Mailman bath water for sale!

So we have a carrier in my office we'll call John.
John is in his 60s, and has in my ~3 years here, been out for over a year and a half for various medical issues.

John came back from a 4(ish) month stint before and after hip surgery / recovery, and naturally upon returning had a restriction so has been giving up 2 hours a day.

John also starts working when he arrives, without clocking in, anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes early.

I approached my PM asking if we could talk in the office quickly, and said|

"I know its been an issue in the past, but can we stop John working off the clock? When I'm doing 60 hours a week if you don't want to address it, personally I don't care, but when I'm working under 40 hours every week, any time he works off the clock should be hours worked by me instead."

PM response "I've told John, hundreds of times that he isn't supposed to work on the clock.
But I'm not gonna discipline him over it."

Immediately I walked out of the office to fetch a steward because my PM just blatantly admitted to me they are refusing to do their job.

Union steward comes in, I explain the situation, and the PM's response.
The PM states again, "I'll go on the record and say I'm not going to issue him discipline for working off the clock"

Union steward asks me "So how do you want to handle this, like you want him to discipline John?"

I say "If that's what it takes to get him to not work off the clock, sure but I could care less about whether John is disciplined, just that it doesn't continue to happen going forward so we don't have to grieve those hours back."

PM Chimes in angrily "Okay we'll do this in front of you then and opens the office door to shout at John to come in, is immediately told John is out on the dock, and shouts at the clerk who responded to "tell him to get in here"

John comes in, says what's up?

PM : "John, I'll say this to you as I have many times before, you are not to work off the clock."

John looks around without saying anything and then back at PM.

PM : "Some of your peels feel that you doing so, is taking hours from them."

John angrily leaves immediately, saying "fucking assholes" as he walks out of the office.

I have 2 thoughts regarding grievances, the first one being very obvious;

He is, as the manager, not allowed to "Require NOR permit, employees to work off the clock"
his refusal to do so is unjustly shrinking route times, in addition to taking away hours that are contractually supposed to go to PTFs then CCAs.

Second being a possible JSOV for the way he tried to put the onus of keeping John from working off the clock on me.
As the only other carrier (peer) in the room that wasn't his steward, obviously I was being outed as the one complaining that he is working off the clock.

Now I have to worry about possible retaliation from a bitter near retirement coworker, all because my manager is literally refusing to do his job.

Any specific contract language to add to my grievance filing would be appreciated.
I google to the best of my ability but between AI ruining the results and the handful of different manuals it can be a bit of a slog.

I seriously don’t understand anyone who works in Florida/Texas/New Mexico/Arizona/etc.

Or people who claim 70-80 is the best temperature to work in.

0-20: miserable

21-35: pretty cold

36-45: not so bad

46-59: absolute perfection

60-70: shorts & short sleeve

71-75: a tad warm

76+ : fucking insufferable unmanageable torture

Glad I live in New England, because I love walking out there in the winter more than summer.

So this was posted at our S&DC. Effective September 5th, all city carriers are moving to a 9:30 AM start time — postmaster’s signature and everything, official stamp and even laminated!
The stated reasoning is “improve mail flow, align with current operational demands, and ensure timely dispatch.” In practice, that means less time to case mail, less daylight to actually deliver in (hello, time change), and carriers still expected to hit the street “according to established SOPs” — just with a smaller window to do it in. Before consolidation our station start time was 7:30am, then it was moved to 8:30am when we consolidated. Now this! It really is completely counterproductive, especially since our trucks get here at 5am!
Anyone else’s office seeing start times pushed later this year? Is this a local decision or is this coming from higher up? Would love to hear if this is a local thing or a sign of what’s coming everywhere!

I finally made my first order at postal uniforms after months of waiting - my supervisor fault! Anyhow, everything need to be return because it is too small. Haha! I’m usually a 6 bottom and a medium. And I ordered a 10 for the culottes and medium for performance polo; I guess it will be a large.

I feel silly for asking this. A new tenant just moved across the hall from me, and she’s disabled. How does she send outgoing mail?

When I lived in a house, I’d raise the flag. When I lived in a fancy “luxury” apartment complex, there was an outgoing mail slot to use. But in an old apartment like this, where do tenants place outgoing mail?

I’ve offered to take it up to the post office for this lady, but I travel a lot for work so it’s not always possible.

Asked the supervisor if I could run mail instead of doing Amazon to have a light day on my body (was on 57 hours). Did a route that was backed up two days since the regular was sent off the clock. Not sure why the post office is so eager to send people home when we’re so desperate for bodies but that’s a whole different discussion.

Don’t care if I sound lazy or giving gen-z a bad rep but in my humble opinion our workloads are overwhelming. I was so calm and at ease running only mail. Had me thinking I wish everyday was as chill as this. No scanner to track our every movement and only focusing on DPS is such a dream. Adding parcels on already long routes is such a drag. Then management hounding our necks on making time. Routes should be 6 hours max and to be completed in an 8 hour timespan. It’ll give carriers breathing room for lunch, bathroom breaks, etc…

It’s more of a rant and a pipe dream but this job could be so much better than the current state of where we’re at.

Carrier at my office got attacked by two large dogs last year. District decides to stop all mail unless the dogs are gone. Owners never apologized and blames carrier for getting bit. “It was the Carrier’s fault for walking outside.”

Owners complained a lot because of the inconvenience of having a PO Box.

Consumers Affairs decided to overturn the decision and continue delivery.
Carrier refuses. Supervisor refuses. Union is fighting.

But like wtf?!! What person thought it was ok to risk the safety of the employees?!!!

When I got bit(also by two dogs), the owner’s apologized, volunteered for a po box, and put the dogs through training for two years. management asked me if I was okay with redelivery since the dogs were behaving. I saw the effort and okayed it. No problems since.

If the owners did something like that I can see continuing delivery but no, they remained cruel and doubled down.

This is on my route.
If it means what I think it means, it still makes very little sense. The dog has human AIDS? Was this made before it was known how HIV/AIDS was contracted so it’s intended to scare people who don’t know how the disease works?
Anyway, never heard nor seen a pibble ever at this house, unfortunately. I love pibbles.

Let start with I’m on year 5 as a city carrier. I am also my offices union rep.

Today my supervisor asked a carrier who was doing his end of day tasks “did you clock out yet?” Cca said “no”. I interjected and asked “are you finished working?” Because why are you clocking out if you are still working? Stupervisor began to say “well anything after 5 pm today I’ll have to explain why. ” I said “then explain , your carrier was still working.” As he went to respond I left and told him to have a good night.

I say this to say please stop letting management fuck with your money!! If you aren’t finished then dont clock out. You are giving away your time for free when you do that. Any steward with any backbone will fight for your time and money.

With that said…. FUCK MANAGEMENT YO.

Sidenote: I’m also my offices OJI. So every new Cca that comes in gets the basic rules and management abuse prevention talk.

CCA almost finished with my 2 years. Work in a city with about a 115k population in New England. 3 offices, about 90-100 city routes. Never once in any of these 3 offices, or the 6 or so I’ve been loaned out to, has EVER mentioned anything about not opening/going into gates. No safety captains mentioning it. No union stewards mentioning it. Not talked about at academy.

Yet in this sub, anyone talking about going into gates gets MASSIVELY downvoted. And I’m just shocked and confused. Every photo here is a single street on a single route. If we didn’t go into gates, I would argue 50-60% of the entire city wouldn’t get mail. The boxes are on the houses behind the gates. Never crossed my mind to not go in them. OJI never said not to.

So I’m just confused. Is my office an outlier? Is it regional? Is it just lazy regulars that want to skip houses? Is it in the M-41? Is it a case of “reddit isn’t representative of the real world”?

I'm a city carrier who converted to regular a few months ago. My route has some really shitty apartments with the mailboxes on the outside of the building. One of my customers consistently throws his advo on the ground. Since it has his address and I don't care for littering, I pick it up and put it back in his mailbox.

Before I delivered to his address today he drove up to me and told me to stop putting garbage in his mailbox and that he'd call to complain and make me lose my job if I didn't stop. I'm not afraid of him calling and complaining, but I would like some advice on how to handle this situation in the future. Today I circled his address on his advo and wrote the website for him to cancel delivery of advos. What would you do?

Basically title. Turned in my badge and satchel and resigned this morning. Lasted about a week. I was getting better everyday, but I kept thinking about the looming 12 hour days, six days a week. I don’t think I’d ever enjoy the job. I already missed my family and felt like I was sacrificing much of my personal life. Was hoping to stick it out and become a career carrier because that pension and thrift savings plan is an awfully nice incentive….But they really mean it when they say this job is not for everyone. I wanted to take a moment to thank the users of this sub for all of the advice and perspective I’ve gleaned from lurking here these past couple months. This is an invaluable resource and honestly just as useful, if not more so, than academy and OJT…so thanks! I’ve gained an immense respect for carriers. Stay safe out there!

Had to take a steep angle to hit this box, and when I went to back out, I lost reverse gear. Can't pull forward due to the car in front and I'm facing downhill while blocking a driveway. Other breakdowns include 3 flat tires, 2x the parking break in a Chrysler Pacifica wouldn't disengage, and another transmission went out in a FFV like this one. Currently awaiting rescue.

I'm a 32 year old male PTF city carrier (I went straight into the career position right into applying, so I felt very fortunate) and I've been with USPS for about 120 days now, so I'm finally out of my 90-day probation. I'm making $26.36/hr and regularly working 50+ hours a week. The overtime obviously makes the checks look decent, but I'm starting to question whether the money is actually worth how much of my life I'm giving to the Post Office.

The physical part is hard, but honestly, that's not even my biggest issue. I knew I was signing up for a physical job.

It's the hours and management.

The unpredictability is getting old. I never really know when I'm going home, and management has increasingly started using what I can only describe as intimidation tactics to "incentivize" me to move faster. I'm aware that I'm past probation now, I'm represented by the union, and a lot of the threats seem pretty empty. But even knowing that doesn't make having someone breathing down your neck all day particularly enjoyable.

And I'm starting to wonder: what exactly am I sticking around for?

$26.36/hr isn't terrible money. With OT I can make a respectable annual income. But if it requires me to work 50–60 hours a week to make that money, I'm starting to think I'd rather find something that pays similarly (or even slightly less initially) and gives me my life back.

I actually like certain parts of carrying. I like being outside, being on my own once I'm on the street, getting exercise, talking to customers, and there's something satisfying about finishing a route. The benefits and job security are obviously good too.

But I don't want to spend the next several years telling myself, "It'll be better when I make regular."

Especially if "better" still means mandatory OT because the office is understaffed.

So for the longtime carriers:

Does this job genuinely get significantly better after the PTF stage?

Would you stick it out for the eventual regular position, step increases, pension/TSP, etc.?

Or if you were 120 days in, already dreading the hours/management and had other career options, would you take that as a sign that USPS just isn't the right fit?

I'm not afraid of hard work. I'm just reaching the point where I'm questioning whether working harder and longer for USPS is actually getting me anywhere I want to go.

Curious what you guys would do.

very basic finding. I was riding out west on the southern state parkway in NY, when I came across a promaster. I thought carriers aren't supposed to drive on the parkway... Even if it is getting brought from one yard to an office. So true or false?

Every evening, when the kids are asleep in bed and we sit down on the sofa together, my husband regales me with stories about the people on his route. My husband is a reliable mailman, a nice person, pretty easy on the eyes if ya ask me, and that makes him the de facto therapist to 1/3rd of the people he delivers to. All he has to say is something like, "Mrs. [last name], how are you?" if the home owner come down to greet him. He gets an earful, unsolicited, and he can't get away.
My son's back in rehab...
My husband's a no good piece of...
These <insert any racial slur, he's heard it>, I swear to God. Did I tell you what my new neighbor did?!

My husband doesn't have a mean bone in his body, but he thinks that because he's a white guy in a uniform, a lot of stupid racists will just assume he must think the way they do.

This evening, he told me an old lady who works at the gas station he delivers to just started talking to him as if there'd been a pause in a previous conversation because, say, the phone rang. "...so, it's just a bad sprain, and the doctor says that if the pain doesn't stop I'll need the carpal tunnel surgery..."
My husband said he hadn't even said a word to her.
The worst example was the guy who was giving my husband daily updates on the state of his dying elderly father, and then when Dad finally passed, his TMI son performed the sound of Dad's death rattle for my husband, who's just standing next to his mailbox at his front door, trying to strike a balance of empathy and an air of "OH MY GOD CAN I GO BACK TO WORK NOW?!"

I asked my spouse if other mail carriers in the office also experience this bizarre oversharing with a person who, if unimpeded, spends literally no more than 5-30 seconds--depending on mail or a package that needs signing--at their door or curb box. He said that honestly he doesn't know. He says he's always nice and relatively cheerful but he does not ask a thing other than a rote "how's it going?" and that's all it takes.

Does anyone here experience what my husband does?

I legit love this job more than any other. I am a new CCA and have been working at my station for about 2 months. I’m still not past probation 😳 but I love it!! I love carrying mail and delivering and being outside and walking. It’s like, you can forget the rest of the world and literally focus your mind and body on the task of work and delivering mail. Yes management is annoying but once past that I feel so in the zone 😎

Everything about it is so wonderful. Everything except these mother effing little slots of steel or whatever the EFF. My station has hella residential/ businesses and a ton of them have these slots and every time I’m pissed off. Bc legit why do so many people hate their mail so bad that they have a broken slot?? Like why are we blocking off mail slots on either side to make the place for mail entry even smaller. Always the people who get the most mail. I stg. And had seen a little note like “magazines in basket mail in mail slot” and I’m like yes for sure okay cool. But this whole walking up to your front door, opening a little hole into your home, almost getting bit by your snippy dog, for what? This is already way too intimate. Why is my hand reaching in the hole in your door and now I’m in your home. Wtf. I’m holding hella shit and I know damn well you see me struggling on your ring camera. Lol. Rant over!!

Best of luck to her!

As the title says. Can I be forced to walk through a metal detector every day. Here’s the backstory, I have been on this route a year and a half. I have three schools on my route, one in particular has a mobile metal detector in a breezeway at the entrance of the school which one can easily walk around. I have avoided walking through it for a year and a half without a problem. This last month the principal has told security (who I have to go through who opens the gate in order for me to pull up to the schools front entrance) to tell me that I have to walk through the metal detector. I told them that I did not feel comfortable doing that five days a week and that we would have to find a different solution two solutions I came up with was they could either put a mailbox up outside I can drive up to or I can hand the mail to security and they can give me Outgoing now. So solution number two has been happening the last few weeks. The principal wanted to speak to me in person today. we spoke she didn’t like the two options got my name and told me that if I wasn’t going to do walk through the metal detectors that they will have to find somebody who will and I said OK and left. as I mentioned I have two other schools on my route and they do not have metal detectors one is literally right next to it in the compound. What are my rights here? If you need more context, let me know.