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 think you will likely receive the item but there may be a delay of several days. The letter will first likely go to the PO that the ZIP corresponds to. The clerks at that office would then need to send the letter back to a central mail facility where it might be manually corrected (the proper ZIP being researched and put on the envelope) and then continue to the intended destination. I'm not sure I have the procedure correct. It's also possible the letter could be returned to the sender with the endorsement of "No Such Street in this ZIP code" but I've never seen that before.
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Linda, generally if a letter carrier sees a new name at an address he will deliver the mail without any notifcation from the new resident. This is especially true if the letter carrier knows that a previous owner or tenant has moved out. If you are moving in with someone, the letter carrier also should be delivering the mail anyway. Sometimes if I see a new name at an address and I'm not sure if it is correct I will put a question mark next to the name on the envelope and deliver the mail. If I don't get the mail returned with a message on it saying "person doesn't live here", then I will know that the new name at that address is valid. That being said, it wouldn't hurt to leave a notice by your mailbox or to tell the letter carrier that your name is valid at the new address. I don't think it is necessary, but I know I would never mind getting a personal confirmation of a new resident having moved in somewhere. Thanks so much for writing.
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JD, good job for sticking with it for 7 years so far. There are many people who couldn't handle even one NE winter. I have trouble myself with the very cold weather, plus snow, and ice. The LLVs are horrible with snow in handling especially on any inclines. I have felt the way you have several times, and I have also felt the opposite as well (meaning I love the career). I admit it is difficult at times when you aren't feeling satisfied to stick with this career. Here is my advice, but keep in mind I don't know your personal living/financial situation. Being a city carrier and making apprx $50K+ a year seems to be a decent salary with benefits and union protections. I know it's a physically hard job, but you could apply to transfer to a less harsh area climate wise. My parents have been a big influence on me when I was on the verge of resigning on a few occasions. They said that it won't be easy to find a similar paying job without any special skills. I've also had to seek professional help in the past couple of years which has been worthwhile. This is probably more information then you want to know but as of now I am glad that I didn't go through with the rash decision of quitting the USPS. Have you thought about switching to the clerk craft? Would you rather maybe work inside as a Sales and Service Associate? There are pros and cons to that as well. I do feel bad for anybody who is unhappy with their position, but am hopeful they can stick with it and maybe their feelings will change for the better. I would have a very hard time working too long if I weren't satisfied at the position. Please try to keep your head up and dress appropriately for the weather. Thanks for writing.
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Linda, thanks for writing and I'm sorry that you are going through an unfortunate situation. I don't know why your new mailman wouldn't be delivering all of the mail to your house. If he's not delivering it to your house, I wonder where it is going. It is not legal to be doing anything else with the mail except deliver it to the proper addressee. You spoke with the Postmaster, not the Postmaster General. The PMG is the top administrator of the USPS in Washington, DC. Have you asked your mailman what may be happening to your mail? I doubt that you will get any type of satisfactory answers. The next step if you don't get any satisfaction from your local post office is to try to contact the region or area office that oversees your post office. Another option is the Postal Inspectors who would investigate any criminal activity like mail fraud or theft of mail. I don't have a lot of conifdence in these offices really doing too much in your situation but if you feel it is serious enough I wouldn't think twice about reporting it. Thanks for writing.
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Hello Joy. The area where you took the photo is probably serviced by a rural carrier or HCR (highway contract routr). These positions are different than the one I am employed as even though we all serve the same function. It makes sense to me that the barrel would be used for packages because I don't think carriers are required to deliver mail to a house that is more than a certain amt of feet from the road. The barrel is a convenient way for the customer to receive packages without having to drive to a post office which is many mlies away and has limited hours. It would also protect the package from damage in inclement weather. I can't confirm this is what the barrel is for.
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Regarding your question Joseph, I don't known what the official rule is on this. If I were the letter carrier who was collecting the mail from the blue collection box and you approached me with appropriate ID and the letter was easy to find, I'd return it to you. I can imagine some other carriers not being as accommodating to your request either because they don't want to help you or because we may not technically be allowed to. It's also not always so easy to find the person collecting the mail unless you are watching the mailbox for awhile because letter carrier doesn't always come at the time printed on the collection box schedule label. The time printed on the label is the earliest time of the collection but it could be hours before the mail is actually collected.
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I don't know the answer to this question. In the PO where I work, the supervisors manage when bulk mail is distributed for delivery and we will deliver it on that day unless there is some extenuating circumstance why we can't. I notice that most bulk mail that comes to our PO is usually delivered within 3-4 days, often earlier. 10 days seems like an awfully long time for bulk mail to be sitting around no matter the time sensitivity or not. When your mailing is given to a BMEU (Bulk Mail Entry Unit), do they have any straight answer either? I agree that this is poor service if you can't get any range of time or reason why it's taking so long to be delivered. I do acknowledge that bulk mailings do get put to the bottom of the list as far as priority of which class of mail to deliver, but there isn't a huge amount of First-Class Mail and Periodical mail to go through that a bulk mailing should take so long. I'm just speaking from the perspective of where I work and can't really comment on the operations of another post office.
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