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.
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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Funny that this is kind of a duplicate question and we are talking about duplicates. You are doing it correctly by choosing "no" when the question comes on the MDD asking "is this a duplicate mailpiece". The next screen should say "label scanned in error" and then let you choose "delivered". I get this message when I accidentally have scanned a mailpiece twice in a row. The scanner is asking if you have 2 mail pieces with the same USPS tracking number which shouldn't happen. It has nothing to do whether or not it was ever scanned in the office by a clerk. The MDD doesn't hold that information. I think the only time you'd get two packages with identical tracking numbers is if the mailer printed out the same label twice and attached it to two separate items. This would be cheating the USPS out of revenue. I've seen this happen before but it is rare.
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Great question John. There are 2 main answers I can think of as to why you don't see letter carriers in uniform anymore. 1) There are many CCAs hired. These are non-career employees who generally don't get uniforms or a uniform allowance during the first few months of employment. CCA stands for City Carrier Assistant and are very common in urban areas that may have more turnover than suburban offices. 2) Some regular full-time letter carriers don't choose to wear a proper uniform (or any uniform at all) and the management doesn't enforce the uniform policy. In my opinion, everyone who is eligible to wear a uniform should do so and do it proudly. I wear my proper uniform daily where the one flaw would be is that they aren't too clean because it's hard to get some of the shoulder stains out from wearing a mail satchel and sweating a lot. I guess some workers don't care about looking professional and the management does nothing about it, my office included. Thanks for bringing up a good point.
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I am not sure anything can be done about it. I don't know why the neighbors would sign for the item without knowing who it was for, unless they thought they were doing the intended recipient (you, in this case) a favor. I also don't why your neighbors would open a package that clearly didn't belong to them. You could call or email the sender them that you received the package (which I think you eventually did unless your letter carrier was the one telling you the story) and that the item is damaged. I don't know if the problem can be remediated or not. If the item was sent with insurance, maybe a claim can be filed. Apartment number is sometimes as vital as the street address itself.
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Jillian, we are assigned to work at a Post Office in a particular city when we are hired. That city may have just one PO or may have several stations which we can work from. To answer your question, we choose the routes that we want to take based on seniority, which I find to be the fairest way of doing most things. It eliminates any favoritism that could occur and everything is out in the open with regards to seniority. Some carriers choose routes that have more business deliveries while others may prefer to deliver to residences or a combination. Some routes require more walking than others. Some routes are entirely driving and mail is delivered from the postal vehicle directly into a curbside mailbox. In a major urban areas some buildings could be so large that a carriers route is just one building. I have stayed with the first route that I was every able to bid on successfully. My seniority (18 years) would allow me to move onto what are considered more desirable routes when vacancies occur. I'm comfortable in what I do and I know it well and I think it's a fair days work. Some carriers are a lot more picky than others. As you can see it really depends on personalities and what one perceives as desirable. I hope this helps answer your question.
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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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I'm not sure I understand your question but I'll take a guess that you want to know the three main things we do on our job. Our main job is to sort mail (a little bit in the AM) , deliver mail and parcels and collect outgoing mail in a prescribed geographic area. It is most important we do this in a safe, professional, and courteous manner and pay attention to the addresses and deliver the mail properly. It is a fairly simple job in my opinion but can be physically challenging in harsh weather and heavy mail loads. Thank you Jacob for your question.
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