Ask a Mailman (City Letter Carrier) anything

1237 Questions

Last Answer on February 18, 2022

Should someone have a degree to do this job?

Asked by Bobby over 5 years ago

It is definitely not a requirement whatsoever to have any higher education for this job. No college degree is needed and won’t likely help or hinder your chances of being hired. I have a Bachelors degree (4-year) from s public university in NY. Most of my work colleagues don’t need have college degrees. The job as a letter carrier can be taught in a very short amount of time. You must be in reasonably good physical health and having good organizational skills and being a safe worker are important. I think having a degree helps me understand more about the USPS in general. I am curious by nature so I like to learn more than just how to do the job. Many of my coworkers aren’t that well educated and tend to believe things too easily they may hear through the rumor mill and spread it as fact. I really don’t like misinformation.

240 Votes

What’s your opinion on the post master general

Asked by Billy almost 5 years ago

I feel that Louis DeJoy, our newer Postmaster General is a political hack who was appointed due to his loyalty and fundraising support of President Trump. Most of our recent previous PMGs have been USPS employees, but that isn’t necessary to be able to do the job successfully. There is no doubt that our organization isn’t modern and doesn’t run that efficiently. Some changes are necessary, but the changes proposed not long before an election where a large amt of ballots will be submitted via mail bodes of a deliberate attempt to sow doubt in the USPS ability to handle the mailed ballots. Fortunately, there was a lot of pushback from the public and some courts about these changes. I don’t feel I was ever affected by them at my facility. After the 2020 election, DeJoy said he will again propose some major changes. If Trump loses the election, I’m not sure that DeJoy will even stay on the job. I don’t believe he can be fired so easily, but maybe he doesn’t even really want this job long term.

239 Votes

Has someone ever tried to get you to deliver a bomb?

Asked by Brick head over 5 years ago

No. Fortunately, that would be a super rare event. In all of my years working at the Postal Service the only issue I ever had to deal with was the 2001 anthrax attacks where we were concerned with exposure to anthrax that was being sent in the mail, 2001. There were 5 fatalities (2 of them were USPS employees) according to Wikipedia.

238 Votes

Does my mailman know where
I'M moving....many nosey
neighbors!!!! thank you

Asked by PERSNICKEDY about 5 years ago

Your letter carrier doesn’t generally have access to your new address if you have filled out a forwarding order (change of address request) via www.usps.com. If you were to manually fill out a paper COA request, it’s possible the letter carrier may get a copy of it. I sometimes get a list of the current forwarding orders on file for my route. The list does have the new address for anybody who moved in the last year and submitted a forwarding order. That information is confidential and should never be released to anybody except via official summons or other legal matter. I would be confident that your letter carrier would keep that information private. Most of the time they don’t even have access to that information.

238 Votes

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Why is there sometimes someone else in the car when they are delivering mail?

Asked by Jane over 5 years ago

It’s either a supervisor doing a periodic check of the route and the carrier delivering it or there may be a trainee being shown how to do the job.

236 Votes

Keep a eye out I think there is a troll asking questions over and over look through and see how much of the questions are the same writing styles, posting links, and asking the same questions over and over in a different way among other non sense

Asked by Jessica almost 5 years ago

Thanks for the heads up, Jessica. Trolls are the bain of the Internet.

235 Votes

Woah! This is crazy right here! What do you think about this?! https://youtu.be/aFYYMypm8IE

Asked by Jearmy almost 5 years ago

I saw this on the internet and heard about it on the radio. Unfortunately, the USPS sometimes has employees that don’t quite understand the sanctity of the mail and that they can’t throw it away. According to the article he employees was a new hire. Maybe he was overwhelmed with his work assignment, though that is no excuse for discarding mail into a dumpster. I’d hope that he gets in a lot of trouble criminally, but I don’t think they often do. Either way, it looks horrible when we want the country to be able to trust us with their ballots for the upcoming election. I don’t believe the employee was purposely discarding ballots as a lot of other mail was also discovered. I believe it was nearly 1900 pieces of mail.

234 Votes