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

Best Rated

i accidentally remailed a piece of mail that was already sent to me. It did not have a new stamp on int..just the original that was canceled. It was not opened..will it get back to me?

Asked by spartan girl almost 11 years ago

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.

What recourse do I have:
I had dvd delivered to a friend. He didn't get it although tracking said it was delivered. Called located po. Super said mail carrier said gave it to woman. It went to wrong address. Woman says she doesn't have it.

Asked by Cher over 11 years ago

I have to tell you that I don't know what recourse you have in this situation since the woman who says she doesn't have it probably can't be held accountable for actually having it. How does the super know it went to the wrong address? I'm just curious since I'm not sure how this whole chain of events can be verified. I'm sorry that I can't help you further and it is very difficult to get an item back that is misdelivered if the actual recipient doesn't admit to having it. Even if you called a local post office to file some type of complaint about this, I don't know what help they would be.

Do you ever deliver your own mail?

Asked by Dave almost 11 years ago

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.

If the mailman/lady who delivers mail to my apartment building residence does not have a key to the building for whatever reason when I know they should, rings a bell until is let in. My question is, if they mailman/lady was unsuccessful getting into the building, how long are they allowed to wait before leaving and not delivering the mail?

Asked by Sam over 10 years ago

Sam,

The following is the exact "copy and paste" of the answer I posted to your previous q which was similarly worded:

Sam, I don't know the answer to this but the letter carrier should have access to the building or mailboxes somehow without having to ring doorbells. Maybe in this case it was a one-time occurrence but even then they should have returned with some means of access or called the PO to advise them why they couldn't make a delivery to a building. I don't know of any specific time frame they'd have to wait before moving on to their next delivery. I think a couple of minutes is sufficient, especially if they are ringing multiple doorbells and getting zero response.

how many hours a day do you work? How much is starting pay for 1 hour?

Thank you. I want to be a mailman and I am 18.

Asked by albert about 11 years ago

Albert, your message posted 2x so I will answer it once and then copy and paste it. I currently work 7 hours a day as I am on a limited schedule for personal reasons. A regular city letter carrier can expect to work 8 hours per day (plus 30 min. unpaid lunch), 5 days per week. The 5 days may not be consecutive since mail is delivered 6 days per week. As a new hire, you will likely be a CCA (city carrier assistant) who has a very varied schedule and I'm not sure they are guaranteed any hours. I believe starting pay is about $16/hour for a CCA, with very few benefits, if any. Once you are promoted to a regular city carrier,  the salary increasea to about $23/hour and tops out at about $28.50/hr after a certain amt. of years. These salaries are set in accordance with a labor agreement between the USPS and the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), which is our union. You also get benefits once you become a regular city letter carrier as opposed to a CCA. If you visit the website www.nalc.org they have pay charts listed or you can probably just do a google search or look on www.glassdoor.com. Good luck in what is a pretty good career in my opinion. 

Dave..when you are called to help on a new to you route, do they train you on that route? I hopefully will be a rural carrier soon but are not familiar will all the roads in other towns.

Asked by Jimk over 11 years ago

When I am asked to fill in for other neighborhoods or parts of of other routes we aren't usually trained on that route. We are often just given a map and sometimes some notes about the route, such as park points, or which parts of the route we can deliver right from our postal vehicle (rural routes are almost always delivered from a vehicle and not walking routes with a mail satchel.) When I was first hired, I went out for a few days with a carrier who showed me how to deliver the mail, but we were on their route and that didn't train us for the specifics of doing another postal route. Do you have a smart phone with a GPS application or an atlas/map you could use? That would be my advice, but the mgmt, or another carrier should at least give you some basic notes about what you are being asked to deliver, especially if there are some mailboxes/streets which aren't so easy to find. You do learn a lot on this job by actually doing it, but that doesn't make it any easier at the beginning. I wish you well JimK.

I was gone for 5 days (Mon-Fri) and when I came home Saturday there was no mail, only the PS Form 3849 Stating: "Box full. Will be declared vacant in 10 days if no action taken". Can the postman legally remove all my mail?

Asked by DeannaSC about 11 years ago

I don't know the legal answer to your question about whether or not the letter carrier was allowed to remove your mail after 5 days of piling up or not. Hopefully it wasn't returned to the sender and is just being held at the PO. I would contact the PO either by going to it or calling and advising them you are still residing at your address. I don't think I'd empty out a mailbox after just 5 days of nobody collecting the mail. I have never been at situation but I think I may just return any future mail (after a box is full) back to the sender with the endorsement "box full". I don't know that this is even a valid endorsement so I'd have to investigate further. In the future, please note that if you go away for several days or more (up to 30 days), we will hold your mail at the post office free of charge. Upon your return, you have the option of having the mail delivered to you or going to pick it up at the PO that delivers your mail. This service is available online at www.usps.com or going to the post office and completing a yellow "Authorization To Hold Mail" form.