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 come across that situation very often. It is true that on many routes the mail is delivered at approximately the same time daily. There is no actual "on time" for mail to be delivered during the day. We just have an end of day deadline to meet for finishing out route and a prescribed order to deliver the mail. Like you said, some days the mail volume is higher (or our staffing levels are lower) which may result in a later delivery time. I would address the situation by explaining the above to the customer. I never get angry back and always remain calm. Nowadays so many financial transactions can be done electronically that I don't believe I deliver too many checks and trend will only likely continue. I appreciate the question.
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Not to my knowledge, they will not back date postage for items that were supposed to be postmarked previous days. I don't think it would be legal to be done but I can't say that a worker would never back date postage. I've never been in this situation but I would likely refuse any request for me to to do that since that may put my job at risk for falsifying a postmark date and that is usually not worth the risk.
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I don't know of any way to stop a delivery once it has been sent out by the sender. You could always refuse the item and leave it back out for the letter carrier with a note saying "refused..return to sender" and that should work.
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I don't know that the mailman would have taken it. Is your mailbox locked? I don't recommend using your mailbox for anything but mail. It may not be legal but it is unlikely that there is a penalty for leaving the key in the mailbox, except the key disappearing for whatever reason.
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n the blue collection box, you can put a package with pre-paid postage if it is metered from a computer program like click 'n ship or Business Reply Mail. The 13 oz limit applies if the package only contains stamps. If it is greater than 13oz and only contains stamps it must be presented to a postal employee. This is due to aviation security regulations
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I don't think there is any penalty for the letter carrier to pay anything out of pocket. I've never heard of this happening with respect to a First Class Mail Parcel going missing. It is usually hard to prove that a mail carrier actually had possession of the parcel and then didn't deliver it. I know the scans are meant for tracking an item but it may not prove internally who had possession of the parcel. This is different from a registered or certified item which we sign for when we take possession of them. The item could go missing anywhere along in the mail stream. I suppose if one particular mail carrier had several complaints that parcels on their route were missing it would raise some eyebrows and there would need to be an investigation as to the rate of missing parcels. I've never heard of it happening where I work, but I'm sure there are some letter carriers who aren't very honest. I still don't know how one could get away with taking multiple parcels without being caught. Then again, I don't have that kind of mindset so I'm a bit naive when it comes to this subject.
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As a regular city carrier, your work day is 8 hours plus 30 min. Or 1 hr. lunch. You can't go home if you finish your route early. Rural carriers can get off as soon as they finish their route. For some that may be as little as 5 hrs/day. they are paid on a different pay schedule which is based more on mail volume than time on the clock.
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