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 Have heard this question come up several times. While we don't use name cards where i work, I don't know the reason why the letter carrier would change the names on your mailbox. If you ever see him or her, I would try to set the information correct with them. If that doesn't work, try to contact your PO for assistance. You certainly deserve to get mail addressed to you.
I apologize on behalf of the USPS for such bad behavior by the letter carrier. Did you ask him something that may have bothered him. Were you polite to him? Either way, he should not be rude to you and I don't think it's appropriate for him to curse either. My only suggestion is to call the PO where he works and speak to a delivery supervisor. I'm not sure that would resolve anything. They are sometimes ambivalent about this.
Most post offices are open until Noon or 1PM for retail service on Saturdays if they have Saturday hours at all. I don't know if you can put a reverse on a letter that has tracking via the telephone customer service or via www.usps.com. It may have to be done in person at a Post Office. If you call 800-ASK-USPS they may know a bit more about this subject. Their Saturday hours are 8AM-6PM ET.
I sometimes listen to an iPod while walking but not driving. While walking I usually only cover one ear for safety reasons. You aren't permitted to listen with earphones while driving, but maybe a portable radio or CD player is allowed when driving. Your local post office should advise you of any rules regarding this. Safety is very very important. I don't remember the driving test too well. Keep to the speed limit, buckle up, both hands on steering wheel, use turn signals,and use your mirrors as necessary. On Ice, just go very slowly. Same with rain and use the windshield wipers and headlights. Ice and Snow are the most difficult conditions for the LLVs. Rain isn't too bad as long as you drive cautiously.
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For the first 1-2 of hours each morning, letter carriers are busy sorting mail in delivery order so that when we go on our routes, the mail is organized. Each route has a pre-determined order of delivery and we have carrier cases (think of a desk with vertical dividers fof each address or building). After we are done sorting the mail we take it out of the carrier cases and put in trays or rubber band it so it stays organized. Before we actually put the mail in a customer's mailbox, we should be going through the mail we sorted to verify that it is the right mail going to the right house. The vast majority of the mail that we deliver is already sorted by a machine at a regional mail processing plant. The mail arrives at our local post office in delivery order (I'd say a fairly high level of accuracy) and as we go deliver the mail we merge that mail together with the mail we have sorted manually at the post office. The amount of mail we manually sort is so much lower than it used to be either because of automation or a decline in mail volume. When I started working for the USPS only letter size mailing was able to be put in order. Now we have machines that can sort flats (magazines, catalogs) in delivery order which is impressive as well.
Congratulations on your being employed with the USPS. It depends on the staffing of a particular office as to whether you will get a set route right away or varying hours. If the office is shorthanded, it's possible you can be assigned a route to daily and that will become your route until further notice. More often than not, new hires fill in where needed to cover carriers who are on vacation or sick leave or to deliver "pieces" on routes which one carrier may not be able to complete in their workday. At a certain time, usually after probation is over, you can bid to "hold down" a route or assignment of rotating routes when a carrier is out on vacation or extended sick leave. If you "hold down" an assignment this entitles you to do that route daily and you can only be "bumped off" that route under certain circumstances which are covered in the labor/mgmt or local agreement.
That means a package that has been sent is traveling from it's origin (where it was mailed) to the destination post office. The package could be on a tractor-trailer or an airplane or in a sorting facility. When a package arrives at the destination post office, it will usually be scanned "arrived" so if one were to look up the package status, they would know it has been rcvd at the destination and PO and will be delivered that day or the next delivery day.
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