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.
Kyle, I think the normal amount of time for a First-class letter to get from Lancaster, PA to Charleston, SC, would be 2 days. From what you wrote it has already been 4 delivery days and the letter hasn't arrived. I don't know that it's rare, but it exceeds our service goal as far as I know. Are you sure you addressed the letter correctly and completely? Letters still get lost in the mail, missorted, misdelivered, destroyed by our automated sorting machines, etc. but that is all a very low percentage of the amt of mail processed.
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That sounds absolutely wrong what is done. The only time that a worker can open a package that i know of is if it is Media Mail. That class of mail is subject to inspection if a worker wants to verify that the contents qualify for the Media Mail rate. Does the worker say why he opens then packages? I haven't heard of your situation before.
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I'm sure each Post Office has a slightly different dispatch schedule for mail being sent off to a P&DC (Processing and Distribution Center). I think that our Post Office dispatches the mail 2-3 times per day. I don't think that something mailed in the morning gets to its destination sooner than a letter which is collected prior to our final dispatch which is usually around 6PM. We have service levels which basically say if a letter or parcel is mailed on a certain date (before a final dispatch) that it should reach its destination by a certain date. This is usually 1-3 days depending on the distance between the origination and destination Post Office and the class of mail that is being sent (1st Class, Priority, Express, Parcel Post, etc).
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ST, I'm not sure what happened in your situation. Some USPS carriers may be trained or take it upon themselves to do things differently than others. If the letter carrier saw the one letter in your mailbox but the rest of the mail taken in (by you), they might think it's mail for a person no longer living there and return it to the sender "Attempted, Not Known" or "Unable to Forward" or something else. It seems likely that this is what happened and the letter wasn't stolen though I can't says for sure.
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Most of the mail that we take out is sorted ahead of time into trays, but there is always some "residual mail" that has to be hand sorted and sometimes collated in with the mail that has already been sorted. It is rare that these trays would be more than 20 lbs. in my estimation. Some offices have more automation than others meaning some offices still have to do a lot of manual sorting. While there are sometimes heavy packages to lift, I think the max. Is 70 lbs. and i don't see a parcel that heavy too often. The mail that I mentioned earlier comes sorted into trays is done by automated sorting machines located at a larger processing facility.
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Nobody should be putting your mail on hold for 10 days without your permission unless there was some obstruction to your mailbox which would prevent delivery. I believe that via USPS.com somebody could technically put a hold mail request pretending to be you, but that wouldnt be legal and haven't heard of that occurring. I hope you can find out why this happened.
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The letter carrier should not be putting himself in that risky situation. Is it possible for you to relocate your mailbox outside the contained area where your dog is? I don't believer a letter carrier wants to bring out your mail each day not knowing whether or not he will have safe access to your mailbox. Again, I am not sure why he would enter the fenced in area when told not to. With regards to getting nipped in the leg, I am not sure what happens next. I wouldn't worry about it if you aren't contacted by the post office regarding your dog.
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