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's hard to say whether or not the job will be too physical or not for you. In the office where I work, there are a few heavier women who have recently been hired and are doing well. They sometimes come back from delivering and look wiped out but can still do the job. It also may depend on how much walking the job entails. In some offices the letter carriers drive a delivery vehicle all day and don't have to carry a satchel with mail on their shoulders. I recommend getting as much rest as possible the night before work and eat properly. When starting out, however, don't overdo it in terms of physical exertion. If you start to feel ill, slow down stay hydrated. I don't want to mislead you and say that everyone can handle this job physically, but I've seen many people who look out of shape so just fine as letter carriers. Good luck to you!
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I don't know how long you get to deliver a certified letter, but 3 minutes sounds reasonable to me per address. If the recipient is not home, it does take time to fill out a PS Form 3849 properly to leave in their mailbox. If the recipient is home, they need to sign the MDD and possibly a return receipt which also takes a bit of time. It also takes time to wait at a customer's door once you ring a door bell or knock. My general answer is however long it takes you to properly attempt/deliver a certified letter is what it takes. I don't know of any official time variances. I don't fill out PS Form 3849 in the office because there is a chance you won't need to leave a notice so it's wasting time to prepare them in the office before attempting delivery.
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Most letter carriers wear a USPS-funded and approved uniforms. After a few months of employment, we are given an annual allowance to buy uniforms which includes outerwear, footwear, and other accessories. If you are a rural carrier or a newer carrier, you may wear your own clothes. If you did a web search for USPS City Letter Carrier uniforms and clicked on "images", it should give you a good idea of what a uniform looks like.
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They do make a difference. By affixing a Priority Mail sticker, you are required to pay the Priority Mail rate which can be much higher than the standard parcel post rate or what I think is called retail ground. Priority Mail is given excellent treatment as far as how it is transported from origin to destination and there is a very high likelihood that the item will be delivered within 1-3 days of mailing depending on the destination. If the sticker is affixed to an item but there isn't sufficient postage to cover the Priority Mail rate, the parcel will be either returned to the sender for being "short paid" or an attempt to collect the underpayment from the recipient as "postage due".
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I don't know of any rule against this. I haven't seen it in my office much (or at all) but several letter carriers (4 I think) live in the towns where we service.
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If you dropped the letter at the PO at 3:45 PM, there is an excellent chance that the letter would be collected out of the box the same day (assuming it was M-F) and then sent to a local mail processing facility to be sorted and then sent to its destination. This usually takes two days if it's in the same city to get from the origin to destination. It used to be a one-day delivery standard but I think many places now operate on a two-day standard for First-Class mail in the same city.
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I don't know officially how long you have to learn a new route before you're expected to be efficient. I would estimate up to about 3 weeks before you get to know it real well. Some people excel and catch on at a quicker pace then others. As far as I know there is no official amount of time before you are expected to learn a route. On the route I currently deliver I was the floater for that route before I got to do it full-time. What that means is that I filled in for the regular carrier on their day off or when they were on vacation or sick. In my case I knew the route quite well when I was awarded it full time upon the retirement of the previous letter carrier on that assignment.
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