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 is a good question which I can basically break down into a simple answer: there is no set time for switching routes for letter carriers. The system for assigning routes comes down to seniority. If a letter carrier likes the route that they have they can stay on it indefinitely for the most part. If the office goes through some route restructuring (like the territory that makes up a route changes) then you may get a new mailman. When carriers retire or leave the PO for any reason, their route goes up for bidding and the most senior letter carrier who would like that route assignment can choose it. At this point your mailman could move to another route if they want to and they have enough seniority. Some letter carriers could stay on their routes for 25+ years if they choose to. If you are having serious issues with your letter carrier, you could mention it to to them if you ever see them or you could call the delivery supervisor at your local PO. I'm sorry you are having issues with your letter carrier. There are many among us who don't do a great job or just have a bad attitude.
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Getting that large size shoe may require a custom order. I was just at the website for US Uniform Company. One of the items I looked up only went as high as size 14. I only looked at one type of shoe. I buy Rocky or New Balance Black leather low top athletic shoes for walking. They will have the mandated SR/USA tag if purchased through an authorized uniform vendor. I can't say any one shoe is better than the other since I don't recall every being uncomfortable in any of them. I don't remember the brand but some definitely wore out faster than others resulting in an expensive (usually more than $100/pair) replacement order. I probably go through at least 2 pair of shoes per year and walk about 5 miles per day on my route, 351 residential deliveries to their door.
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I don't think you need to hire a locksmith to replace the lock to a cluster mailbox, but to be honest I don't really know the procedure as to who maintains the boxes. It may be the USPS or it could be the complex/apt/condo management. I believe the lock may have to be changed because I don't even know if spare keys are held anywhere. If it is true that a letter carrier can get the lock changed I don't know the length of time that this takes though I imagine it is common for mailbox keys to be lost.
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If you mail out the postcards on Friday, they will generally arrive Monday or Tuesday depending on how far away the destination is from you. The USPS has been talking about a change in what is called their EXFC standards so First Class Mail that used to take 1-3 days may now take 2-4 days. I'm not sure if this is in effect or not. With regards to using the 9-digit ZIP code I don't believe it speeds up the process. If your postcards have printed addresses on them, our OCR (Optical Character Reader) probably would have no problem reading the address, spraying a bar code on the envelope and sending it on its way expeditiously. Most addressing software programs now produce an address with a 9-digit ZIP and standardized address. If you look at a lot of the mail you receive, it likely has the 9-digit ZIP code on it. We call it ZIP + 4, but it's the same thing. This codes the destination address down to a pretty small group of addresses within a ZIP code. I believe in some cases PO Boxes each have their own specific ZIP + 4. Thank you for your question.
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I would suggest that would be illegal to do. Mail that is addressed to a PO Box should stay in the PO Box until picked up by the boxholder. We have no rights as a letter carrier to go into the PO Box, remove mail, and give it to a member of your family. I'm not saying your carrier isn't doing this, but they would be risking their job to do what you've described. If mail continues to be missing you may want to bring it to the attention of a supervisor or the Postmaster of the office where you receive your PO Box mail
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I don't think the mailman should have left you a notice saying that unless you are blocking someone's mailbox down the street. Even if you were blocking another mailbox down the street, I don't believe he has any authority to suspend delivery to your house because of it. We can leave notes in a mailbox though there are some official notes we can leave like "your mailbox needs attention." I don't know if you want to approach your letter carrier directly and explain that your car has nothing to do with blocking your mailbox (which you said isn't blocked, period). If mail delivery doesn't resume I would suggest contacting your delivery post office and speaking with a delivery supervisor about this. From what you've described, this sounds like an irrational situation.
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I am not sure of the legality of this, but I know I would never get involved in such a situation. I wouldn't get mail from one address and give the mail to another person especially if it had a random name. It all sounds too fishy to me. When I'm delivering the mail if I see a name that I'm familiar with but the address is not right I will sometimes deliver it to the correct address. An example that I see but am not comfortable with is one customer gets what looks like beer purchase rebate checks sent to his neighbor's house with a slightly altered last name. If I recognize this mail I will deliver to the person whose name is on the envelope. The customer has never approached me to do this and I would never have any apologies if the rebate check was delivered as addressed (to a neighbor) and disappeared. Again, it's something I would never want to be involved with because it sounds fishy and if I am not working I can't control what happens to an intentionallay misaddrressed or misnamed piece of mail. If you work something out with your neighbor that's another story which I don't need to know about. Thanks for writing.
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