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.
Generally I don't think that mailmen should be photographing packages that are delivered. There are cases where I have done this, but not often. I photograph the USPS Tracking # if my handheld scanner can't read the barcode or I can't manually type in the numbers because they are smeared or otherwise unreadable. I will then bring back the image to my supervisor to see if they can figure it out or at least as a CYA to show them why I couldn't scan the item.
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If I had the mail somewhat accessible in an easy manner and if I knew who they were (which I usually do since I dsliver the same route daily) then I would hand them their mail. This doesn't happen very often though. If their house is later in the route and their mail isn't quickly accessible, I don't go out of my way to give them their mail that far ahead of time. I may make an exception if it is asked once in awhile, but not on a regular basis.
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BG, I'm not sure why you got that mail back when you wrote on it "return to sender". I have 2 suggestions for you: 1) maybe write "person doesn't live here, return to sender" instead of just "return to sender" on mail.
2) Discard/recycle any mail you get for them. You did your part by trying to return the letter to the sender (which is very nice and appropriate IMO), and you don't have to try again to return it. It wouldn't be a bad idea to try again, but I just don't want you to have to play the "revolving door" game with that letter when you shouldn't have to.
Thanks for the question.
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I am not really sure about the policy of delivering to a multi-suite building, but here is the way I see it: If your mail is specifically addressed to your suite and you are a different business than the suite/tenant on the first floor, it should be delivered directly to you. The suite on the first floor shouldn't be getting your mail. I would consider your suite a separate delivery. Again, I don't know the rules but I would treat it like an apartment building where you wouldn't be delivering your mail to a neighbor or vice versa. We are given time to sort the mail in a multi-unit building if a suite has a separate address so I don't necessarily buy the excuse of not having time to sort the world's mail. With regards to the parking, that doesn't seem to appropriate either. I have parked in No Parking Fire Zones in front of buildings if I'll just be 5 minutes or less delivering the mail. I don't think I would park in a handicapped spot. Since the supervisor doesn't care, you could speak with the Postmaster or whoever is next up on the chain of command to see if they can assist at all. As I've posted in other comments, we have a real mixed bag of employees at the USPS so your responses could vary.
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I think it is wrong for a letter carrier to make any type of judgment whether or not a piece of mail is important or not. They shouldn't be involving a neighbor since the neighbor may or may not have any type of relationship with the customer and shouldn't be privy to any of the type or content of mail received by you. When a customer puts their mail on hold, I treat all mail the same way no matter if it looks like a check, biill, automobile advertisement, donation request, etc. It is definitely not our job to judge anything about the mail and I would suggest it is very much against the rules even though your carrier meant well. Thanks for writing.
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When you purchase an item on eBay, it is similar to purchasing any other product online. You advise the seller of the address to ship the item to. The shipper will then mail the item via USPS and it will end up going to the PO that serves the destination address. Most often that is the PO that matches the city in the destination address.
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I am not sure exactly what you mean regarding taking an envelope with an old date. If you mean a postage meter date, I imagine most letter carriers don't look at the date and if the envelope doesn't appear to have been used before, they would take it. I believe that a postage meter date should reflect the date of mailing. If an envelope has a postage meter with an old date and looks to have been reused, I would refuse to take it and possibly write on it "invalid meter date or reuse of postage." I don't think I've ever encountered that situation. If an evnvelope has postage stamps and has been postmarked already, that would mean that the stamps are used and can't be used for mailing. Again, most letter carriers don't look at the date of an envelope when accepting it for mailing. Thanks for writing in with your question.
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