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 am not sure if they would still have it after 6 days. Generally, they wouldn't have thrown it out if the item was mailed a certain class and a return endorsement like "return service requested" but there is no way to know how it was mailed. Hopefully it will be returned to sender and if there is a way to contact the sender they could tell you when they received it back. It wouldn't hurt to go to the PO to see if it's there. Has there been any update to the tracking information besides "arrived at your local USPS facility"?
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I don't know of any mandatory waiting period after you take the postal exam which you must wait to take it a second or third time. Good luck to you in taking the exam. There may be a mandaory waiting time, but I just am not familiar with it.
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I am not familiar with the RCA (Rural Carrier Associate) position and the requirements of when you have to work. I do know that it is similar to the CCA position for city letter carriers which don't get any benefits as far as I know, except a uniform allowance. The CCAs in the office where I work sometimes have to work Sundays to deliver Amazon parcels. I would recommend contacting the NRLCA (National Rural Letter Carriers Association) at Phone: 703-684-5545. Their website is www.nrlca.org and they are the union which represents Rural Letter Carriers nationwide. I copied the following from a USPS brochure on RCA hiring: Rural Carrier Associate Facts Variable Work Hours As an RCA, you will replace a regular rural carrier on his or her scheduled day off (primarily Saturday), on vacation, or on other leave. Work hours will vary depending on the office and route to which you are assigned. You must be willing to work weekends and some holidays and be available for on-call employment. You may be assigned to other carriers’ routes, increasing the number of hours you work.
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It is very kind of you to want to tip your letter carrier for his service while you were away. We aren't supposed to accept tips, but I can't say I know of anybody ever being disciplined for it. I gladly accept them but it won't affect the quality of my service either way. I would recommend putting the tip in an envelope and on the outside write "Letter Carrier (insert name here if you know it)" and put it in the mailbox. Maybe tape it to the inside of the mailbox where it would be visible but not necessarily thought of as outgoing mail. If you aren't sure if he is working on a particular day I'm not sure how you could make sure they receive it unless you happen to be home when they are delivering the mail and you hand it directly to the carrier. I will say that you have one observant letter carrier. I would usually let the mail pile up in the mailbox hoping they come home soon to retrieve it.
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I am not really sure about the policy of delivering to a multi-suite building, but here is the way I see it: If your mail is specifically addressed to your suite and you are a different business than the suite/tenant on the first floor, it should be delivered directly to you. The suite on the first floor shouldn't be getting your mail. I would consider your suite a separate delivery. Again, I don't know the rules but I would treat it like an apartment building where you wouldn't be delivering your mail to a neighbor or vice versa. We are given time to sort the mail in a multi-unit building if a suite has a separate address so I don't necessarily buy the excuse of not having time to sort the world's mail. With regards to the parking, that doesn't seem to appropriate either. I have parked in No Parking Fire Zones in front of buildings if I'll just be 5 minutes or less delivering the mail. I don't think I would park in a handicapped spot. Since the supervisor doesn't care, you could speak with the Postmaster or whoever is next up on the chain of command to see if they can assist at all. As I've posted in other comments, we have a real mixed bag of employees at the USPS so your responses could vary.
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Kbear, from what I gather in your question, you moved and didn't do a forwarding order on purpose because your paycheck was already in the mail? If this happens, the letter carrier might hold the mail at the PO for a certain amt. of days, but that doesn't seem likely. The letter carrier might complete an Employee-Generated Change of Address form and check a box "Moved Left No Address". In that case any mail addressed to you would be returned to the sender with "Moved, Left No Address" on the envelope. You could check with your local post office from where you moved and see what they have been doing with your mail. I don't know that you will get any resolution to your question, but it is worth a try. Good luck and thank you for writing.
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Bryan, congratulations on being promoted to a "regular" carrier. It is much better than being a CCA, but 10 months sounds like a pretty short amount of time to be promoted. That is a good thing. With regards to your vacation I don't know the legalities of them mandating you to work when you have reserved a vacation. If you put in a request for annual leave and it was given back to you within a certain amt. of time (marked denied I mean), then I believe it is approved and generally can't be revoked. If you chose at as a full vacation block (usually in 1-week segments), that also is non-revocable by management as far as I know. I would recommend asking your shop steward for advice in this situation as I don't know in the NALC/USPS National Agreement where this is discussed, or possibly in the ELM (Employee/Labor Manual). One other suggestion is to ask on a FB message board that I belong to which you may find helpful. The group is called USPS Postal Maniacs. I've seen other USPS employees post questions and problems there and receive some advice. I will warn you that much of the talk on there is negative towards management, but there are many good people on there who can often steer you in the right direction. Good luck and thanks for writing.
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