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.
Jessica, it depends who you ask or are dealing with regards to who is emptying the locked box. If I personally knew you or you could show me some ID if I didn't know you, I'd gladly return the letter if I could easily find it. Sometimes there are hundreds of letters in the blue collection boxes and the carrier who is collecting the mail from that box may or may not have the time, patience, or personality to return your letter to you. It may be worthwhile to just send another envelope with a check in it if you can't retrieve the letter you accidentally put into the collection box without the check. I've never been told that I'm not allowed to return a letter once it is placed in a collection box, but, then again, our training and procedural enforcement is quite poor so that's why the lack of uniformity across the USPS. Thank you for writing.
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Chris, to answer your second question first,we are definitely supposed to walk through yards and across lawns unless a resident or property owner specifically tells us not to. It is the most efficient way to get from house to house without having to walk to the street unless there are fences between houses in their front yards. As far as dog poop situation, I don't know what is legal and not with regards to refusing mail delivery. I would speculate that if there is a chance the letter carrier may walk through it then maybe the note is warranted. On the other hand if the dog feces is on the lawn and you request the carrier not to walk on your lawn as he may step in it that should be a fair compromise. The carrier could also write a carrier alert card for your address which is sorted in your mail daily so when a letter carrier comes upon your house they could be alert for any possible dog poop. The alert card isn't delivered to your house. Instead the letter carrier takes it back to the PO to be used on the next delivery day as a warning card again for your address.
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I don’t really think so unless the carrier was in some imminent safety danger due to his hardcore flirting and his wife found out. He could bid to another route when the opportunity arises and if his seniority is high enough to get the other route. I’ve never seen it happen where a carrier was replaced due to a customer request or a personal issue. There may be a mechanism/procedure to do that, but I’m not aware of it. I don’t know the specific situation that you are talking about, but it’s a good reason not to mix work and personal life beyond friendships. There is too much potential for disruption.
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I’m not sure what you mean about parking between houses . I guess you mean that the person doesn’t park the LLV in their driveway. It’s sad that you’ve had so many problems with your mail delivery that you have had to have your mail delivered elsewhere. I am sometimes embarrassed by the caliber of my co-workers. I’m sure other companies have similar issues. Thanks for your input. As I mentioned to someone today, I love my job and what I do, but can’t say the same for some of my coworkers and management. I’d say most are fine to deal with and do good work but the bad apples aren’t as rare I would hope.
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I don't know the rule about this Debbie. I would guess that for the safety of the letter carrier it is recommended not to enter an open garage or backyard. I almost always will leave any packages at the front door. If the garage is open and the package can be left there I may consider doing that as well. We have never been told not to deliver a package through and open garage.
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I have heard of this happening before. A customer showed me her Informed Delivery email and the image of an item that should've been delivered that day but wasn't. I said I had no idea why the letter wouldn't be in the mail but asked her to wait until the following day to see if the letter would arrive. The letter did arrive the next day so that issue was resolved. I hope it is the same case with your missing paycheck. I overheard from a supervisor what the problem would be. Apparently the letter is imaged somewhere in the automated mail sortation process before the very last step of being placed in a tray of mail in delivery sequence. This is one possible reason why the letter was not in the mail delivery the day it should have been. It is also possible that the letter is missorted by our automation and/or misdelivered. Hopefully this isn't too common of an occurrence when compared to the quantity of mail delivered each day. I hope this helps and thanks for writing.
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I don't know the minimum distance that one must have a car from a curbside (mounted) delivery mailbox. Normally as long as the postal delivery vehicle can access the mailbox without the letter carrier needing to leave the vehicle to make the delivery that should be sufficient. We are supposed to minimize the amount of times that we put our vehicle in reverse so the letter carrier may also need clearance in front of the mailbox so he may safely drive to the next delivery point. It also may depend on the personality of the letter carrier. They are allowed to refuse delivering of the mail to any address where they need to exit the vehicle but for many letter carriers it may be easier to just leave the vehicle and walk a few feet to the mailbox rather than having to "flag the house", bring the mail back to the PO, and reattempt delivery on the next delivery day. I suppose if it's a chronic problem or they would need to get out for each stop due to vehicle blockage it would be time consuming and the management may even tell the carrier not to do that. I don't have any curbside deliveries on the route I deliver. If I'm helping out on another route which does have curbside deliveries I tend to get out where necessary and deliver the mail. I don't like to bring back any mail to the PO that should've been delivered. Again, all of this is my opinion and I don't know the actual rules which govern your question except, as stated above, the carrier should be able to approach and leave your mailbox without having to get out of their delivery vehicle.
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