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 for sure what would happen if a letter carrier was caught stealing or snooping through someone’s mail. If the postal inspectors are involved, they could have the employee arrested and then have a prosecutor charge them with a crime. To me, this is the same as discarding mail that you don’t want to deliver. I would like to think that most of the time, the letter carrier would be fired from the USPS, but our union often fights a termination and the employee may keep their job. I do wish we were more punitive when a postal employee tampers with the mail at all, but they sometimes just get warnings and are back on the job.
I will get out of my vehicle (known as a dismount) and walk to the mailbox and deliver the mail. I don’t know that we are required to do so and if it’s a chronic issue, I’m sure that it is annoying. Fortunately, the route I deliver doesn’t have any curbside deliveries so I only come across this scenario when filling in on other routes I just don’t like bringing back mail to the PO that should be delivered. Among my coworkers, I think it’s a mixed bag. Some will deliver to each house, no matter if the box is blocked or not. Others will skip the house and try again the next day or maybe even suspend delivery to make a point. One thing to keep in mind is that the owner of the car which is blocking a mailbox may not have anything to do with the address whose mailbox is blocked. If it’s a public street, anybody has a right to park anywhere barring any local restrictions.
I drive an LLV (Long Life Vehicle). There is no radio. Some of our newer vehicles do have radios. The ProMaster has a radio and I believe the stopgap fleet replacement vehicle made by Mercedes Benz also has a radio. I believe when we get the new massive fleet replacement vehicle it may have a radio. It’s not a big deal to me. I can listen to podcasts or music on my personal electronic device or bring a portable radio. I am not in my vehicle too much anyway as most of my delivery route is walking from house to house or getting in and out of the postal vehicle every few hours (known as dismount or scouting delivery).
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.
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I have a feeling that you might be correct about this. I have been thinking about that in the past but never decided to look into it. Maybe one day this whole site will disappear and my nearly 1200 questions answered will be for nothing. I never hear from the the siren operatoes though it never really concerned me. The sire never seems updated. I just checked their twitter account. The last posting or retweet was from 6 years ago. I certainly feel like a bit of a sucker to have continued here for so long. I’d probably have reached more people by doing a Reddit AMA. Thanks for bringing up this subject.
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.
I don’t really understand this question. Do you want to know if I asked someone in the “mailman-city etter carrier” forum a question or another profession on jobstr? The answer to both is no. It’s difficult to have a back and forth conversation here. It’s mostly someone asks me a question and I answer it. It’s not easy to have follow up here.
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