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 know what to tell you about this with regards to what you should do. You could file a complaint/written letter to the PO claiming financial damage by the rural letter carrier, possibly including the ATV battery damage as well. I don't know how this claims process works at all with respect to any damage caused by the USPS or of an item shipped via USPS. It sounds to me that maybe the carrier shouldn't have driven into your yard to throw the battery near your porch. I don't know the rules about package deliveries on a rural route. In one way, it's good they tried to deliver a package that wouldn't fit in the RR mailbox at the highway. A possible negative is that your yard became damaged due to this. I wish you well but I don't know what type of satisfaction you'll get from the USPS. I don't have a lot of faith in their bureaucracy or claims process. I hope to be proven wrong.
Deedee, I don't know the minimum requirements for taking the USPS carrier exam, but I do think you will need one to actually get hired. I would look on the USPS employment website to see if there is any information on it as to when you need to have a driver license. All city carriers where I work drive postal vehicles and therefore need a driver license. Good luck and thanks for writing.
I'm sorry but it's unlikely that you would be able to get your paycheck before regular mail delivery on Monday. It is likely that your post office closed and may not have anybody there until early on Monday AM. Even on Monday AM, it's not likely that your mail will be available (or that you'd find anybody willing or allowed to help). I don't know where your post office is so I can't speak to the specifics of your situation. I am just speaking in generalities of what I think would be the situation at most post offices. My question to you is: How do you know your pay check is at the post office? Most post offices deliver whatever mail has arrived on the same day that it arrives. What I mean is that mail that is processed overnight at a regional sorting facility arrives at our local post office by apprx 730AM and then is all sent out for delivery the same day it arrives. Do you have a PO Box where the paycheck would be and your local post office has restricted hours for access (i.e. not a 24 hour lobby).
Pablo, you can definitely have tattoos (visible or not) to be a letter carrier. Co-workers have had them since I have started working at the USPS 15 years ago. You can be hired with only a HS diploma if you do well on the test. It isn't true that you have to wait until someone retires before being hired. To become a full time employee this may be true but new hires are CCA which is City Carrier Assistant which is position requiring your flexibility in work hours and no guarantee of more than a few hours per week. I don't know the exact number of hours and the CCAs where I work have plenty of hours to work, including some Sundays delivering parcels.
HR Executive
What's the worst reaction you ever witnessed during a lay-off?
CBP Officer
Do you catch less marijuana at the border now that it's being decriminalized in some States?
Toll Collector
What's the rudest thing a driver ever said to you?
The letter will possibly just go through the mail processing system again and be sent back to you. I don't think anybody would notice that it was sent a second time and your letter carrier would hopefully just deliver it again to you. It would likely go back to the sender if somewhere on the envelope was written "person doesn't live here" or "return to sender" but that isn't the case here. Hopefully you will get the letter back in a couple of days.
When you mail a letter it goes through a fairly extensive sorting process until it reaches the destination post office that does the actual delivery of the letter to the addressee. That is the way it works in the US and I imagine it is similar in other countries. Once the letter reaches the final post office, it is then sorted to the route which covers the address. The letter carrier for that route usually will have a map with them or a GPS or smartphone to help them find the address if they aren't familiar with the area. In the post office where I work, many of the streets are delivered by the same letter carriers each day so we know where the mail goes to. It is also helpful and important if the street signs are clear as well as the house/apt #'s are labeled well.
Linda, thanks for writing and I'm sorry that you are going through an unfortunate situation. I don't know why your new mailman wouldn't be delivering all of the mail to your house. If he's not delivering it to your house, I wonder where it is going. It is not legal to be doing anything else with the mail except deliver it to the proper addressee. You spoke with the Postmaster, not the Postmaster General. The PMG is the top administrator of the USPS in Washington, DC. Have you asked your mailman what may be happening to your mail? I doubt that you will get any type of satisfactory answers. The next step if you don't get any satisfaction from your local post office is to try to contact the region or area office that oversees your post office. Another option is the Postal Inspectors who would investigate any criminal activity like mail fraud or theft of mail. I don't have a lot of conifdence in these offices really doing too much in your situation but if you feel it is serious enough I wouldn't think twice about reporting it. Thanks for writing.
-OR-
Login with Facebook (max 20 characters - letters, numbers, and underscores only. Note that your username is private, and you have the option to choose an alias when asking questions or hosting a Q&A.)
(A valid e-mail address is required. Your e-mail will not be shared with anyone.)
(min 5 characters)
By checking this box, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to Jobstr.com’s Terms and Privacy Policy.
-OR-
Register with Facebook(Don't worry: you'll be able to choose an alias when asking questions or hosting a Q&A.)