Define unofficial site? Does this include a personal mailbox, or right next to it in plain sight? Seems to me (and we’re still waiting for a definitive answer, it seems - even the USPS headquarters in Washington hasn’t been able to give me a straight answer yet) that a mail carrier carries mail - both outgoing and incoming.
Did you really try it with the “XOXO”. If not, try again. Everybody knows that mail carriers love hugs and kisses.
Also, did you try asking your letter carrier? Hang out on a saturday and make an inquiry. Be polite. You don’t want your letter carrier to start depositing your outgoing mail in some homeless guy’s 55-gallon drum fire.
I worked as a mailman as a summer job this year and my dad’s been a mailman for 33 years, so I think I’m qualified to speak on this topic. My dad and I live/deliver in the western suburbs of Chicago (Elmhurst and Glen Ellyn) and I concur with what others have said: if there’s no mail to deliver to an address, we don’t check to see if there’s anything outgoing. With all the junk mail being sent today though, the likelihood of a house not getting any mail even for one day is almost zero. JosephFinn, I’m sure you know as well as anyone that Chicago has a notoriously spotty record for letter carriers getting “creative” with their jobs. When I was in training, my instructor, who lived in Maywood, said that her carrier once went a whole month without delivering mail to her block. If everyone else in your building is receiving normal service though (including the carrier taking their outgoing mail), then it must be a case of the carrier just plain not liking you. Didya tip him/her at Christmas? 
I’m supposed to tip my mailman? What for? Letters that come to my house are stamped. Letters I send out are stamped. It was my understanding that this was payment for the service.
Am I supposed to tip the meter reader as well?
NO, you are not. I’ve always found this “practice” reprehensible. ( As the child of a PO Deliveryman, I bet you would disagree. C’est La Vie ). One is paid for one’s efforts. I work my TAIL off, in a position below the line. People make a FORTUNE off of my efforts, and nobody tips ME. How is it that certain jobs entitle the jobholder to abuse the public’s trust, because said public didn’t slip them a fifty at the holiday time?
I swear, if I could JUST LEARN to enter active links in here, I’d go into the Postal Criminal Code ( There must be one. There are Postal Police.), and find the actual law prohibiting Letter Carriers from accepting tips. Furthermore, I just bet there are laws AGAINST destruction of a recipient’s mail.
This is America. You do you thing, you get your paycheck. Anything else is extortion IMHO, and should be treated accordingly. God help the blackmailing thief postal carrier who burns MY paychecks in a 55-gallon drum, because I didn’t offer a bribe–oops, “gift”-- at the Holidays.
--pissed as hell at the very idea of this garbage,
CartooniversePostal employees are told, at least in Redding, CA that any gift over $20 must be refused. That does not include a twenty at Christmas, or a batch of cookies or whatever. I’m not saying it’s required, but I will say that we all remember who gave us the $20. I don’t think that is your problem here. We were just recently told that picking up mail is a courtesy, not a requirement. I don’t know of ANY ONE who, if already at the box, doesn’t pick up the outgoing mail. I agree with whoever suggested you talk to your carrier. Ask him/her if they will take it for you and where you should leave it in the future. Some parts of some routes get deleivered by subs a lot, and then I’m afraid all bets are off.
And yes, it is EVER so illegal for your carrier to destroy your mail!!!
So much as opening your mail, let alone destroying it, is a Federal Offense. If you sspect someone of doing it, call the police. Some very tough men from the FBI will check up on it.
That should be ‘suspect’. Dang.
This thread is a real eye-opener for me, as I’ve lived in maybe a dozen places in my life all over the US and the mail carriers always picked up outgoing mail and I had no idea it wasn’t part of their jobs. I even lived in an apartment building where people wedged their outgoing stuff around the edge of the wallmounted boxes and the carrier would pick it up. As for the house mounted mailboxes on the houses I’ve lived in, outgoing mail was tucked in the lid sticking out so the carrier could see it from the street as they walked by. I currently live in a townhouse with a mailbox “grouping” and it has a specific slot for “Outgoing mail.”
I hereby salute every mail carrier I’ve ever had my entire life for going above and beyond the call and always picking up my outgoing mail! Wow!
JosephFinn writes:
> Define unofficial site? Does this include a personal
> mailbox, or right next to it in plain sight?
Yes, right next to it in plain sight is unofficial. Inside the mailbox is unofficial if you don’t have the type of mailbox that has a flag. Use a mailbox on the street.
Not to mention very tough ladies. I didn’t want to mention the “F” word, because I wasn’t sure, and hate HATE being called on a mistake in here.
Cartooniverse
Hehe as far as tips go, you should feel no obligation to tip your mailman. But my dad has developed friendly relations with many people on his route, so much so that he even attends wakes for people on his route who pass away. Mailmen don’t make a whole lot of money, and he usually makes an extra $600-$800 in tips around Christmastime, which is greatly appreciated by my family. I’m not, however, implying that you should have to tip your mailman just to get routine service. You’ve got a real problem on your hands there Joseph, and I would suggest talking to your mailman to see what’s up.
Picking up mail is a courtesy? A courtesy? So what am I bothering to buy stamps for, if not to pay mail carriers, many of whom work extremely hard? I understand that this is not the carriers fault, but the beuracracy, but I’m wondering why they would choose to chop off half of the equation.
JosephFinn,
What you’re buying stamps for is for your letters to be delivered from the outgoing mailbox you put them into to the mailbox of the person that you’re sending them to. You’re not paying for the carrier to guess that letters that you’ve put in some unofficial spot (which you’ve personally declared to be the place that outgoing mail is to be placed) will be picked up.
A mail carrier has a route and a job defined for him. He has to deliver the mail to all the homes and businesses on his route. If this route includes rural and certain suburban locations, he has to pick up the mail left in mailboxes of a certain type on the days that they have the flag up. In certain apartment houses, an informal agreement has been made between the carrier and the residents that he will pick up the mail left in some chosen unofficial spot. That is purely a friendly arrangement between the carrier and the residents though, and it’s not part of the carrier’s official job.
If you think that you should have an outgoing mailbox on your street closer to your home, petition the Post Office to put one there. If you think that the system should be changed so that everybody’s mail should be picked up, ask the Post Office about that. (Be warned though that this would cost the Post Office so much extra that you’re unlikely to get it done without Congress voting to change the charter of the Post Office and the Post Office raising rates.) Don’t think though that just because you’ve decided to arbitrarily change your carrier’s job that he or the Post Office will listen to you.
Okay, so I don’t get any incoming mail except for junk mail. For those of you who think that’s impossible, it’s not. I get everything or alost everything emailed to me, because I do not want to kill trees unnecessarily. Furthermore, my yard is about 2 steps wide. I set my mail up so you can clearly see it from the middle of the road, which is further away than where the mailman walks everyday. My mailbox is attached to a post on my porch. The outgoing mail is upright on top of the mailbox. And by the way, my outgoing mail is usually netflix, which is a big bright red envelope. It’s hard to miss. When the mailman does have incoming mail for me he walks across my neighbors yard and mine to deliver it, so it’s not too far for him to walk and pick up my outgoing mail. Postage paid means it has been paid for so it can be delivered. And to the person who says mailmen don’t get paid much, you’re crazy. Beginning wages are $13 per hour. I’d love to get paid that much money, and not have to do my job! And a postal workers job would be much easier if postal patrons were not FORCED to take junk mail even if they don’t want it. The Post office uses the excuse that they have to deliver it because they get paid to do so. Every few months of so, they up the price on stamps, because they supposedly are not getting paid enough. Those greedy bastards! How much do they think they need to be paid? By the way, apparently, my money is not as good as whoever is paying to send all of that junk mail, since their mail gets delivered no matter what, and the post office can’t see fit to pick up my mail that I paid to have delivered. And another thing, there are no dogs running loose in my area either.
Of course the post office will raise their rates. They do that every few months, by raising the prices of stamps. Everytime I turn around, stamps cost more than they did the last time I bought them. The raise their prices at the drop of a hat. And I don’t see how it would cost more to pick up outgoing mail that is already on the same route they are on anyway. If they had to deliver incoming mail, they would have to walk that very same path, those very same steps, so how is it more expensive to pick up mail that is in the same place the mailman would have to go anyway? As far as tipping the mail man, here’s a tip. “Do your job.”
Good luck with this. The Post Office is busy removing these – at least around here. The five drop boxes closest to me (I walk a lot) have all been removed. The closest one I know of is actually just outside the local Post Office branch.
Things were different 11 years ago when he posted that idea (this is an ancient thread reopened by the necromancer above you).
Weird. I have no memory of either making this post nor the situation that prompted it. How things change in 11 years.