Mailman ?

[Coconut36]

Wouldn't it get really heavy for the mailman to be picking up everyones mail as well as carrying mail to deliver? How odd.

They are in vehicles and are carrying a significant amount of mail to deliver (routes can be large) so as they offload they surely have the weight capacity to pick up a few items too. Never in my life have I ever heard of a mail carrier refusing to pick up mail.

ETA-In seeing the USPS quote is makes me realize that I have always lived with a curbside mailbox (flag). Is it really so time consuming for them to get out and walk to the door (what the issue appears to be..if they don't have to get up they will pick up mail, if they have to walk to get it and not deliver they will not).

 

[C.Ann]

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She may have not seen it or she may have decided not to stop. Often mail carriers will intentionally have light days and only deliver first class mail because they want to end their day early or finish without doing OT. My dad was a mailman, supervisor, and Postmaster for 30+ years and this tended to be an issue for certain carriers on Saturdays especially. :/

(Underlining mine..) I've been very lucky here at the lake until this year.. My mail box is down on the main road with the others and all of the regular carriers have been great.. When I have packages (which is quite often) that won't fit in the mail box, the carriers will bring them up here to my door - although technically they aren't required to do so.. (They do it as a favor for the customers because in order for us to go and pick up packages at the post office it's about a 40-minute drive - one way.. Longer for others further on down the route..) However, this year they hired a female sub who not only tries to attach the packages to the outside of my box with a rubber band and the door of the box open (even in the rain), but on Saturdays will not stop to pick up mail when the flag is up unless there's something to deliver.. (I guess that's the "light" day you're referring to..) I finally called the post office and they straightened it out for me.. They are great employees over there and they like to keep all of their customers happy..

When I did this in my former house, I put the mail in a small plastic bag and then clipped it to the box on the house with a clothespin..

Wouldn't it get really heavy for the mailman to be picking up everyones mail as well as carrying mail to deliver? How odd.

I've never lived in an area where the mailperson walks.. They always have a vehicle..

Why in the world would I run to the post office just to mail a letter?

Depending on where you live, I think many people don't realize just how far away their post office might be..
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I must have been very, very lucky in my former house.. For many, many years there were only three houses on that road: my grandmother's; mine; and my cousin's.. It was a dead-end road - at the bottom of a very steep hill - and the mailman always drove down to see if there was mail to be picked up, even if there was nothing to deliver..

 

[scrapquitler]

Soooo. . .I just happened to be out on my porch today when the mailman (it was actually a mail lady) breezed by my house. I had a Netflix movie in the box to go out. When she slowed down for the neighbors I ran the movie out to her and she said, "You didn't have any mail today." She's not my normal mail person. And I live in the city, so the mailbox is on the house and not out on the street with a flag that you can put up for outgoing mail. But this really rubbed me the wrong way. Am I wrong?

What if I had something important like a CC or mortgage payment in the outgoing mail? So just because I didn't have any incoming mail you weren't even going to stop and see if I had anything outgoing?

Have any of you noticed similar behavior? It's not like I'm going to call in and complain, but it kind of irritated me.

You had NO mail? I don't think that has ever happened to us. There's not always ACTUAL mail, but there's always some kind of junk.

If you don't have a flag, how is the mail carrier supposed to know that you've got mail on the box? My mom has a mailbox on the side of her front door, and she always clips it (with an orange flourescent clothespin) to the outside of the mailbox so the mail carrier can see it from far away.

I honestly think that them picking up from you is a courtesy and probably NOT something they are required to do, especially if they don't have a delivery for you that day.

 

[dreamin_disney]

Flame suit on..... If she was walking she should have seen the movie cliped to mailbox and should have stopped.....


When i read this I first thought she drove by and was just to lazy to get off and get your mail or in a hurry and didnt want to stop...it happens...is it right no.


My mail is on my curb but I dont send outgoing mail because I dont want anyone stealing it. Most of my mail is car payment, house payment and sometimes CC payments. I try doing as much as I can online payments. Any bills or package i go to postoffice but thats my choice. Not everyone can go to the postoffice especially if they dont drive, are sick, work late or elderly.

With so may different answers call your local postoffice and ask what the prcedure is.

 

[sookie]

Posting again, in case people missed it.

She basically had a flag up - so shouldn't they have stopped?

 

[aleask]

I have a friend back East I would send stuff to periodically and she had a mail woman that was so lazy that even if it was signature required the woman would just strap it to the out side of the mailbox. And heaven forbid if anyone was parked near her box she would drive right by it and not even deliver mail that day.

I am super fortunate to have a mailman that treats me very good and he gets coffee cards every Christmas also!

 

[bumbershoot]

Same with me. I'm in my mid-40s & never once in my life have I left mail in my mailbox for my mailman to pick up. I always drop it in a mailbox or at the post office.

I'm 42, and when I lived in a house (vs a condo with an easy walk to the post office) we ALWAYS left stuff in our mailbox at the end of our street.

Outgoing mail is picked up:

For curbside delivery if the flag is up or if there is mail to deliver.
For door delivery if there is mail to deliver.

That just feels so wrong....

She basically had a flag up - so shouldn't they have stopped?

Because it wasn't curbside, it was door delivery. And for door delivery, there needs to be mail to deliver! Which, again, doesn't sit right with me.


Someday we'll get a house and it's going to be a whole new world, getting used to the oddities of not having mail right there in the building with me!

 

[AprilRenee]

This is totally something our mailman would have done. I get so annoyed sometimes cause I'm sure there was mail to deliver (even just junk mail) and we didn't get ANYTHING that day. I'm usually pretty sure the mail lady just skips our house sometimes.

Once, there was a snow a few days before and we hadn't gotten time to go out and scrape off our porch. Now, there were snow free patches, but mostly it was packed down snow. The mail lady wrote on our mail "clear the ice or NO MAIL" I couldn't believe it!! I mean really? And is it even legal to write notes on someone's mail??? That was the weirdest thing ever. I was really tempted to leave the ice.

 

[HelenePA]

This is totally something our mailman would have done. I get so annoyed sometimes cause I'm sure there was mail to deliver (even just junk mail) and we didn't get ANYTHING that day. I'm usually pretty sure the mail lady just skips our house sometimes.

Once, there was a snow a few days before and we hadn't gotten time to go out and scrape off our porch. Now, there were snow free patches, but mostly it was packed down snow. The mail lady wrote on our mail "clear the ice or NO MAIL" I couldn't believe it!! I mean really? And is it even legal to write notes on someone's mail??? That was the weirdest thing ever. I was really tempted to leave the ice.

I dunno about writing on the mail but its pretty standard if their pathway isn't clear they wont deliver the mail to you... I'm so glad my mail men/mail ladies are wonderful.. they even know in the wintertime if big packages come its christmas stuff for the kids so they hide it on the side of my house for me and leave me a little note saying its there

 

[FireDancer]

Growing up we had the on-house mail box and the mailman only stopped if he was delivering. There were days we would leave outgoing mail and it would still be there until the next day when we got mail. We had one of the blue mailboxes a street over and we would either drop the mail there on the way somewhere or our parents would ask us to take the mail on our bikes if it couldn't wait. I mail very little now but I usually just put it in the outgoing mail at work.

 

[HelenePA]

Growing up we had the on-house mail box and the mailman only stopped if he was delivering. There were days we would leave outgoing mail and it would still be there until the next day when we got mail. We had one of the blue mailboxes a street over and we would either drop the mail there on the way somewhere or our parents would ask us to take the mail on our bikes if it couldn't wait. I mail very little now but I usually just put it in the outgoing mail at work.

around here all the mail boxes are on the house, heck when I moved in I still had a mail slot going right to my living room (its actually still there but we use a mail box now) for the first few days I was all worried because we hadn't gotten around to putting up a mail box yet... then I looked behind the couch for a toy or something and see all this mail.. I was very confused.. then it dawned on me.. holy cow I have a mail slot.. I only saw those in the movies.

 

[disykat]

She basically had a flag up - so shouldn't they have stopped?

It's very clear - for door delivery their must be mail to deliver for the mail carrier to go to the door. It's the protocol they're supposed to follow.

I was a customer on a walking route for 8 years. I can't imagine expecting the mail carrier to walk up each and every sidewalk far enough to check for outgoing mail. Many of the mailboxes were not visible from the street, including ours. I honestly don't remember being able to see anyone's outgoing mail from the main sidewalk.

 

[SandrA9810]

I grew up with a mail man that walked the route. He'd park at one end of the block, walk two blocks down on one side of the street and walk back up two blocks on the other side of the street. All houses had a box on the house, unless you had a fenced in yard, then they had a box at the end of the yard.
Any outgoing mail was held partially out. The box was on the stoop, and was mostly covered from the street.

All the apartments I lived in had a central mail box, with specific slot for outgoing mail.

My aunt has a curb side mailbox and the driver just pulls up to each box.

Here in California, there's a central box on each street. None of the new houses have an individual box, some of the older homes do though, with a curb side box. Oversized packages are delivered to the door.

If you have a priority box being shipped, you can schedule a pick up, and they will take any other packages you may have. We've sometimes waited it out for the mail lady to show up and she'll take all of our ebay packages for us, no matter what method they're being shipped.

 

[Planogirl]

Wow, our mail is never picked up at all. We have to take it to the post office. I didn't even realize that mail carriers still picked up.

 

[NHdisneylover]

Is it really so time consuming for them to get out and walk to the door (what the issue appears to be..if they don't have to get up they will pick up mail, if they have to walk to get it and not deliver they will not).

Yes, actually, I think on a large walking route which can easily have a few hundred houses, it would be VERY time consuming to have to walk to every door regardless of if there was mail or not. 30 seconds to a minute per house would add up really fast and you would very likely end up having to hire 5-10% more mail carriers to handle it (thus raising costs).

 

[auntfrannie]

I'm feeling very spoiled & special in my little podunk town! I always leave mail in the box at the end of my driveway with the flag up and they always stop and pick up the mail. If there's a package that they think might be too big they'll drive up to the door and deliver it.

I'm feeling the love for my mail deliverers!!

 

[Coconut36]

She basically had a flag up - so shouldn't they have stopped?

While I agree with you, my take on the USPS post is that if the mailbox is on the street with the flag up they will take mail regardless of you having mail delivered. If it is at the house (and they are required to actually walk to it) they will not take mail if they have nothing for you. So the difference appears to be location of the box.

 

[Mermaid02]

Wouldn't it get really heavy for the mailman to be picking up everyones mail as well as carrying mail to deliver? How odd.

Here there are green "drop boxes" just for the mailman. When he gets too much to carry (outgoing) he puts it in the green "mailbox" and comes back with his truck to get it.

We also clip out outgoing to our mailbox (located on the side of our house). There is a 5 item limit though- he only has to take FIVE pieces of outgoing mail from each house, although this has never been a problem for us.

 

[herdtoDisney]

dude, its their job. of course she should have stopped. I would definetly complain! our tax dollars at work... i pay a mint each month to keep these people in jobs (i send a lot of mail).

we have flags here...

NO TAX DOLLARS FUND THE USPS. BY LAW IT IS ENTIRELY FUNDED BY REVENUE FROM POSTAGE!!!

Arh. Not tax funded! That is the law!

Anyhow...


I am a city carrier. All my residential deliveries are 'park and loop' i.e. I walk up to the boxes on the houses. OP, let me guess what most likely happened. You said the carrier was a sub-she most likely didn't see the letter, that's all. Since you didn't have mail, she didn't come up and probably didn't realize you had that. Your regular carrier is used to seeing your netflix so would probably have looked for it but she just didn't see it. She probably would have grabbed it if she had.

If I have a customer who doesn't have mail that day but leaves something out, I'll grab it. But I have to SEE it-or a flag (or a clothepin, lol). If it's down in the box with the lid down, I don't know it's there. I pick up all the mail my customers leave, and packages too. I have a lot of older customers and I know it's not always easy for them to get out to the PO and there aren't as many blue collection boxes as there used to be.

To the PP who was uspet that her carrier didn't deliver when she didn't clear the snow/ice from her steps-umm, if I fall on your steps, I get hurt and can't do my job. I want to go home at the end of the day in the same shape I came to work. So, either clear your steps, or put your box at the bottom of the steps

 

[Cindy B]

I've never heard or seen mail clipped to the front. I have lived in three different states and have never seen it! Mailboxes around here have flags, so that is what people do. Flag is up, mail to be picked up.

I will say we dont have much outgoing mail. Usually its things like party invites or response cards, but not usually bills.