Your postman

[Kestra]

We live in a townhouse so while we all have separate entrances and driveways, the mailboxes are clustered in groups of four. Luckily ours happens to be at the end of our driveway so it's close. If we want to send mail we can put it in our own mailbox, but I go to the post office almost every day anyway and I usually end up dropping mail off there. I've had better results by taking mail directly to the post office in the past.

The worst was when I was living in the city in an apartment where they would regularly hold the mail (probably too lazy to sort it out) and then all at once there would be about ten overdue bills stuffed into my mailbox.

I know most of the workers at our local post office now and they're quite friendly, but lately I've been using the automated postal center more and more.

 

[FrontLine]

Where I live we have a mail box at the edge of the street. The mail man comes up in a jeep equipped with 'wrong side' steering and they put the mail in our box from their vehicle. They never get out.

 

[Star Wolf]

According to this article in an effort to cut cost Royal Mail have told postmen to walk faster (4 mph instead of the previous 2.4 mph).

I gather from the article that in Britain most postmen deliver by foot. Also they have to walk up to people's front doors to put mail in the slit. Is that so?

Here in Australia we have to have a letter box at the front of our property and the vast majority of deliveries are done by a postie on a motorbike. The only exception to this is the the CBD where the postman is on foot pushing a trolley.

I also gather that in the USA you can leave mail in your letterbox and the postman picks it up. Is that so? We don't do that in Australia but years ago when the postman used to be on foot we could hand him a letter that needed posting.

Yes, in Britain, post is delivered through a slot in your front door ('letterbox', although on most houses not in any sense a box) by a postman on foot, although he may have a pedal cycle to get between roads and carry the post. Parcels of significant size are delivered by van by a separate company called Parcel Force.

I doubt 'postman' is politically correct anymore. Mail Delivery Technician, probably.

In the US, it is letter carrier. Native Americans tend to use mailman. Immigrants tend to use postman or cartero as Spanish is becoming Americas second language. Little kids often call us the mailbox.

USPS has two main classes of letter carriers. Rural carriers who get a flat rate based upon the size of their routes, they take as much time needed to finish. And city carriers who are paid hourly. If a city carrier needs extra time to finish he gets assistance from another carrier, gets paid overtime and/or is told not to deliver that segment of the route. Overtime used and those missed deliveries are reported all the way up the line to the Postmaster General's office. I never know week to week which will be the priority hold the line on overtime usage or make sure every piece gets delivered everyday. Right now with everyone concerned about showing budget discipline the service is leaning towards not delivering to save overtime. Eventhough by contract we don't get paid as much for overtime used in December as during the other 11 months of the year.

Delivery methods tend to be grandfathered into place. Giving the choice, as when new subdivisions are built we will put a box on a block and have all our customers walk to the central location for their mail. Next best choice is streetside so it can be delivered mounted in our vehicle. I have only walked to every door in my career. There is no standard speed to walk, we are only required to take every obvious shortcut (walking on your lawn) and to do our best. We are supposed to have regular walk along inspections to make sure we aren't milking the time clock and check in points along the route where we have to scan a barcode to show the time arrived. Routes belonging to old carriers thus are easier physically then younger carriers routes.

Maybe 25 years seniority gets me a mounted route or a VIM room (the mailman assigned to a large office building). Exremely large apartment/condo complexes work a lot like VIMs except they are not listed seperate so all will know when they are available for the most senior to bid on the route. Also routes are regularly adjusted to make the days work load as close to 8 hours as possible so you can lose a carrier because your street on his route is assigned to another route.

 

[Flibble]

My husband in a UK postman. The 4 mph is ridiculous. It's all been worked out by some university graduate with a computer who has never delivered a letter in their life. In these figures they don't allow for people who take time to get to the door to collect their parcels, those who want a quick chat especially old people who sometimes the postman is the only person they see all day, and they often ask them to do small favours for them like open jars or change light bulbs, avoiding dogs etc etc.

He's now lucky that he collects the mail from postboxes and post offices.

 

[WillsBabe]

old people who sometimes the postman is the only person they see all day, and they often ask them to do small favours for them like open jars or change light bulbs

It never occurred to me that would happen. But I guess it happens all the time. Postmen and women do a good job in my opinion.

 

[FPAlpha]

German postal services is ok i guess.. never had major problems with them such as losing mail.

I live in a part of town that's pretty normal. We get our mail everyday at roughly the same time. The postmen usually have these carts with bags at the side where they carry the mail.. they take out a bunch of stuff, walk to the door and either ring or enter if the door is open and sort the mail into each resident's mailbox.

The only thing i really noticed is that when you live higher up (say 3rd floor or higher) the ratio of delivered packages seems to go down a bit.
There was a period of time when i was at home the entire day and yet found a note in my mailbox that i wasn't home and can pick up my stuff at the post office. My parents didn't live that far away and it happened to them too.

After we watched this for a while i formally lodged a complaint with the post office and that seemed to have done the trick.

 

[jamestyler]

My husband in a UK postman. The 4 mph is ridiculous. It's all been worked out by some university graduate with a computer who has never delivered a letter in their life. In these figures they don't allow for people who take time to get to the door to collect their parcels, those who want a quick chat especially old people who sometimes the postman is the only person they see all day, and they often ask them to do small favours for them like open jars or change light bulbs, avoiding dogs etc etc.

He's now lucky that he collects the mail from postboxes and post offices.

Despite my hatred for Royal Mail, I really do empathise with their job. I've got friends who work there who are just as unhappy with the rules and systems in place as those like me in areas where the service is dreadful - and then get the blame if the office screws up, or if a colleague is lazy take the heat with them.

This time of year especially makes it more stressful. It'd be great if those people making up the speed limits would like to carry the mail around Paisley in the cold and see how reasonable it is.

 

[Emher]

Around here they deliver it to your mailslot (since I live in apartment), and they do it on electric modeps of sorts. You have to leave you outgoing mail in a postbox or at a post office. At around here the postmen are mostly postewomen, and quite cute at that

 

[Frontier]

I live in "the country" so to speak -- although the number of houses now compared to 16 years ago when we moved here is 10 times as many... -- that said, all our mail boxes are on the curb. Down the road, there are houses with the boxes up on the porch next to the front door.

My postman is a lazy prick, TBH. He hates the fact that he has to stop his little truck and get off his fat ass, walk 25 feet up the front lawn (which, technically, I've been told he should walk the driveway and the walk, but I don't care) but he's so pissy about having to do that. Last I checked, it's his job though. I buy a lot of shit through the mail, and that's my god damn perogative.

He's such a dolt, though. If he can cram anything into the box, he does. He leaves it on top of the box, propped up with the little flag. He's busted the mail box 3 times - the handle came off the door, it used to lean forward from him pulling so hard on the door and leaving heavy boxes on top, and the little flag broke off him him doing that too. He also won't ever take an INTL package from the box, because then HE has to fill out paper work. We have to make a special trip to the post office across town, where the one lady is human and friendly, and she's ok with filling out said paper work, whatever it may be.

Honestly, I'd like to have him fired, but complaining will accomplish nothing. We tried the first time, when he started being a lazy wanker and leaving the boxes on top of the box, but nothing gets done. I wish the USPS had an internal affairs bureua. Really truly do. Sadly, there's no choice but to just deal with the jerk. Most places only use USPS, and all the other services are too damned expensive. *Sigh*

 

[FrontLine]

My husband in a UK postman. The 4 mph is ridiculous. It's all been worked out by some university graduate with a computer who has never delivered a letter in their life. In these figures they don't allow for people who take time to get to the door to collect their parcels, those who want a quick chat especially old people who sometimes the postman is the only person they see all day, and they often ask them to do small favours for them like open jars or change light bulbs, avoiding dogs etc etc.

He's now lucky that he collects the mail from postboxes and post offices.

You are absolutely right. In the Army the average speed for a forced march was 3MPH. Even that was back breaking. Now you want a postman to do an even faster pace, with a load probably close to what we carried, but not ergonomically carried, and they need to make frequent stops? Thats insane and an unrealistic standard.

 

[RoJoHen]

Where I live we have a mail box at the edge of the street. The mail man comes up in a jeep equipped with 'wrong side' steering and they put the mail in our box from their vehicle. They never get out.

Those cars freak me out.

I feel like I would get in so many accidents.

 

[Star Wolf]

I live in "the country" so to speak -- although the number of houses now compared to 16 years ago when we moved here is 10 times as many... -- that said, all our mail boxes are on the curb. Down the road, there are houses with the boxes up on the porch next to the front door.

My postman is a lazy prick, TBH. He hates the fact that he has to stop his little truck and get off his fat ass, walk 25 feet up the front lawn (which, technically, I've been told he should walk the driveway and the walk, but I don't care) but he's so pissy about having to do that. Last I checked, it's his job though. I buy a lot of shit through the mail, and that's my god damn perogative.

He's such a dolt, though. If he can cram anything into the box, he does. He leaves it on top of the box, propped up with the little flag. He's busted the mail box 3 times - the handle came off the door, it used to lean forward from him pulling so hard on the door and leaving heavy boxes on top, and the little flag broke off him him doing that too. He also won't ever take an INTL package from the box, because then HE has to fill out paper work. We have to make a special trip to the post office across town, where the one lady is human and friendly, and she's ok with filling out said paper work, whatever it may be.

Honestly, I'd like to have him fired, but complaining will accomplish nothing. We tried the first time, when he started being a lazy wanker and leaving the boxes on top of the box, but nothing gets done. I wish the USPS had an internal affairs bureua. Really truly do. Sadly, there's no choice but to just deal with the jerk. Most places only use USPS, and all the other services are too damned expensive. *Sigh*

Sounds like you are serviced on a rural route, they have different rules and regulations then I as a city carrier work under. They are more of a rolling post office while I just deliver and collect mail. As a rurl as far as I knew he shouldn't dismount unless he had a large parcel or accountable piece needing a signiture and the resident doesn't get to have a doorside mailbox.

The USPS has three layers of consumer reporting of us. First you talk to the local carrier and his supervisor/postmaster. Next its consumer affairs and last is the Office of the Inspector General. I personally know 16 carriers who were put up for termination by the OIG and spent 5 months thinking they would be fired before the union saved them. 3 more were not saved by the union. And that is in two Los Angeles zipcodes alone, the OIG works all over the country and yearly they release news of a mass firing of carriers in a postal district.

 

[Star Wolf]

Where I live we have a mail box at the edge of the street. The mail man comes up in a jeep equipped with 'wrong side' steering and they put the mail in our box from their vehicle. They never get out.

Those cars freak me out.

I feel like I would get in so many accidents.

We do. The old converted jeeps have been withdrawn from service should have carried the unsafe at any speed name. But they did have good visabilty. The first purpose made mail vehicle had a wider wheelbase in the rear axel which made it easy to turn under city conditions but in the snow the front tires could not plow for the rear so many lost control. Also unless an intersection was a perfect 90 degress you could not see a car coming from your left. The replacement has a more powerful engine slightly better visability but the wheelbase correction made it harder for us to squeeze into a parking space, but safety is improved for those who deliver in the snow. My route has a Ford Windstar assigned to it. They were bought as an interiem vehicle to replace the jeeps 10 years ago and have convention drive. None should be on mounted routes or collection runs so right hand drive is not needed.

The most unsafe are the rural carriers who supply their own vehicles in most cases the sit in the right seat and reach over to drive with their left leg and arm to reach the car controls. Very few buy a surplus right hand drive vehicle, it is years before a rural moves beyond partime status into having his own route. Everytime a rural carrier dies or kills someone the states ask why are USPS carriers exempt from such basic driver safety laws just to sqeeze more deliveries per day in.

 

[flandry84]

I worked as a postman for 2 years,my late father was in the job for 37 years.To tell the truth,it was the best job I ever had.(It's Christmas,don't forget to slip your local guy a tenner.)
Here in Ireland,rural deliveries are made by van,city/town deliveries are on foot or on bicycle.Apart from the cities we don't have post(zip)codes.In the countryside mail comes adressed to your local townland,and as I remember all too well,with family names repeating so often in clusters,it is a testament to our guys that the mail gets where it is going so meticously.I remember that on the route I had,there were 6 families with the same surname in a row,with the name repeating a further 3 times in the same townland.I literally had to learn all the kids names etc.
As one old guy in our office said "We even know their dogs names."