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.
Sparky, again you're welcome regarding this forum. It can get a bit exhausting trying to keep up on the many questions asked, but I rarely get more than a couple per day. Furthermore, I volunteered to do this so I have nothing to complain about. On the route each day I carry a couple of pens, some scrap paper if I need to make some notes, water, my lunch, and sunglasses. I happen to have some stamps in my wallet and will give them to customers on occasion, but that's rare. Most of the time they have the envelopes ready to be mailed with the proper postage. I also don't want them to get in the habit of them thinking it's part of my job to have stamps with me, because it isn't. Fewer and fewer people are mailing letters these days and are paying their bills electronically. I don't see anything wrong with a CCA using a GPS on their smartphone to navigate to/from routes. The USPS should really be giving you a map with directions if you are unfamiliar with a route, but I am pretty sure our CCAs use their own GPS to get around the town. Since I do the same assignment each day and know it automatically I can listen to an ipod while delivering the route. I don't know if this is actually allowed but I think it should be. I only have one earbud in at any time. I think I'd get bored pretty quickly if I didn't listen to something (music/podcasts) while delivering the mail. The postal vehicle I drive doesn't have a working cigarette lighter outlet to charge up my PED so I am careful about not draining the battery during the day or I can carry a portable battery supply(but have never actually had to use it).
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I don't know why it would take 3 days to get to another ZIP in the same city. As long as there is no weekend or holiday, I am pretty sure the next day would be the service goal for a package that arrived in the city at a different ZIP. Possibly a sorting error would delay the package for a day or two, but that shouldn't be a recurrent problem unless there is some other operational issue that I'm not aware of.
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I'm not sure what you mean by close a mailbox, whether if the door/lid is ajar or you mean permanently close it and return mail to the sender. I do know if a mailbox is full and the mail isn't claimed after awhile (not sure of the time frame), the letter carrier does have the option to return "overflow" mail to the senders with the endorsement on it saying "box full". Another option is that the mail can be put into a "hold" area in the post office with a note on top saying "box full" and waiting to see if the mailbox is emptied and then would deliver the mail being held at the post office. I don't know if one procedure is correct and the other isn't. I haven't experienced it much (if at all) during my career.
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Without the proper postage (or any postage at all), one of 3 things might happen with the item you mailed: 1) it will be delivered as if it had postage 2) it will be delivered, but the recipient will be asked to pay the postage (currently .49 for a first-class 1 oz. letter), or 3) the letter will be "returned for postage" to you if you put your return address on it. Where you are mailing the item from/to shouldn't matter if it was mailed in the US.
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I don't know the procedure and "track record" of how many days a week that a CCA will work. I think that it differs for each office and sometimes on the time of year re: weather and how much vacation/sick coverage is needed. When I was a PTF (which was before CCA position existed), it varied from day to day. Some days I would start the same time as other letter carriers (apprx 0730 AM) and others I would start work at 1030 AM to deliver parts of routes that needed coverage. If someone called in sick on a day that I was scheduled to start at 1030AM, I may get a call early in the AM to come in to work earlier. Also, if you are not scheduled to work on a particular day, once you leave work on the previous day, I don't think there is any requirement to be available until your next scheduled day/time to work. Of course, if you are interested in the extra hours/$$ that would come in with coming in to work based on a phone call, then I would make yourself available and go to work when called.
Regarding your 3rd question, if I didn't currently have a job with benefits or vacation pay, etc. I would definitely start a career as a CCA. The reason is that you potentially could become a USPS career employee which has MANY benefits that have helped me enormously through the years. I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say this. Also, having a union to support me through difficult times has also been helpful. I don't honestly know what the long-term future of the USPS is because of technology and how little younger people use the USPS, but I think it will be healthy for the forseeable future to start a career in it.
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It is probably a toss up as to which is the quickest. To make sure that it gets dispatched with the mail the day you leave it at the PO, I'd recommend bringing it directly to the PO. The reason why I call it a toss up is that the final dispatch of mail from a post office to the processing facility doesnt happen until all of the letter carriers have returned from their assignments and back to the local PO.
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You're welcome and thank you for the compliment. Good luck to you in the interview this week for CCA. The rural carrier position is a completely separate pay scale and pay method vs. city carriers. They are also represented by a different union. I honestly don't know the procedure or opportunities for transfering between a city carrier and rural carrier. City carriers are paid by time at an hourly wage. Rural Carriers are given a route, or part of a route, to complete and paid a set wage on the volume of mail for a particular assignment. I think the dollar amt. is adjusted yearly during a "mail count" period for rural carriers. The sooner a rural carrier finishes their daily assignment, the sooner they can go home and still be paid a set amt. for the day. In the office that my brother works in, I think that most of the rural carriers are done before noon and start their day apprx. 7:00 AM. It is a pretty good deal for them. Some of them are required to work 6 days/week as part of their regular assignment. The office I work in has both city carriers and rural carriers though I've not ever seen one transfer between crafts. It doesn't mean it can't be done. I'm sorry that I'm just not familiar with how it's done and if it would mean a re-starting over in your craft seniority for bidding purposes.
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