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.
It probably depends on the office where you work as to what time you start delivering your route. Where I work most deliveries probably start between 9:15 and 10:30 AM. It depends how long the letter carriers take to prepare their routes in the AM for delivery. Some routes get more mail than others or take longer to prepare in order for delivery. Also, some letter carriers are faster than others at starting their routes. I usually start delivery by 10AM and am finished around 4PM if the weather and volume of mail and parcels isn't out of line with what I normally get. Most of the letter carriers where I work start their tour at 7:30 AM.
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Your mail shouldn't be returned because you don't pick it up daily. I've never heard of any obligation one has to pick up their mail at any specific interval. If the mailbox fills up, I know mail can be returned but I'm not sure if that means the overflow mail or the mail in the box already. In my experience it's very common for mail to be left in the mailbox for days. It doesn't bother me one bit and it's rare that the mailbox gets so full that action must be taken. Without knowing any further details, it sounds like your letter carrier is being a jerk and looking for conflict rather than providing quality service.
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I don't know that it matters where the plates are from if someone is delivering your mail, but I'm by no means criticizing your question. Do you know if you live on a Rural Delivery route? If so, those carriers sometimes use a POV (privately owned vehicle) to deliver the mail. In the office where I work, the rural carriers used to use POVs but now they use the USPS-owned Long-Life vehicles, aka LLVs. The USPS sometimes leases vehicles if there is a shortage of company vehicles available. If you live on a rural route, it may be delivered by a Rural Carrier Associate (RCA) who may have their own vehicle for delivery. There are several variables as to why your mail is being delivered by a MA-plated Red Minivan but I can't say for sure.
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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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Do you think the nets should be lower for girls?
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Are you instructed to "push" certain menu items that are at risk of going bad?
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How often are your athletes tested for PEDs and is it easy to beat?
To be honest Henry, I don't know what happens when you drop a UPS package off in a USPS collection box by mistake. The logical thing would be for us to hand it off to UPS somehow. UPS drop boxes and drivers are pretty easy to find in NYC. You say there is no UPS tracking information that's been updated. Like you said, I doubt it will be turning up anywhere but I don't know what would happen to it unless it's sitting on some pile of errantly mailed items at a mail sorting facility. Nothing surprises me at the USPS when it comes to missing items. I hate to be a pessimist but I hear enough stories of us errantly delivering mail or packages and then who knows what the recipient does with it, if anything. I try to be very accurate and diligent with my deliveries as do most of my co-workers but it just takes a few screw-ups to ruin the journey of a package or letter which was properly mailed. I know I got off on a tangent here. Maybe you could wait another week before considering it lost or call the USPS customer service phone number. I'm not sure how much help they can be in this situation.
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Cliff, mail gets delivered if a letter carrier is on vacation. There is usually a replacement letter carrier who will cover the route of the regular letter carrier who is on vacation. If there isn't enough staffing available, the route which the regular carrier is on vacation from my be split between other letter carriers. For this reason your mail should still be delivered but possibly at a very different time than the regular letter carrier does.
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Dee, that just happened to me today. I was given part of another route to deliver, but along with the mail on the other route which I was suposed to deliver was additional mail that wasn't part of my extra assignment. Not knowing if I was approved to deliver that additional mail, I called the delivery supervisor at the Post Office and asked for further guidance. She said to go ahead and deliver it and that wouldn't be an issue with me taking longer than I was supposed to. Basically, just call the post office and ask for the delivery supervisor. When they send you out to deliver mail, your supervisor should give you the office phone number to call if there are any questions. It's pretty common for me to call the PO and vice versa if we have questions. I would hope your supervisors are just as receptive as it is part of their job to assist you with anything you may not be sure of. I also have the cell #'s of some of my co-workers who I'll call/text if I have a question they might know the answer to.
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