Mailman (City Letter Carrier)

Mailman (City Letter Carrier)

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.

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Last Answer on February 18, 2022

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Today I accidently dropped a bunch of mail in the Express Priority Blue Box. This was mail for my job so it is important documents. Will this mail be sorted correctly and reach its destination in a timely manner? Or will this be severely delayed?

Asked by Lisa Needs help please! almost 10 years ago

Lisa, in my experience your mail should be processed normally so you need not worry. I don't often collect mail from the blue boxes as part of my assignment but if I saw regular mail in the Express Priority Blue Box I'd just put it with other outgoing mail in my postal vehicle and it'd be treated normally. I've never heard of outgoing mail being delayed by this. Thank you for your question.

Ive heard that mailmen have to park at the end of the street and walk the route instead of driving from house to house..Is that true?

Asked by patty about 10 years ago

Now you're speaking my language Patty. This is exactly how I deliver much of my postal route. The mailboxes where I deliver mail are at the door as opposed to at the street. If the mailboxes are at the street, the letter carrier can usually remain in their vehicle and go house to house. That is called a mounted or curbside delivery method. When the houses aren't too far apart and are on both sides of the street, I'll park at the end of a block, walk down one side delivering the mail, cross over to the other side and return to my vehicle after delivering both sides of the street. That is called a relay. From the same parking spot, I can sometimes deliver up to 3 relays of mail. The method described is called the 'park and loop' method. It is efficient because you can often cross lawns without having to continuously walk to the street and move the vehicle. The relays on the route I deliver range in length from 14-28 houses.

I live in fountain valley California Orange County, can you tell me when exactly will the mailman come and reliever my mail?

Asked by Meli over 10 years ago

I am not able to tell you when your mailman (letter carrier) will deliver your mail since I don't know about the setup and staffing of your particular office. In fact the only office I know much about specifically is the one where I'm employed in NY on Long Island. Speaking only by personal experience I'd guess that your mail is delivered 0930-1800 Mon-Sat (excluding federal holidays.)

Hello-
Recently I mailed a letter but right after discovered I forgot to put the address label on,but did have my own as return address. That was last week,mailed from another zip code,30 miles away. So how long should it take to mail it back to me?

Asked by David W Beale about 10 years ago

Regarding the letter which you mailed without a destination address but had your return address, I don't know how long it should take to be returned to you. If handled properly my guess would be about one week. I've seen these in the mail before. It would have a rubber stamp marking which says "returned for better address" or "insufficient address" and then delivered to your return address. Unfortunately, non-deliverable mail is sometimes put on the back burner if staffing levels are low and mail needs to be handled specially. That's why I'm hesitant to say how long it will be before your letter is returned. 

My boyfriend lives with me. It's a bad relationship. He's malicious and does ask kinds of mean things. Lately he has been getting my mail and marking it return to sender and sending it back. Can I file charges on him?

Asked by BeccaFL over 10 years ago

I'm sorry to hear about your relationship not doing well with your boyfriend. It is horrible that he will mark your mail "return to sender" without your permission. I don't know the legality of what he is doing or if charges can be filed. You could contact your local PO and advise them of the situation, but I have no idea what can be done about it. The practical, but not necessarily convenient or affordable, way to resolve this is to rent a PO Box which only you'd have access to.

A Hostel I was staying at said the postman automatically returns to sender (without delivering it) anything not addressed to the Hostel directly. Is this possible? or would the Hostel have to manually return it themselves?

Asked by Feeling Lied to over 10 years ago

It is possible you've been lied to as your name suggests which I find to be very bad. Unfortunately I can't confirm if this is the case or not. I don't know of any rules either way as to why the postman would automatically return any mail that doesn't have the hostels name included in the address. It is pretty common for people to receive mail or packages at a hotel or some type of short-term stay facility. A woman who I work next to has a Comfort Inn that is part of her delivery route. I'm pretty sure she delivers any mail with the hotel's street address on it. It's then up to the hotel to notify the recipient that mail has arrived and then return any mail which may be for someone who is no longer there. I think that the letter carrier will accept any returned mail from the hotel and mark it "refused" or "attempted, not known" and it should go back to the sender. You ask "is this possible?" It certainly is possible as nothing surprises me about what happens at the USPS because the consistency of service among the employees and offices is not good in my opinion. I think we should deliver the mail as addressed (especially to a hotel, hostel, Airbnb, etc) and not worry about the names on the mail and let the receiving office decide whether to keep it, return it, or discard. Individual mail cannot be forwarded from a hotel or any business. In the future, if you want something mailed to a hostel, I'd recommend putting both your name and the name of the property you are staying at.

Im waiting on mail from california. It has full address but apt doesn't exist. Will my mail carrier still have it or will it be at local post office? How long does mail usually takes if mailed from California Friday coming to Georgia?

Asked by Brittany over 10 years ago

Mail from California to Georgia which was mailed on Friday should take about 3-4 days to be delivered. If the address is correct but lacking the apt. # it is possible the letter carrier will return the item to the sender marked "insufficient address". If the letter carrier knows where the letter should be delivered to, they normally will deliver it properly. It usually won't be sitting at your local PO and would be hard to find even if it were. I'd say be patient and hopefully it will show up by Wednesday.