Mailman (City Letter Carrier)

Mailman (City Letter Carrier)

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.

SubscribeGet emails when new questions are answered. Ask Me Anything!Show Bio +

Share:

Ask me anything!

Submit Your Question

1237 Questions

Share:

Last Answer on February 18, 2022

Best Rated

What’s your opinion on the post master general

Asked by Billy over 4 years ago

I feel that Louis DeJoy, our newer Postmaster General is a political hack who was appointed due to his loyalty and fundraising support of President Trump. Most of our recent previous PMGs have been USPS employees, but that isn’t necessary to be able to do the job successfully. There is no doubt that our organization isn’t modern and doesn’t run that efficiently. Some changes are necessary, but the changes proposed not long before an election where a large amt of ballots will be submitted via mail bodes of a deliberate attempt to sow doubt in the USPS ability to handle the mailed ballots. Fortunately, there was a lot of pushback from the public and some courts about these changes. I don’t feel I was ever affected by them at my facility. After the 2020 election, DeJoy said he will again propose some major changes. If Trump loses the election, I’m not sure that DeJoy will even stay on the job. I don’t believe he can be fired so easily, but maybe he doesn’t even really want this job long term.

177 Votes

Who is the second person sometimes riding in the truck?

Asked by Cayla almost 5 years ago

Usually, the second person in the truck would be a supervisor doing a route delivery observation. This happens about one time per year. In our office, the supervisor often follows along with their own vehicle and may walk near you while you make your deliveries. Other times it may be a trainee who is “shadowing” a seasoned employee to learn how the job is done. In the larger delivery vehicles there is sometimes a package helper to make parcel deliveries easier and possibly more efficient. In my office, I rarely see 2 employees in one vehicle so I can’t comment much further.

177 Votes

What did you think of Trump giving the prizes to the mail carriers?

Asked by Mikey about 5 years ago

I don’t what you mean by that, but I don’t trust President Trump at all. He lies more in one day than I have in a lifetime. He seems like he’d like the USPS to fail or be privatized. You didn’t ask for this commentary, but he has failed this nation miserably in his handling of the Covid19 Pandemic. His defeat in the November, 2020 election is what I’m hoping for.

177 Votes

What would happen if a mailman got caught drinking and driving the mail truck?!

Asked by John about 5 years ago

I don’t know for sure but they would likely put on emergency placement leave which means no more USPS vehicle driving privileges until the issue is resolved. I don’t personally know of it happening to anyone but I’m sure it has. If a court of law found them guilty of driving under the influence or intoxicated, I wouldn’t mind seeing the offender losing their job. I have no sympathy for somebody doing that on the job. I don’t know that they would lose their job and our union (the NALC) would likely file a grievance to have them keep their job. I do know if 2 situations where coworkers had DUI outside of work and temporarily lost their state driver license. They were not able to drive a postal vehicle so the USPS gave them alternate duties or had another coworker drive them on their route. Both workers eventually got their licenses restored and were back to full duty but I know it costs them a huge sum of money in fees, courses, increased insurance premium plus the possible loss of their vehicle.

177 Votes

Also on Jobstr...

Football Official

Football OfficialDo you think it's ok for NFL refs to play fantasy football?

Investment Banker

Investment BankerWhat's the craziest partying you've ever seen among bankers?

Poet

PoetDoes being a professional poet pay the bills?

Keep a eye out I think there is a troll asking questions over and over look through and see how much of the questions are the same writing styles, posting links, and asking the same questions over and over in a different way among other non sense

Asked by Jessica over 4 years ago

Thanks for the heads up, Jessica. Trolls are the bain of the Internet.

176 Votes

Hey man, great response to last video I sent you. Here is another and my last one https://youtu.be/cOFxCa1DRaM what do you think?

Asked by Dkdjjdnd over 4 years ago

I’d heard about our LLV’s catching fire in the last few years. I suppose it has to do with parts maybe rusting and wiring becoming frayed. They also mentioned possibly fuel leaking out which could ignite the fire. The only thing I know about the fires from social media or the news. It would definitely be scary since you can see how thoroughly the vehicles were damaged or incinerated. Fortunately, if all goes to plan we should start to get fleet replacement vehicles in 2022 (according to the link you sent me). I’m not sure how many years it would take to manufacture 180k vehicles or whatever the contract is for. Our current fleet of LLVs were manufactured between 1987-1994. Thanks for bringing this video to my attention.

175 Votes

I know the motto is they run no matter what happens the mail comes come hell or high water. But has it ever been so bad that they delayed or even did not send mail trucks out?

Asked by Kara over 4 years ago

Kara, the unofficial motto of the USPS is: Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

It isn’t true at all. For the most part, we strive to get all of the mail routes delivered each day. Due to bad weather or staffing shortages or maybe some other reasons, we don’t always deliver the mail. The LLVs are infamously poor to drive in when there is snow on the roadway. They don’t get much traction and fishtail easily. Add an incline or decline and it becomes that much more difficult.

There was a snowstorm recently in the NY Metropolitan Area where I work. The storm increased in intensity during the morning while I was out delivering the mail. At around 1130 I received a text message on my scanning device which said “all carriers return to the post office”. We didn’t finish delivering our mail routes that day. We aren’t superheroes and I think it’s smarter for us to suspend delivery when it isn’t safe to continue so we may get home and safely return to work the next day to deliver the mail.

175 Votes

Home Browse Jobs Host a Q&A Search Blog FAQ Terms Contact

Copyright Jobstr 2014