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.
Sorry to say that we can't guarantee arrival of a birthday card on a specific date when mailed via regular class mail. We do, however, have a decent record of getting most letters delivered the next day when mailed from the same city, and 2-3 days when mailed from further away. To play it safe I'd mail the card 2 days in advance and, if you prefer, you can write "Do Not Open Until Your Birthday" on the outside of it. You are a thoughtful friend. Good Luck!
There is a good chance that the letter may actually continue to its destination without being returned. I find the USPS very poor in catching items mailed with insufficient postage. I try to capture it because that is our source of revenue and how we stay in business. I hate the "I don't care attitude" that I perceive in some co-workers. I'm sure this is common in many professions. But, to answer your question, a Forever stamp is currently valued at .49 . The minimum rate for an international letter is $1.15 but it varies by country of destination. If you don't receive the letter back within a week or so, I'd suspect that it will make it to the destination. Please always remember to include a return address, though I suspect you did. Thank you for writing.
I don't deliver my own mail because I reside in Queens, NY and Stony Brook, NY but don't work at either of those post offices. If a letter carrier does reside in the town that they work in, it is possible that they deliver their own mail. We have a few carriers at my PO that live and work in this town, but none of them have assignments that include their own residence on a daily basis.
I don't know about the legality of keeping the package when it has already been scanned "delivered", but it certainly is bad as far as data integrity goes. The letter carrier may have scanned many of their parcels "delivered" earlier on in the day which is completely wrong (I can't say illegal) so they don't forget later on. Your example is a great reason why we aren't supposed to scan an item as "delivered" until we actually deliver it. Now if you approached him/her and asked about it, they should then give you the package. If this happened to you more than once I would speak to a delivery supervisor about this because it is very much against our rules to scan a package "delivered" when it wasn't. It is also misrepresenting the shipping status to our customers on both the sending and receiving end. It is also strange that the package has a 9:25 PM delivery time. I can't say it's impossible but I've rarely heard of the USPS out on a Saturday night delivering parcels.
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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.
You bad bad person Aila! Seeing that you were just 6 years old and you returned it all, there are worse crimes you could have committed. I am glad you know by now not to touch any mail or mailboxes that aren't yours. It is horrible to think of mail being taken out of mailboxes illegally. I consider it sacred, even if, in all honesty, it's not so important to a lot of people today and has been replaced a lot by technology. With regard to how it works for mailmen, I'm not sure what you mean. I have never been involved with a mail theft incident during my career. If I did I would likely tell my supervisor about it and follow their directives. Thanks for writing And stay away from those mailboxes ;-)
I don't believe you have any obligation ever to retrieve your mail. After awhile the mailbox will fill up and then the letter carrier will probably do the following: stop delivering any future mail and return any first class or periodical mail or mail sent by a mailer requesting return if undeliverable with the endorsement "Box Full". I have never encountered this situation but I understand people not caring about their mail deliveries these days especially when so much of it is advertising. Please be advised, however, that if your mailbox is full that you may not receive even one piece of mail that could be important. If you are so sure you don't want anything delivered by US Mail, then feel free to let your mailbox fill up or you could even take it down if you aren't a cluster box. I am sure this is a growing sentiment since most business and communication can be done electronically. Thanks for writing.
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