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.
That's a great question Cindy that I don't know the answer to but I'm embarrassed for the USPS that they would tolerate such lying. I believe if a letter carrier actually attempts to deliver a package or piece of accountable mail they should ring a bell or knock on the door and wait a minute or so before leaving a PS 3849. I know that Amazon.com wants all of their Prime parcels delivered by a specifc date and if they aren't at least attempted, maybe someone in the USPS supervision is held accountable. I'm not really sure. I have seen in our office that parcels that weren't delivered (either missorted or the carrier missed the house and didn't have time to go back) would get an "attempted" scan which is false. I've never done this nor have I ever been asked to do it. I'd refuse because it is dishonest. It also confuses customers when the package may say "attempted" when tracked and the customer knows full well that an attempt wasn't made.
This is a very immature question to ask on this site, but the answer is no. I'm not interested in men to begin with, but even it were a woman I don't think I'd get involved because it's not worth losing a job for a few minutes of fun. I keep it professional while on the clock. In my years of experience nothing even close to the scenario you described (with a male or female) has happened to me.
Supervisors or Postal Inspectors sometimes monitor carrier activities while they are delivering mail. Approximately 1x per year, a supervisor will spend much of the day going around your route with you and filling out a P Form 3999 (which describes the time and activities a route takes to complete). Sometimes they will be in a Gov't use vehicle or sometimes they can ride along in the delivery vehicle. Postal Inspectors have a law enforcement function so they may watch a carrier activities if they suspect something illegal. I have seen postal inspectors at the PO where I work just a couple of times in my many years of employment. When we are followed during the day by a supervisor, it's just a bit of annoyance and know it's part of their job. As long as the letter carrier is doing their job properly there is nothing to worry about.
Jay, I don't know what happened to your package. It would be odd for a package from TX bound for GA to wind up in OH once already being in GA. My guess is that it was somehow missorted and put on a truck or plane to OH. As long as it was addressed properly there is a very good chance it will soon make it back to GA and be delivered to you. While I can't guarantee this, it would take multiple sorting and delivery errors for you not to receive your package. There will be a delay of at least a day or two until you finally receive the package (assuming that you do receive it).
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I don't know at all about the requirements for what vehicles are allowed for delivering US Mail. We use Postal-owned vehicles where I work. When I was first hired we sometimes used our own vehicles for mail delivery and didn't know of any requirements. We were only doing park and loop and foot routes with our own vehicles. The rural route carriers had privately owned right hand drive vehicles for mail delivery. I would recommend looking at the website or contacting the NRLCA, the National Rural Letter Carriers Association. I know that city carriers (which I am) would sign a CDOA which was a Carrier Drive Out Agreement that would stipulate what is required and what the compensation would be for using your own vehicle.
I generally don't wear winter boots but I wear rubber overshoes if there is snow on the ground. These are the same thing I'd wear if it were raining outside. The brand I use is Tingley and they come in at least 3 dfferent height overshoes. They aren't really warm so I wear thermal socks in the winter so my feet and toes don't freeze.
I can't say for sure why the drastic difference in the time your mail is delivered. If it's the same letter carrier who is coming at different times I can see a couple of hours difference but your description is up to 5.5 hrs difference. Normally the mail is sorted before we start delivering. Any mail which we pick up during the day as outgoing mail doesn't need to be separated. We just bring it back and give it to a dispatch clerk. At times we are shorthanded at the USPS so that results in us doing additional assignments possibly before delivering our own routes. This could be up to a couple of hours but that doesn't seem to be the norm where I work. Please remember that I can't speak for what happens at other postal facilities. One further comment is that we are supposed to deliver the mail in a specific route order. If your letter carrier doesn't do that it could result in different delivery times. The holiday season for cards isn't as busy as it used to be. We now deliver a significant quantity of parcels which could also take up time.
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