're speaking my language Patty. This is exactly how I deliver much of my postal route. The mailboxes where I deliver mail are at the door as opposed to at the street. If the mailboxes are at the street, the letter carrier can usually remain in their vehicle and go house to house. That is called a mounted or curbside delivery method. When the houses aren't too far apart and are on both sides of the street, I'll park at the end of a block, walk down one side delivering the mail, cross over to the other side and return to my vehicle after delivering both sides of the street. That is called a relay. From the same parking spot, I can sometimes deliver up to 3 relays of mail. The method described is called the 'park and loop' method. It is efficient because you can often cross lawns without having to continuously walk to the street and move the vehicle. The relays on the route I deliver range in length from 14-28 houses.
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It's not true that we deliver in all conditions no matter what. If a letter carrier thinks it is too dangerous to deliver mail to an address they can refuse to do so no just need to tell the supervisor when they return to the post office. It's rare that I'd not deliver mail, but some of my co-workers may not try as hard to deliver the mail. It's usually better to try and get the mail delivered. This way we don't have to bring it back another day with even more mail. I'm not sure why they request mail to be picked up. If there is road construction it is sometimes difficult to get to houses, or roads could be flooded, or snowed out. We are supposed to attempt delivery each day to each address. Our unofficial motto has to do with delivering mail in all comditions, but that is a bit more folklore than reality.
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