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.
Letter carriers sometimes have a choice to move to other neighborhoods/assignments based on a seniority-based bidding process. As other carriers retire or move on to other assignments this creates vacancies to be filled, often by lesser-seniority personnel. Sometimes there are newer employees who may be on the same route for awhile just filling in for someone who may be on Long-term leave for illness or injury or military leave. I have been on the same route for 15 years and can stay on it indefinitely unless there is an office reorganization. I can also bid to another route (if I prefer to) if a vacancy is available to be filled and my seniority is enough to move to that route.
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Thanks Jessica. It’s not me in the photo. I’m not sure if I could put up a photo (I mean I don’t know if it’s an option). I wouldn’t put one up though because I’m not authorized to speak on behalf of the USPS and would prefer my id isn’t known to anybody who may call me out for doing this and tell me to cease or possibly discipline me. It also allows me to be openly critical and honest where I feel it’s warranted. I’m sure the letter carrier liked that you came onto him. I don’t think I’d mind either if I liked the woman. I will now call you “homewrecker”. Absolutely just kidding.
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Harris, for last couple of years the number of catalogs and magazines we deliver has decreased quite a bit so they generally aren't a pain at all. Some weekly circulars have loose ads that are oversize or fall out of the main circular and those can be messy, but in the whole scheme of things aren't too bad. Some people love to complain about anything so I'm sure if you poll my coworkers you'll get different answers. Just this past week, IKEA distributed their yearly catalog to many residents where I deliver mail. These are pretty thick, but since that day didn't have a lot of other catalogs or circulars it ran smoothly. It was a heavier than usual load due to the IKEA catalogs, but we only get them yearly and I can't think of another catalog mailers that puts out such thick catalogs in such quantities. In case you missed it, Victoria's Secret ceased mailing any catalogs earlier this year and they were a large mailer of catalogs in the past, I'm sure other catalog companies are following suit as they realize many consumers prefer to browse online. This is a great question. I feel the future for print advertising will continue to decline, but it may not be too precipitous. Another big catalog mailer is Bed, Bath, and Beyond though their ads are very thin so don't add much weight.
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I have heard of this happening before. A customer showed me her Informed Delivery email and the image of an item that should've been delivered that day but wasn't. I said I had no idea why the letter wouldn't be in the mail but asked her to wait until the following day to see if the letter would arrive. The letter did arrive the next day so that issue was resolved. I hope it is the same case with your missing paycheck. I overheard from a supervisor what the problem would be. Apparently the letter is imaged somewhere in the automated mail sortation process before the very last step of being placed in a tray of mail in delivery sequence. This is one possible reason why the letter was not in the mail delivery the day it should have been. It is also possible that the letter is missorted by our automation and/or misdelivered. Hopefully this isn't too common of an occurrence when compared to the quantity of mail delivered each day. I hope this helps and thanks for writing.
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I use an LLV built by the Grumman corporation in the mid 1990s. Our office mostly has LLVs but more recently some carriers use a Dodge ProMaster which has a lot more capacity but isn't appropriate for curbside (mounted) delivery or dismount deliveries because it's a left hand drive vehicle (what most vehicles in the US are). We also have 2-ton USPS vehicles which are used by our mail collectors and parcel post drivers. I am only trained to drive an LLV of the 3 vehicles I mentioned. I feel most comfortable because it's also the smallest and most maneuverable. The main drawback is that in snowy or icy conditions it's very hard to control the vehicle safely.
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There are two reasons I can think of that there would be a rider in the middle seat. The first reason would be that a supervisor was riding along for part of the day which they may do once a year or so. Sometimes they just follow along in their own vehicle. The other reason would be if a new hire (CCA) was learning on the job from a carrier trainer and going out to deliver for the day with the trainer. Those are the two reasons I can think of. I guess another reason is if there were many packages to be delivered a helper could ride along but I’ve yet to ever see that in my office with a regular LLV (long life vehicle). That is usually done with a larger delivery vehicle or our new Dodge Promasters. Thank you for writing in with a question.
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I think that is probably the case that the carrier put your name on the blue tape inside of the mailbox. I believe this is very common in apt buildings or cluster box units. The reason for this is probably so the carrier knows what name to deliver to your mailbox even though one could argue that all names should be delivered unless a known forwarding request is on file. In general I think it’s a good idea to have the current residents name(s) inside a mailbox to provide more accurate service though I know some people will disagree with me. On the postal route I deliver, there are no names inside of the mailboxes. I deliver to all single family houses.
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