If you want mail, you have to follow the U.S. Postal Service’s rules.
He would tell you to clear the snow away if you want to get your mail.
The U.S. Postal Service is a corporation whose sole shareholder is the government. It is responsible for handling its own budget and gets no contribution from government funds/tax money for its operation.
A route is designated as a walking route or a car delivery route. If you want your mail, you have to arrange your mailbox according to what the Postal Service designated as. A lot of walking routes are being switched over to car delivery routes and the people on those routes have to move their mailboxes.
If the OP lives on a car delivery route then if he wants to get his mail he has to set up his mailbox on the curb.
In my neighborhood, if the package is too large to stuff into the mail slot, you’ll just get a note on yellow paper telling you to pick it up at the post office.
There are places where you don’t get mail delivery at all. South Lake Tahoe, for example, in the early 1980’s (I haven’t checked to see if they started home delivery ever or not). You went to one of several branch offices in the city and obtained a box for no fee. You went there every day to pick up your mail. If you cannot imagine why, then simply think of the trouble of delivering when the whole winter is filled with feet of snow.
Packages: the “proper” method for handling packages is to leave a slip and have you come get the package, assuming it wouldn’t fit easily into the mailbox.
Tips: if you love having your carrier handle packages in a more customer freindly way (leaving them in your garage by the back door, for example), if you like having your mail treated with care, rather than stuffed any old which way into your box, if you prefer getting your bulk mail daily, rather than at odd intervals (whenever the carrier feels like bothering), then TIP the carrier. Just because he/she has to deliver mail doesn’t mean there aren’t things they can do to increase the level of service. When I can, I tip with Christmas treats; at regular intervals I also leave thank-you notes.
That’s still true today in Summerland, CA just south of Santa Barbara. If you were to take a vote of the residents, they’d keep it that way. The post office is a social center there and everyone knows each other. Maybe this is why people tend not to know their neighbors anymore in most places.
In the house I lived in last we had a mailbox attched to the house. Everyone did. You weren’t allowed to have one on the street. Our mailman walked his route. I lived in a small house in a neighborhood of small houses that were close together. I now live in a house on over three acres of property. My house is over a hundred feet off of the roadway. I have none of the houses are close together. It does not make sense to have a walking route.
One year, I think it was 1993, there was a big ice storm. The roads were covered with about 4 inches of ice. The regular snow plows just bounced off the ice. It was so cold that the salt just made big potholes which mad things worse. It was the worst drving conditions I have ever seen on paved roads. This went on for a few days with no end in sight. No ones complaints did any good. They were afraid that the use of heavier machinery would tear up the roads. Then the postmaster presented the mayor a list of streets (mine was on it) that he would no longer deliver mail to unless the streets were cleared. That day the giant backhoes were out scraping off the streets.
I would not take the change from “.gov” to “.com” as any kind of proof of status. I have used http://www.usps.gov until, I think, last year. However, the post office stopped being a government agency (the Post Office Department) and started being a corporation in 1971.
However, the post office is still not a “private company.” It is a government-owned corporation and is considered an “independent establishment of the executive branch,” meaning that it still is, in some sense, part of the federal government.
They can get pissy about it when they have to get out of the truck. In my neighborhood they leave a little warning note citing the rule. My regular carrier is really cool; the mailbox happens to be the only level spot on the block where I can change my oil, and occasionally I’ve had my car jacked up in front of the mailbox. I apologized to him and offered to take the mail from him through the window of the truck. He said, “That’s o.k., you have to change your oil sometimes.”
But they often have subs or trainees, and they seem to get really irritated by cars blocking the boxes. Then can walk to the box; I think they just would rather not. Packages are carried to the front door, so they do have to get out for that, and for anything that requires a signature.
The neighborhood where I grew up still does delivery on foot. They park the truck and then walk to each house on the block.
Yes and no. While they receive benefits through the federal systems, the USPS pays into those systems out of its revenues. And the extent of certain benefits are negotiated by the unions that represent the employees. So, as with much else, it’s important to understand that the USPS and its employees are federal in a unique way.
For years I had a lovely postman. We had no problems to speak of and we always remembered him at Christmas time.
Since he retired, our delivery has been hell. We were receiving mail for someone else almost daily. When the carrier stuck a note in our mailbox claiming that he had tried to deliver a package when I had been sitting where I could see the screened front door and hear the loud doorbell and my husband’s desk overlooked the long frontsteps, we knew better. I called and complained.
For the next two months I didn’t receive two of my regular bills. The department store that I called said that they had been returned. When I was send a copy in a plain envelope, there was no problem getting them through.
I took in a handful of the most recently misdelivered mail and complained to the postmaster when I picked up another package. He promised it wouldn’t happen again.
The next package was left at the foot of the steps. I’m still getting piles of mail for other people.
Today, the third package was delivered to my neighbor next door. I’m just lucky that we even know each other.
The man has yet to bring a package to my door and ring the doorbell like my old postman did. This one is young. The old postman was elderly.
What are the regulations about the delivery of packages?
So do lots of people. Lots of people who make less money and have no benefits. Dealing with people is common, it does not necessarily garner my sympathy. I still think it is somewhat of an easy job.
I don’t think those hypothetical people that you mentioned, Queuing, necessarily have easy jobs, either. But really, whether or not it’s the most creampuff job in the world (and it’s not; try reading the rest of the fricka-fracka thread) doesn’t matter, as the point is that the OP does in fact have to move his car if he wants his mail delivery to continue. Bitch about it all you want, but it won’t change the facts of the matter.
I have read the rest of the thread, thank you very much. I realize that the OP has been answered, and he should move his car. I never said that the hypothetical people have easy jobs necessarily, but they do not receive the idea of it being a “stressful” job. Of course all jobs have stress, but some jobs, for some reason, are labeled “stressful” while others are not. Nothing in this thread has made me think that the being a postal worker is deserving of the label.
