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.
In my experience it isn't too common for anyone to get terminated for anything. I mean people are given a letter of removal but the union often will appeal that and the carrier is reinstated. If it isn't the first time something happened that was the carrier's fault it may be more difficult to appeal successfully. If you are a CCA it is probably easier to fire you if you get in an at-fault accident. I don't recall any letter carriers at my office ever being terminated for an at-fault MVA. I can't speak for any of the other thousands of offices nationwide. Drive carefully, defensively and don't be distracted.
You can give a mailman any package that has the postage paid on it either via a computer printed label (such as Click 'N Ship) or a label where the recipient will pay the return postage. In the latter case, the label will clearly say "No Postage Necessary If Mailed Within The United States". Every letter carrier should accept the package no questions asked. The exception to this would be a city letter carrier who may not have a USPS vehicle which they are operating from and are unable to bring the package back to the Post Office. In that case I believe you can go to www.usps.com to schedule a package pickup. The mailman usually won't take a package back to a specific address until it is processed through our mail distribution system. Most of the time we just accept any package or mail along our delivery routes and bring back to the post office where we work from and it gets dispatched to a mail distribution center for processing. Thanks for writing.
That sounds absolutely wrong what is done. The only time that a worker can open a package that i know of is if it is Media Mail. That class of mail is subject to inspection if a worker wants to verify that the contents qualify for the Media Mail rate. Does the worker say why he opens then packages? I haven't heard of your situation before.
Thank you for the NALC information. Definitely see if you can file a grievance for the mgmt not giving out Progressive Discipline. Again, if it is a big mistake like leaving the engine running or having a motor vehicle accident, maybe that couLD go straight to a letter of removal.
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I'm sure each Post Office has a slightly different dispatch schedule for mail being sent off to a P&DC (Processing and Distribution Center). I think that our Post Office dispatches the mail 2-3 times per day. I don't think that something mailed in the morning gets to its destination sooner than a letter which is collected prior to our final dispatch which is usually around 6PM. We have service levels which basically say if a letter or parcel is mailed on a certain date (before a final dispatch) that it should reach its destination by a certain date. This is usually 1-3 days depending on the distance between the origination and destination Post Office and the class of mail that is being sent (1st Class, Priority, Express, Parcel Post, etc).
Nobody should be putting your mail on hold for 10 days without your permission unless there was some obstruction to your mailbox which would prevent delivery. I believe that via USPS.com somebody could technically put a hold mail request pretending to be you, but that wouldnt be legal and haven't heard of that occurring. I hope you can find out why this happened.
I don't know anything about the rules/laws in Canada about redirecting mail to another address just with a note. Are you okay with this? If so, then if it happens, so be it. If you don't want this or the Canada Post doesn't operate that way, then I guess it's more of an issue. I know I wouldn't abide by a letter like this. In the United States for mail to be put in another addresses mailbox (legally), a forwarding order has to be submitted with the US postal service and then the mail will be properly redirected, even if it is just a next door neighbor. I have one customer on the route I deliver that owns 2 houses adjacent to each other. One of them is for sale. Once that house is sold, I will need to have a forwarding order submitted to have mail forwarded from the sold house to the unsold house (if that's what they want). Thanks for the question.
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