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 believe this is as nosy as you think. You are technically correct that we deliver to an address, but sometimes there are names that previously resided at an address who have moved years ago and the mailman may want to have that mail returned to sender "Unable To Forward" because the mail forwarding period has expired. I will do this on occasion but I may not ask directly what a person's surname is. If I see a person at an address and at the same time I see a name on a mailpiece that I'm not familiar with, I may ask the person if the name on the mail is valid to deliver there. It is possible that the mailman just wants to deliver the mail correctly and may not have been nosy, but I can't say for sure. When in doubt as to the proper name at an address, I will often just deliver the mailpiece in question and hope that the residents will advise if it isn't correct. Thanks for your question.
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MistyK, the best way to contact the postman would probably be to leave a note in the mailbox asking them to please make sure the mailbox is closed after they make a delivery. They really should be doing that anyway and maybe it was a replacement carrier if this is an uncommon occurrence. I'm not sure the postman will even see the note or respond to it. Of course I can't say for sure whether or not mail is being stolen, but in most areas this is a non-issue. Another way to contact your postman would be to call the USPS customer service phone # where they can likely relay a message to your postman or give you the direct phone # to your local PO. The national customer service phone # is 800-275-8777.
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That's good that you have a neighbor looking out for you. I don't know why the letter carrier would do what he did. Is it possible they didn't receive your forwarding order? If you did it online and received a confirmation then they likely got it. Furthermore there should be zero mail in your box if you have a temporary COA in effect and there are no other residents at your house who are receiving mail. It sounds like an oversight or carelessness. To answer your question, I would say no. Mail has to go through our CFS (computer forwarding system...or centralized forwarding system) to be redirected. You aren't allowed to handwrite the new address and then just redeposit it. One suggestion I have is for the neighbor to rubberband your mail and leave it in either your or their mailbox putting a note on top saying "please forward this mail as this addressee has a temporary COA in effect and no mail should be delivered to your permanent address until further notice". I hope that works out for you. Thanks for writing.
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David, if the letter is addressed to you from the non-profit org. and it says "postage paid" in the indicia (the square usually on the upper right hand corner of the letter you are referring to), you may not forward that letter to another recipient. It is postage paid for the letter to get to you and that's it. Any additional mailing of that same envelope would require first-class postage put over the indicia. I would recommend using an entirely new envelope.
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Great question and you are correct about having to use the bathroom during the course of the delivery day. We don't have a bathroom in the postal vehicle, though that would be a nice touch. When I need to use a bathroom, I usually drive to an office building, gas station, or library near the route where I deliver. I also deliver mail to a dentist's office so I can use their toilet when the office is open. The next method some will find gross, but I wouldn't necessarily agree. Some males carry around bottles with them and will discreetly urinate in them and then dump out the contents when they get a chance. It's pretty easy to do in the environment I work as there aren't many people around and one can go inside the back of the postal vehicle for privacy. It's also a good idea to carry hand sanitizer or handi-wipes for use after urinating. As far as what woman do, I'm pretty sure it's not that simple and they must usually find a facility to use.
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If you mail out the postcards on Friday, they will generally arrive Monday or Tuesday depending on how far away the destination is from you. The USPS has been talking about a change in what is called their EXFC standards so First Class Mail that used to take 1-3 days may now take 2-4 days. I'm not sure if this is in effect or not. With regards to using the 9-digit ZIP code I don't believe it speeds up the process. If your postcards have printed addresses on them, our OCR (Optical Character Reader) probably would have no problem reading the address, spraying a bar code on the envelope and sending it on its way expeditiously. Most addressing software programs now produce an address with a 9-digit ZIP and standardized address. If you look at a lot of the mail you receive, it likely has the 9-digit ZIP code on it. We call it ZIP + 4, but it's the same thing. This codes the destination address down to a pretty small group of addresses within a ZIP code. I believe in some cases PO Boxes each have their own specific ZIP + 4. Thank you for your question.
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I think the letter that was accidentally thrown in the outgoing mail, even if it was a certified letter, would come back the next business day or the day after either via the DPS or the registry clerk. It would rarely be the case that the letter would just disappear. At least that's what I hope would happen.
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