Ive been here almost 2 years and ended up getting the route I live on, 2 min from my house! My route is all flat and encompasses only a few streets...infact I can see it all right from my window! Maybe 3 trays of DPS, 2 FSS, and about 25 parcels. Talk about LUCKY!
its definitely a good job, but it can be demanding on the body. I stayed on a hard route for 10 yrs, strictly because of my customers...they were so pleasant and I enjoyed giving them good service! I felt like I was a part of that community.
Judahsmoon I'm a t6 that transferred from a beautiful beach city to the city where I live where the climate is about 20-25 degrees hotter and routes are longer. I'll be 45 soon and I'm telling you everything hurts. My heel, lower back, sciatica!! It sucks. So yes I agree with you. I go home too tired to want to do anything.
I’m not staying on a route because of the customers lol I worry about me first. That’s why I bid off of the route I was just on, it was physically kicking my ass but the people were nice
Too bad he didn't show how he has to scan a bar code on 15 on his boxes just so management knows where he is every minute of his route. Back around 2000 there were 700,000 USPS employees and 100,000 supervisors and you don't see GM, HP or any other company with a ratio like that. I retired after doing 40 Yrs. on Long Island and don't miss the 3 hour morning office time but DO miss the people I saw every day out in the street. .Oh, by the way, he carries the bag with little or no mail in it for safety reasons. That blue satchel saved many a carrier from a nasty dog bite.
The mail slots that don't have that built in outward groove are a real pain one-handed. Especially on a walking route, and the customer has things like tables with decorative crap on it directly below the slot. Satchel always gets in the way
Milking the route😵 what the heck is that? Sounds like a 204b or a customer who hasn't been educated on their carriers job(I educate my customers😁) This route needs boxes on the curb and where is the volume and how many blocks on this route? All those stairs made my knees hurt just watching
the township should dee about all homeowners put their mailbox down closer to the road, so the mail carrier doesn't have to walk to long walk up some of those stairs.
....I thought USPS announced years ago that they were converting a lot of these walking routes to neighborhood station routes where there is a common locked mailbox location.
This route in no way compares to a few I've done in Cincinnati. Price Hill and Corryville. Price hill had about 30 steps going to every house. Corryville had 30 steps going to every house as well as being on extremely steep hills. Thank God for seniority! The route I have now is flat all the way through. It's too late for my knees though. Only 44 and have had knee issues since I was 35
I’m a mailman in Sweden and I’ve noticed that in USA and almost any other country always have boxes at ground floor in all buildings (apartments) but in Sweden we have to in about 99% of all cases run the stairs up (if there is no elevator) and down and deliver to every door. How common is it in the states that there are no boxes at the ground floor?
Марцус Åкерман VERY uncommon for big/high rise apartments to do door to door here in the states. Even 95% of small apartments with only 2-4 units have mailboxes in front. We only do deliver oversized parcels to doors, floor by floor only if the front desk at some few apartments wouldn’t accept them.
Imagine the exhaustion this man must feel, after walking this route in the middle of summer, and having to go home at the end of the day, just to realize that he has to mow his grass, and rake leaves. Blah, kudos to the mail carriers.
Just like some of the other reflections in these comments there is so much you don't see in this video. Management, packages, dogs, being an assistant which takes sometimes 5-10 years to get extra benefits, meanwhile you stare at useless benefits, 1 day off a week, extra hours of crazy numbers every day, no work life balance, no pay raises as an assistant. this route doesn't even look hard. I've had routes on a steep decline where i would delivery in a city, an apartment with sometimes over 50 packages Which i would have to carry back and forth a good quarter mile because there is no where to park in major cities. Do not think this is all there is. If it's a rural route your gunna do a lot better honestly but i still say heed before trying to take this crazy job.
Leaning out to the right with your hip delivering to mounted mail boxes is the kind of repetitive motion that causes injuries. Same goes for having an NBU route and leaning out of the truck to do one long wrist motion fitting packages big and small into 4-6 inch slots. At least he is out there walking and exerting all his muscular and joint body points. In the end he is less likely to be injured or suffer any long-terms physical ailments.
Jose Rodriguez your kidding right. Have you ever heard of bursitis tendinitis heel spurs fallen arches, knee replacement, tore rotator cuffs, to name a few long term and permanent injuries that a lot carriers suffer who have park and loop or city carrier routes. 29 years on Chicago streets, I think I know a little bit about this job by now. No disrespect
I give that guy a lot of credit for sticking with it. When he says he loves his customers, he means they really reward him at Christmas. The PO needs to have those people put up boxes at the curb or NDCBUs. My only criticism is there's no way the guy knows "every rock and nook and cranny."
I totally get the dedication to the customers but all those stairs are gonna catch up to you. I had a tough walking route for 20 years. Great neighborhood, great people but all that walking wore on me. A curbside delivery route came up for bid and I went for it. Now I roast in the oven on wheels (LLV) but my feet dont hurt anymore! LOL
Aw! Traded one poison for another! Lol. I'm new and was delivering to mailboxes for several hours on my 3rd day of working and my mail truck felt HOTTER than normal. I kept working but I was getting weaker and sicker. My drinks were almost gone. My body was overheating and I was pouring water down my head! After 3 hours I realized there was HOT HEAT comin out my vents and I had the fan on HIGH! I finally said I need ac before I give out. I headed back to post office because that was the closest place to me with ac. The postmaster just looked at me and said NOTHING as I was struggling. I eventually went to the back by the restroom so she wouldn't have to look at me. I was trying to see if I could recover. I was drinking more water I couldn't get enough it seemed and I kept putting my head under the faucet. After a half hour I wasn't feeling any better and thought I better get out of there before I started vomiting. So I went home. Thought for sure I lost my job. But she called me today and asked if I'm able to still do the job. I said yes as long as heat is not comin out of vents!
My route 11 miles, 25,000 steps 580+ deliveries, 560 of those are houses. I have one apartment building and management could care less about you. Why am I still there you ask, so I don't have to sit at a desk, excersise, pension, benefits.
I don't care how nice customers are, I'm not killing myself on that route! Thats b.s. on where the mail boxes are...either put em down by the street or put out 'NBU's (community mail boxes)...
I had my hilly route with boxes on the porch. One big diffeence is that I never went up and down stairs if there was a yard to walk across. The grass is so much better on your knees.
We had several routes like this in my office. Curious as to how many stops-this route has. Mine had 520, both businesses and homes. We were 6 hours on the street 2 in the office. The office has gone to 5 and 3 since I left. Volume has dropped also, but parcels have increased. I was fortunate that I had a set day off each week. They are now doing rotating days off, so you catch 6 straight day periodically. I dont miss the job one bit. It beats the body up.
Why do you keep walking up and down steps? My first route had hills and I was walking across lawns and never up and down steps. As far as not bidding off shitty routes? When I was younger, I loved when old timers stayed on their first crappy route. My goal was to obtain a complete curbside route and my last 9 years I suceeded.
No route is too tough! Same route everyday is easy money. We all feel the same after doing our strenuous work 6 days a week, I feel you. But walking is good for you and you got plenty of trees out there unlike my route.
I loved dip shits that stayed on their shitty routes their entire careers. We had many in my office and my last 18 years as a carrier were very easy because I was never scared to bid on an easier route.
Realistically you could probably pay a friend a flat rate to go out and find you with what you needed if you just called them up. I do this job and have thought about doing that before.
my route is a sixteen mile park and loop. sometimes ive gotten home and go for a couple mile walk and i end up thinking what the hell am i doing ? LOL. i wouldnt do any other route tho cuz i love my customer.
my husband is trying to get out of the post office, looking for another job. they promised him a 40 hr a week route, after getting hired he found it's a Carrier Assistant job & they call him in only when another mailman call out of work, so some weeks he may only work 2 or 3 days. Only $15/hr, and no benefits or health insurance. We have been on food stamps & can't afford heat this Winter. He walks all day comes home & we have nothing for dinner. Last week he only got a $400 check for 2 weeks of work.
It's not a LLV, look at the round tail lights and honeycomb grill. It's a FFV formerly known as a CRV. They are a modified Ford explorers that were purchased by USPS around the year 2000 or so. Still no air conditioning or 4 wheel drive.
I used the FFV for over 14 years, I got to know the vehicle very well. Maybe you could research the differences yourself. They are different top to bottom, the only thing they share is same paint scheme. This was in Charleston, WV. Not Okc, we have both vehicles here.
@@philup755 I stand corrected, apparently the different ones I have seen, outside of Okc, were the FFV. Were you able to drive both, and are the FFV tires inset on the front as the LLV? As difficult to drive in the snow?
The FFV tires are 15 inch, the LLV tires are 14 inch (I think). I would prefer the FFV in the snow, they are more of a solid vehicle. A lot of carriers wouldn't take nothing over a LLV, summer or wintertime. I always heard the LLV was like a Frankenstein vehicle, Chevy s10 frame with chevette rear axel. With a modefied front end for better turning radius. I personally enjoyed the 205 hp 4.0 FFV over the 80 hp 2.? (Ironduke) in the LLV. The LLVs I drove was usually garbage, they where loaner vehicles when my FFV was being serviced..
@@pbear216 that $50k was 5 years ago with no OT. A letter carrier now tops off at over $75k without one minute of OT. $100k annually is not very hard to accomplish.
applesomething hey don't judge! My route gets hardly any mail most of the time. Average dps is 1400 and I get maybe about 2 ft of flats, 30 parcels but it's long ass route with exactly 938 deliveries and in the straight up ghetto. All walking, maybe like 5 or 6 nbu's. Absolutely no curbside. Not an easy route to learn or do either.
This is why letter carriers are not the brightest bulbs in the hothouse! It appears to me that this carrier is not working safe. Walking way too fast in hot weather, jogging up and down stairs and walking through brush. An accident waiting to happen and medical complications from the job if he makes it to retirement.
@@HolyMarkMcGrath I would have never bid it. Being a PTF, you'd had to have carried it a few times before becoming a regular. My goal from day one was to have the least physical route that I could bid on. My last 18 years were very nice. My last 9 were 100% curbside.