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.
For the first 1-2 of hours each morning, letter carriers are busy sorting mail in delivery order so that when we go on our routes, the mail is organized. Each route has a pre-determined order of delivery and we have carrier cases (think of a desk with vertical dividers fof each address or building). After we are done sorting the mail we take it out of the carrier cases and put in trays or rubber band it so it stays organized. Before we actually put the mail in a customer's mailbox, we should be going through the mail we sorted to verify that it is the right mail going to the right house. The vast majority of the mail that we deliver is already sorted by a machine at a regional mail processing plant. The mail arrives at our local post office in delivery order (I'd say a fairly high level of accuracy) and as we go deliver the mail we merge that mail together with the mail we have sorted manually at the post office. The amount of mail we manually sort is so much lower than it used to be either because of automation or a decline in mail volume. When I started working for the USPS only letter size mailing was able to be put in order. Now we have machines that can sort flats (magazines, catalogs) in delivery order which is impressive as well.
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I am not sure, but if it is properly packaged and labeled, I think it would be fine to leave in a mailbox if it fits and no signature was required. I am imagining that it comes in a styrofoam box and inside there are some bags with the fish in them, but I really don't know.
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Great question. Since it has been many years since I have been trained to be a letter carrier, I don't remember if I was trained to make sure the box is closed. Personally, it is just common sense to close any mailbox if you can. What I mean is that sometimes the mail is too "tall" and would prevent a lid from closing completely, but I would still close the lid as much as I can. To be honest, I don't think training is that thorough when it comes to being a letter carrier. I have seen carriers just put the mail on the ground in front of a house (not even rubber-banded) because they couldn't find a mailbox or doorslot. I have also seen the mail delivered but hanging out of the mailbox in a very messy fashion when there was clearly enough room to fit it all in. Granted some mailboxes are quite small and it is impossible to fit the mail entirely inside, but I've never heard a customer complain about the mail hanging out of those small boxes. My suggestion would be either to call the PO and speak to a delivery supervisor about this or put a note on the mailbox saying "please close lid after delivering the mail". By the way, I am presuming that your mailbox is deep enough to fit even catalogs and magazines. If this isn't the case, then I do understand the mailbox lid not being closed.
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I believe it is legal to advise the USPS to not have their employees walk across your yard. It would be better to put signage up stating that is your request. While we generally aren't too enthused about not being able to cross a lawn, we need to respect the property of our postal patrons and honor such requests as long as the letter carrier can still access your mailbox and comply with your instructions not to cross your lawn.
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I don't know why it would make a difference whether or not your package had the 5-digit ZIP or the Zip + 4 digits. I don't know anybody who I work with who pays attention to it or needs to pay attention to it. If the parcel has the correct address including the apt. #, I would think that would be sufficient to get it delivered. The only suggestion I'd have is to contact the PO to mention this to them. Leaving a note in the mailbox won't help because it seems like you probably have several different letter carriers.
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I don't know for sure whether or not your fiance's boss can make him work on Sunday. I know when I was a PTF (Part-time Flexible) we did work Sunday's on occasion and during this time of year (December) it would be pretty common. He should speak to your boss and say that you already made plans to take a small trip which would include Sunday and could he possibly have off of work that day. I do understand that being a CCA is difficult with scheduling because you are expected to be available on virtually any day. Please make sure he asks off ahead of time for the wedding (If you have a date scheduled).
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That is true. On our website you can track if a package has arrived at the delivery unit (your PO) if it is an express mail piece, it maybe can be intercepted before sent out for delivery (usually by a parcel post driver or someone other than the regular carrier). Often, the Express Mail items go out for delivery not long after they arrive at the PO after the carriers have started their regular routes.
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