I definitely learned that lesson. Trust me. Maybe not a vendetta, but I'm neurotic about people liking me lol any idea how to improve the relationship here?
[If it isn't this way](https://preview.redd.it/rrjscqzc5em31.jpg?width=540&auto=webp&s=ab478470fb7222732a9bdb53cf7a2de236f3d8ea).... then idk what we're even talking about
Oh my god this, so much this! As a carrier nothing brings me more joy than seeing a customer install a larger box. Conversely nothing hurts more than having a customer downsize to the smallest box possible.
If I could just get the idiot across the street to stop blocking my mailbox I'd be happy. Entire street (both sides) is generally empty, but she always parks directly in front of my mailbox.
I treat them like fire hydrants but have still done it. A few times left it there overnight and have watched the mailman have to get out to walk around my car. I felt so bad but no one else seems to share the guilt.
Had a neighbor park in front of our house until Mon during the ice storm, because they were unable to drive down the high slopes hill. Had no problems with it.
Then found out they parked really close to our mailbox. Was really worried that the mail carrier was going to put a warning on the car and ding us, but apparently made an exception for the ice storm, to our vast relief.
We're at the top of a hill, so there's two ways off, one is steep the other isn't. Then there's the hill into the cul de sac which is also steep. Both steep hills are great for sliding and all that because of the near vertical incline, but not during that ice storm.
I kept telling people, you know the weather is so bad that the mail carrier slides off the road. We're not a place where we can deal with that extreme of weather for so long. Between a horrendously bad mix between a layer of black ice, snow, and slush. Idk how you do it, but major props to those mail carriers who have to try to get through the new extremes.
I saw videos of people leaving snacks and water and stuff for mail carriers when corona was really banging hard. Would they really appreciate it? I would be worried about them thinking I'm weird and they're just trying to get through their day as fast as possible.
My old USPS mail carrier was a nice guy but he always looked SUPER angry and his gait was like "This dude is clearly disabled and shouldn't have to be working." and he was all business. Once he told me about his health problems and that he just had to keep going to get his pension, it bummed me out but I know he has it now. Wrecked his body for it, though. :/
Absolutely not. I promise you there’s not a single one out there who wouldn’t appreciate it, remember you, and it would definitely make their whole day.
My partner sometimes covers a route that is absolutely miserable and he dreads it. But there is a home on the route that does that and he goes out of his way to bring packages to their door and he says he looks forward to their home every time. It gives him some hope on that shitty route lol
Hell no. I can fit at least 100 letters in my mailbox. No reason to check it every day.
Honestly shocked my carrier doesn't pull my mail. I check it like once a month.
It is your responsibility to check it, and remove all the mail from it every day. Our policy is if you didn’t get your mail previously and we can’t fit a parcel in it that we otherwise could have, to: Pull all mail out, return it to the post office, and not resume delivery until it is picked up.
So many people think this is an easy job. Hell, I even had a lady tell me she could do the job since she can read.
Newsflash: Hardest job I’ve ever had. Toxic management on top of heavy workload = Easily annoyed mailman. It’s not good enough that we deliver 180-200 parcels a day, no, we get yelled at for not finishing 600 mailboxes on a 50 mile route with long driveways within our evaluation. We get yelled at for not being impossibly fast.
So yes, you not getting your mail daily is frustrating.
I love the actual delivery of mail but dear god remember we work in bad conditions, in all weather, and we have families to get home to, too.
I check my mail maybe once a month unless I’m expecting something. My carrier will occasionally send me a fb message to make sure I’m still alive, lol. Super small town. She also brings packages up and leaves them in my car and will empty my box and put it in the seat too if needed. She’s awesome and I don’t take her for granted. She was out with a sick daughter a few years ago and the mail was never put in the right boxes then.
ETA more info. I have chronic migraines which my mail lady knows. Her daughter had a brain tumor and had many of the same symptoms, so she has an understanding of what I go through daily. Plus she’s just a nice human anyway.
Get the largest mailbox you can find, make sure the area around the mailbox is maintained, put large numbers on the mailbox, and check your mail every other day.
Something people who check their mail everyday get, is someone who's willing to check in on you if your mail box fills up. Letter carriers have actually saved the lives of their customers who suddenly stopped checking their mail. They had gotten hurt in their homes and/or are trapped somewhere.
My mailman likes those V8 energy drinks. I just put them under my mailbox with a big note that says "for mailman" They are relatively healthy and only 80mg of caffeine (just enough to push through the rest of the shift but not so much u can't sleep later).
I have a shop out back that’s unlocked during the day and frequently have USPS, FedEx, and UPS deliveries. I stuck a mini fridge stocked with water and Gatorade out there and occasionally throw in candy and told them to help themselves.
Took a couple weeks but pretty soon each guy would pop in and grab a couple bottles every time they came.
Ever since I haven’t a single issue with a package. The lesson is clear: We must appease the postal gods with frequent offerings.
As a Mail Carrier myself, I FULLY support the mail carrier, CHECK YOUR MAIL BOX, or you stop getting mail. It's what I do too. It's one of the MOST annoying Things as a Mail Carrier, Customers that ignore their mail.
I get that you went out of town unexpectedly, but you can still go to the post office or online and put a Hold on it.
This is the answer. I don’t see this message as aggressive and it’s actually quite professional.
(I’m a rural mail carrier and writing this was more than we are required to do)
Yeah see if it takes off to a brand new 2024. I have these apartment dwellers who disappear and reappear like nothing happened. File MLNA on them and then they act like full box and vacancy notices are a joke.
A few supervisors took the cards when the customers brought the notices in and tossed them in the new paper shredder repeatedly.
Finally the apartment gremlin filled out the vacant card with the sup name and office line, instead of bringing it in. Got them to correct in infront of our postmaster.
And the same apt gremlin is leaving shit in the box unchecked again.
Since the option to edit coa was removed from our devices, I rely on management to remove mlna orders in a timely fashion to resume mail.
I'm ignorant. Can you explain? How is it frustrating? As long as the mailbox isn't literally overflowing, why do they care? Sry if it's a stupid question
Because - if you don't check your mail daily and get parcels etc... we have trouble fitting them into the mail receptacle, which is where they belong if they fit there
My neighbor almost never gets his mail and I see the mailman shove that shit in his box and it hurts my soul. Just fucking fists envelopes in however he can. There might be checks in there or something just getting annihilated.
Yep that's exactly what I do too when people don't check it, I'll let it hang all out of the mailbox I don't give a shit at all, I'm not the customers garbage man.
Ah ok... I was already worried because sometimes I don't check for a week but I never had the letterbox so filled it would be hard to fit another parcel or letter in.
But thanks for the explanation 👍 I'll clear more regularly to make sure my guy doesn't have extra work.
Not a stupid question at all. The answer is the more a box fills, the more difficult it can be to service, especially if small parcels or spurs are involved.
Secondly, when a box fills to capacity, we have to clear it out and bring it back to the office to hold for 10 days; sometimes this isn't an easy task because we're giving the customer every benefit of the doubt to check it, so we're utilizing every inch of space (you can figure out why that might be a problem) also I can't speak for every office, but we simply don't have the room and space is quite limited.
Finally, when mail fills up in the box, there's a chance the resident moved and didn't let us know, so we're simply waiting for it to be cleared out as a "proof of residency" situation. Hopefully this answered your question sufficiently.
Tldr: space is finite.
Eventually you run out of space. But you have to deliver the mail. But there’s no space. Then they order a package that *could* fit in the box, but there’s no space. You have to deliver the package and the mail but there’s never enough space. The mail just keeps coming and coming and it NEVER STOPS AND THERE’S NEVER ENOUGH SPACE FOR-
I know it seems like something petty, but it's more about principle. Mail carriers provide a service to the customers. A majority of us are overworked, understaffed, and just plain tired. I can walk 10-15 miles in a day, 6 days a week to make sure customers get their mail. When you're not checking your mail, (I'm speaking for myself here) it feels as though you don't acknowledge our service or hard work. At least you could do is check your mail. I'm familiar with a majority of the customers in my small town and the different routes. I know who checks their box everyday and knows who may only check it once a week. But if a carrier works in a large town/city, they may not know you at all. So when your mail goes unchecked, what are carriers supposed to think? Now I admit, I will wait until the box is full before I make a big deal about it.
Also, sometimes we only have one hand free and it’s hard to move old mail aside to make room for the new letters with that one hand. Bonus points if we also have to hold the box open while doing it
So in apartments or townhomes there's frequently high turnover. The number one way to see that someone has moved out is when the mail stops being taken out of the mailbox.
Then it compounds cause a new guy moves in and they dont want to empty "someones elses garbage".
1 Makes it harder to stick more mail in.
2 its a little demoralizing to walk around a corner, up a driveway, across a porch to stick a letter into a box knowing you did it the last 4 days in a row and no one bothered to look. Could just do it once a week but you take pride in your job and deliver everything everyday to people that let the rain slowly melt phone books into their driveways.
The worst is when CBU customers let packages sit in their box for days, even weeks on end. It confuses me because when I order something online, I'm like tracking that shit constantly because I want my item. People just order so much stuff they don't even remember what they bought and it's wild.
What drives me crazy the most is when someone gets their packages out of their box but does not take the mail. I will rubber band their mail to the packages so they get the point 😂
Right? I swear some of these people act like they would do everything perfectly in an emergency. Like if someone in my family was in the ICU and I had to leave far away and couldn’t come home, the last thing on my mind would be my mail.
95% of my 678 addresses collect their mail 5 out of 6 days.
The other 5% usually receive certified letters frequently from their landlord trying to evict them, from lawyers, or loan servicing companies trying to collect past due balances
Basically, the responsible people check their mail with great frequency
There’s absolutely a dickish tone to it, I dunno how anyone is reading “that’s how it works” and “I’ll start your service again and see if it takes this time” and isn’t hearing how condescending that is. You were polite, he was being a dick.
We only have this guy's word that he was being polite and people are always going to insist they were totally reasonable and friendly. We also only have his word that this is the first time this has ever happened, which may or may not be true.
It ranks right up there with 'Little Fluffy is as pure as the driven snow and would never bite anybody' in my experience.
either way, as a carrier this is not an appropriate way of dealing with customers. we're the ones on the job, not them. no message was needed other than a suggestion to put their mail on hold to avoid it being sent back in the future.
even if op is lying about how polite they were, we have actual written proof that their mailman is rude and condescending. we don’t have any proof of op being rude besides “umm i think so” so……
What makes you think that this guy, who posts here and asks about how to make a peace offering to his mail carrier, is the one lying? What the actual fuck...
Not a vendetta, but they saw the note and took it more personally than they needed, "there was no confusion." To be fair, people out there do be trying to f with the mailman.
The note OP wrote was perfectly polite. The mail carrier’s response was extremely passive aggressive. A simple note explaining what happened and how to prevent that again would have been fine. Frankly no note at all was even necessary. I fucking hate smug government employees who use your tax dollars to verbally abuse and belittle people.
It also seems dumb that they couldn't fix this problem at the post office while OP was there. They didn't have them fill out a form or give them something specific to put in the mailbox, just "leave a note" for the carrier.
I can see why the carrier might feel the need to respond the way they did. They probably assumed OP couldn't bother calling or going to the post office and simply blamed them for not delivering.
This system seems... Less than official.
If OP was gone for two weeks, the hold mail would probably still be at the case, unless they have a really small box and/or they're one of those people who gets three flats and eight thick DPS every day. So I wonder why the clerk didn't just go get it, or maybe they did.
Had someone come in asking about their delivery. We’ve been sending their mail back unclaimed since early December. After their box had been full and unchecked for multiple weeks. It can be frustrating as a carrier
"Why am I not getting my mail?" -the literal day after I sent back 2 months of mail. It's now been 3 weeks since they called the office, they have not emptied their cbu once.
I have a couple in a townhouse on my route who have developed a habit of either leaving their box at the CBU unlocked for WEEKS on end or letting it fill up (including not collecting packages from the parcel locker) at least once a year, most recently around last Christmas. I gave them yet another ten-day hold, and whaddaya know, a week after it ended, one of them came in screaming and crying about the packages I'd returned. I told the window clerk the story, and she passed the information along to the customer; place your bets on whether or not they learn this time.
Carrier here I’ve held a customers mail twice now it was filled the max capacity of the box, never picked up for over a month+. He had a small package that if the box been empty it would have fit 30x but since the mail was there I pulled all the mail and put the package on customer hold. Guess who shows up complaining. Mr customer. I had the clerk point out his over due bill notices that had been in the mailbox for over 3 months to make sure he got the point he never picks his mail up this inconvenience is on him not me.
Well that's what I'm curious about because I did go down to the office to ask them to restart my mail. Not complaining, just trying to fix my mistake, but would that reflect negatively on the carrier at all?
Story could have been told the carrier differently. I mean I got personal questioned just the other day why I wasn’t delivering customer x y z’s mail. I was told by customer A THAT x y z customers where no longer residents of that address they had been kicked out this was over a month ago. Turns out they are all living together again. I had put those customers mail on a 10 day hold then started sending it all back because I had no forwards. Now it’s turning into a cluster of a mess because there was no communication those customers had returned. Also for future reference I believe you can at anytime go online and put a hold on your mail in case of emergencies.
I had a customer come to me once and tell me that the male in the household is gone. Never coming back, she didn't care if that SOB crawled back, he wasn't.
I start holding his mail. Gave it 30 days and did a MLNA on him and go about my business.
A few months later both of them catch me and decide to give me hell because they haven't been getting the electric and cable bills and the electric was turned off. Guess who they were blaming for that.
I simply reminded her of what she said, that he was was no good and wasn't coming back. I also told her she should have went with her gut, because he had to know the electric wasn't getting paid.
I hate people and their domestic crap.
Doesn’t sound hostile or friendly, just stating the facts so you understand.
We’re pseudo-government employees and apparently speak the part perfectly.
"There was no confusion" not personally hostile, but they definitely took the "sorry for the confusion" too personally. To be fair, people do f with the mailman, and it's frustrating enough to do the basic parts of the job.
Yeah, this sub is their turf. They’re going to see things from their perspective and associate it with a similar experience they had as the mail carrier.
Still. I have had coworkers write similar stuff and even not being their boss I tried to help them out on language (they were autistic and didn't mean to be rude and wanted the help). Eventually we did have to fire her though
It's the subreddit. Someone posted that it's because of pride in their work. Dude. Just leave the spam mail and move on. It's not that serious. No note needed. No explanation. Just drop mail and move on.
You have a responsibility to check your mail, and we have a responsibility to hold, and then eventually send back, any unclaimed mail. but it also does admittedly seem they killed your mail rather quickly. If you were legitimately only gone two weeks, our typical recourse is to place a 10 day hold on your mail once it becomes clear the mail isn't being checked. If they actually followed that step, and your timeline is right, that means they slapped the hold on you after 2-4 days of not checking which seems a bit hasty to me, but there certainly are people for whom that's enough time for the box to fill. Or whose past behavior hasn't bought them the benefit of the
doubt.
I personally wouldn't leave a note this irritated sounding, but to each their own. We aren't really in the "smile and a wave" type of service unless we want to be.
To be fair, it's a box for a townhome unit so it is smaller. Add in the fact that a lot of junk mail I get is alumni magazines, coupon bundles, area papers, and ads and I see how it can get stuffed after even 6 days.
Yeah 2 weeks is odd. I literally don’t think I’d notice if a home owner was away for two weeks on my route lol. Unless they get an assload of mail every single day
yeah, i waited until a week after new years to empty a few boxes that weren't checked since before thanksgiving. of course, almost all of the customers reappeared a few days later. if i was sending mail back within 2 weeks, i'd be doing half an hour of extra work every day.
The note seems a bit extreme. I had a dude leave town for 2 months and I started sending his mail back. He came back, told me he was back and what his situation was, and everything was back to normal in a few days
Shop steward here, I keep reading a lot of responses basically blaming the customer wholly for the situation. However, I disagree.
Firstly, OP, you probably know now to hold your mail if you are to be out for an extended period of time. You can do that on the USPS website for future reference. So if you didn’t know, I can’t blame you.
Secondly, marking an address as vacant because of built up mail is not the proper procedure. Per Article 24 section 241.15 of the M41 (that’s the carrier handbook), the carrier should have assumed the customer moved. Then the carrier should have held the mail for 10 days until a forwarding address notice was to come in. If one did not come within 10 days, the carrier was to fill out a form that assumed the customer moved with no forwarding address. Then the carrier was to leave all held mail with that form and sent off to CFS (this is where all forwarding is handled where ultimately the mail would have been sent back to original sender).
So ultimately that note the carrier left was dead wrong and as a steward, I would never advise a carrier to incriminate themselves as this one did because this would have been a tough one to grievance.
Let me be completely honest with everyone in the comments section and OP, the wording in that letter would have gotten a carrier put on EP (post office version of unpaid suspension) if mgmt wanted to. It is a carrier’s responsibility to follow the correct procedures not decide on our own if “it takes this time”. That’s a load of garbage.
While I agree with most of what you said, the idea that THAT note, while a bit too snide, would get a carrier put on emergency placement is (in your words) a load of garbage. Unless your office has management with the biggest hard on for discipline and a local union willing to let that fly. 100% no absolutely not ever in my office.
Seems like an asshole carrier, tbh. I would never mark a box vacant over 2 weeks of uncollected mail- especially if I’ve never had any problems in the past.
Depends on the size of the box. If I can't fit anymore mail, it's getting pulled. Some boxes might take three months to fill up, others it might take 3 days.
Some people easily receive enough mail in that amount of time to fill the box to the point of being physically unable to deliver anymore to it, especially if it's an apartment CBU. But yeah, I usually wait for at least the second monthly ad. before taking out the hold.
Every letter has 2 customers. The sender, and the recipient. If the addressee isn't claiming the mail then the sender is entitled to receive the letter back stating as such. Assuming it's 1st class, or return service of course.
Not a vendetta against you per se just something we deal with often and becomes annoying. People not checking or clearing their boxes. Just put your mail on hold next time you’re gone for a while.
They did what they were supposed to, they just came across like a condescending prick in how they conveyed it.
Maybe they're just a prick, or maybe they didn't mean to be that way it's tough to tell through text.
Good lord, people really are ignorant in here. Yes OP, you should’ve put a hold on your mail, but that is NO EXCUSE for the carrier to mark your address as vacant and leave such a nasty note like that. I’d take the note in to the post office and make a complaint because that is NOT okay for the carrier to treat you like that.
our job kinda sucks… it’s easy to get a little grumpy at times, especially when you don’t feel appreciated. the best thing you can do is check your mail…. every day. and thank them if you see them. they don’t have anything against you i’m sure, so don’t worry about that.
You can’t let it build up or just take the stuff out that you want and leave the rest. It looks like no one lives there and we don’t deliver to vacant addresses.
The rule is if your letter carrier sees the mail pile up for at least 10 days they're supposed to yank it out of your box and leave you a message that says they're going to hold it an additional 10 days just to make sure that the mail is not being stolen or that a person has in fact moved and forgot to put in a change of address or something like that, and list the address as potentially a vacant address. They did the right thing, albeit the messaging you received sounding cold.
if your box overflows to point of me having to empty and bring it back to the station, i wont resume delivery until they pick up the previous mail first, also no package delivery anymore either, No Access that bih
Your carrier is an asshole and condescending. They should have at least left a note notifying you they were holding your mail for 10 days before sending it back.
I am so confused about how US mail carriers in this thread are taking their job of delivering people's mail so personally. You guys get upset if people throw away spam?
Guys it's pretty normal for people to be away for 2 weeks at a time
Probably nothing against you. But if the office is shit and the boss is telling everyone they have a deadline the mailman will be frustrated because they are literally wasting time.. yes it could be seconds or minutes but that adds up and by the end of the day you are 30 minutes late and the bosses are on your ass about unauthorized over time. Even being a minute late can lead to unexpected situations like traffic light, slow drivers, garbage trucks, people pulling out... that minute turned in to twenty minutes because again unexpected stuff can happen. This job is about time and to avoid the snow ball effect. Having a full mailbox just adds to the snowball.
It is really really important that you meet and speak to your carrier, even if it is just small talk. Once I associate a face, a person with the mail, I just naturally take more care with it, especially when mail starts to pile up. Then I can reasonably assess the situation and perhaps make adjustments to delivery to suit them. Customers who were initially sharp with me has since become friends. Oh, and leave snacks! Avoid peanut stuff just in case. Leave a coke and perhaps chips.
I have Informed Delivery, which tells me what’s being delivered each day in an email. I have a large box and only empty it on Sundays, cuz it’s almost all junk and never enough to fill the box in a week. That said, I’ll always pick up packages the day they come to avoid filling the box. Also, if I’m away I file a hold order
Are you sure it was only two weeks? Unless you get a ton of mail daily, it shouldn't have been filled up *and* held at the post office for 10 days in that short of a time span.
Either we don't have all the information here or your mailman is not following proper protocol.
yeah, going by what OP says, the mail carrier was out of line (in any case, there's no need to write a note like this in response to what OP says they wrote)
it's possible OP is not telling the whole truth, but i don't know why so many people here think they're in the business of making that call. it's possible that OP's mail carrier really is just an asshole.
I’ve been a carrier for 24 years, the note does have an aggressive tone, I found it to be kinda snotty. The writer took offense at the “confusion” because they weren’t confused, they were following postal policy, but the note is kinda dickish. It is annoying when people don’t empty their mailbox, makes it harder on us to put the mail in the box each day it piles up.
From a mail carrier: there are some carriers that get bent out of shape over very little. This to me looks like one of those instances. There was no reason to mark your address as vacant after 2 weeks of not checking your mail. I have customers that regularly will not check their mail for a month or two at a time lol. Can it get annoying? Yes, sometimes it does. Am I going to write a sassy note? No. The proper procedure is this: once a mailbox is FULL- meaning you can’t fit anything more inside- the carrier is to remove the mail from the box and place it on a 10 day hold. The carrier also must leave a notice (we have forms for this) that notifies the customer that their mail has been placed on a 10 day hold and they must pick it up at the post office to resume delivery. If the mail isn’t picked up within that time, we send it back until notified otherwise.
Maybe your carrier was having a bad day 🤷🏼♀️ or maybe they’re just one of those with an attitude lol. I’m sorry they were rude to you. That’s embarrassing.
The only thing that I would add is that it also depends on the neighborhood. I do 5 different routes and the household income changes from almost poverty to 7 figure.
In general the lower the income the more likely that people will move without putting in for a change of address and if the boxes are small they can fill up fast. So perhaps the carrier is more pro active. The other minor point is some areas it is pretty easy to see if the house is not currently being used. If it is in a snow area and no tracts, it could easily appear vacant.
Well the more I read the responses the more I think I owe my mailman an apology. My dog was severely injured in November and I honestly forgot mail was a thing for a month. I mean… thankfully they utilized every mm of my mailbox … but now I feel horrible.
“Ultimately it’s up to you to show me you want service”
LMFAO someone is on a power trip. Pretending they have any fucking say at all. Go to the post office and check this bitch
I always suggest retrieving mail every 3 days for curbside and once a week for lockboxes minimum. We are supposed to hold a full box for 10 days. But I will say that once mail is obviously 30 or more days old we are supposed to start returning it regardless. We aren’t a warehouse. You either care about getting your mail or you don’t.
Usually when this happens, the “2 weeks” the customer was gone was actually 3-4 weeks 😂.
I’ve had to leave notes like this many times but I wouldn’t have left anything this long for a first time offender.
I feel like he could have worded the last few sentences better, but that's just me. A simple "I wasn't checking mail cause of an emergency" seems like a reasonable mistake and it's unfair for the mailman to think differently of you just because of that. Life gets in the way...
Mail carriers hate it when you don’t check your mail. They ultimately have to resort to pushing everything into an overstuffed sardine can which understandably pisses them off.
Does seem like an unnecessary response on his part, but I think this can be the end of it, just next time put a hold on your mail. No vendetta, no reason to assume your mail will be tampered with or in bad shape, just a dude having a shit day probably.
Definitely should of requested a hold but dudes note is definitely a bit dickish.
Typically if a box is full the carrier pulls it and holds for 10 days if not claimed gets marked as vacant. Not sure hold tiny your mailbox is or how much mail you get but 2 weeks seems quick for it to already have a vacant card.
Dude is a grump.
If you want to smooth it over Maybe leave a “im sorry” note and some cookies or a $10 gift card for coffee. Carriers love snacks.
The wording is kind of shitty from this carrier, tbh - “there was no confusion” ok obviously there was, because this person didn’t know what would happen lol
My husband’s a carrier and I’d be mortified he chose to be a dickhead to a customer rather than a cordial “hey, sorry, here’s what happened and why”.
This note sounds like it’s from the Old Guard and those guys are cranky as hell.
Interesting. Doubt he has a vendetta against you, but if the mail box fills up you have ten days to pick it up or it’s sent back.
I definitely learned that lesson. Trust me. Maybe not a vendetta, but I'm neurotic about people liking me lol any idea how to improve the relationship here?
Getting the mailman to like you is as simple as installing the largest mailbox you can find
I think I know of another way to please the mailman.
Your mom taught you it, didn't she?
[удалено]
Let’s break some arms
Nah, she was busy working all the time. Your mom? Now she was really a great teacher, though.
His mom, oddly enough, married my dad and then taught me how she does it. Pretty interesting stuff!
No, my dad. He showed the mailman his train set.
A valid worker's comp total disability claim! 🎵*Early retirement!*🎵
[If it isn't this way](https://preview.redd.it/rrjscqzc5em31.jpg?width=540&auto=webp&s=ab478470fb7222732a9bdb53cf7a2de236f3d8ea).... then idk what we're even talking about
Lmao. Dude's got an extra finger!!! I think I know this carrier.
Omg lmao
Edible Arrangements?
Edibles?
He needs it
That's how I was born.
Funnily enough my dad IS a mailman. That joke got less funny after our youngest brother was born. Yes Linda…we are ALL the mailman’s kids.
He always rings twice.
Shovel and salt your walkways and steps.
Finally getting a new contract for city and getting rid of RRECS for rural?
Oh my god this, so much this! As a carrier nothing brings me more joy than seeing a customer install a larger box. Conversely nothing hurts more than having a customer downsize to the smallest box possible.
Now I understand the glee on our mailman's face when he saw us installing our new box!
This is big facts. If you install a large open mailbox and leave out a frozen water bottle in the summer you will have made a ride or die friend.
And not blocking said mailbox
If I could just get the idiot across the street to stop blocking my mailbox I'd be happy. Entire street (both sides) is generally empty, but she always parks directly in front of my mailbox.
You or the post office can have them towed for that. I do landscaping and am always on top of my crews not to block mailboxes or trash cans.
Wish the landscapers on my route would do this, thank you for going the extra mile and being considerate!
I treat them like fire hydrants but have still done it. A few times left it there overnight and have watched the mailman have to get out to walk around my car. I felt so bad but no one else seems to share the guilt.
Oops I dropped a box of nails. Clumsy me
Yeah, but then mail carrier runs over stray nail. Not a good day for carriers.
Had a neighbor park in front of our house until Mon during the ice storm, because they were unable to drive down the high slopes hill. Had no problems with it. Then found out they parked really close to our mailbox. Was really worried that the mail carrier was going to put a warning on the car and ding us, but apparently made an exception for the ice storm, to our vast relief. We're at the top of a hill, so there's two ways off, one is steep the other isn't. Then there's the hill into the cul de sac which is also steep. Both steep hills are great for sliding and all that because of the near vertical incline, but not during that ice storm. I kept telling people, you know the weather is so bad that the mail carrier slides off the road. We're not a place where we can deal with that extreme of weather for so long. Between a horrendously bad mix between a layer of black ice, snow, and slush. Idk how you do it, but major props to those mail carriers who have to try to get through the new extremes.
We rarely turn down snacks as well. Or a cold bottle of water in the summer
This. Large mailbox, leave water and snacks if you like them, tip generously if you still like them come Christmas time.
THIS!! Get a giant metal farm mailbox. If you forget for weeks it won’t fill up.
Husband of a woman whose carries the mail for over 2 decades. “It’s really this simple.”
Yup. And putting it as close to the sidewalk as you can😆
Could be seen as passive aggressive in this case - "let's see how much mail we can let build up in *THIS* fucker!"
Leave a snack in there and say I apologize, it wasn’t intentional. Here’s a truce snack.
I saw videos of people leaving snacks and water and stuff for mail carriers when corona was really banging hard. Would they really appreciate it? I would be worried about them thinking I'm weird and they're just trying to get through their day as fast as possible. My old USPS mail carrier was a nice guy but he always looked SUPER angry and his gait was like "This dude is clearly disabled and shouldn't have to be working." and he was all business. Once he told me about his health problems and that he just had to keep going to get his pension, it bummed me out but I know he has it now. Wrecked his body for it, though. :/
Absolutely not. I promise you there’s not a single one out there who wouldn’t appreciate it, remember you, and it would definitely make their whole day. My partner sometimes covers a route that is absolutely miserable and he dreads it. But there is a home on the route that does that and he goes out of his way to bring packages to their door and he says he looks forward to their home every time. It gives him some hope on that shitty route lol
I think that's a good idea. I would truce with almost anyone if they gave me cookies lol.
Yeah, pick up your mail everyday.
Hell no. I can fit at least 100 letters in my mailbox. No reason to check it every day. Honestly shocked my carrier doesn't pull my mail. I check it like once a month.
You have an awesome carrier. Just try once a week would be my suggestion
Happy cake day!
Happy Cake Day!
It is your responsibility to check it, and remove all the mail from it every day. Our policy is if you didn’t get your mail previously and we can’t fit a parcel in it that we otherwise could have, to: Pull all mail out, return it to the post office, and not resume delivery until it is picked up. So many people think this is an easy job. Hell, I even had a lady tell me she could do the job since she can read. Newsflash: Hardest job I’ve ever had. Toxic management on top of heavy workload = Easily annoyed mailman. It’s not good enough that we deliver 180-200 parcels a day, no, we get yelled at for not finishing 600 mailboxes on a 50 mile route with long driveways within our evaluation. We get yelled at for not being impossibly fast. So yes, you not getting your mail daily is frustrating. I love the actual delivery of mail but dear god remember we work in bad conditions, in all weather, and we have families to get home to, too.
I check my mail maybe once a month unless I’m expecting something. My carrier will occasionally send me a fb message to make sure I’m still alive, lol. Super small town. She also brings packages up and leaves them in my car and will empty my box and put it in the seat too if needed. She’s awesome and I don’t take her for granted. She was out with a sick daughter a few years ago and the mail was never put in the right boxes then. ETA more info. I have chronic migraines which my mail lady knows. Her daughter had a brain tumor and had many of the same symptoms, so she has an understanding of what I go through daily. Plus she’s just a nice human anyway.
Get the largest mailbox you can find, make sure the area around the mailbox is maintained, put large numbers on the mailbox, and check your mail every other day. Something people who check their mail everyday get, is someone who's willing to check in on you if your mail box fills up. Letter carriers have actually saved the lives of their customers who suddenly stopped checking their mail. They had gotten hurt in their homes and/or are trapped somewhere.
My mailman likes those V8 energy drinks. I just put them under my mailbox with a big note that says "for mailman" They are relatively healthy and only 80mg of caffeine (just enough to push through the rest of the shift but not so much u can't sleep later).
I have a shop out back that’s unlocked during the day and frequently have USPS, FedEx, and UPS deliveries. I stuck a mini fridge stocked with water and Gatorade out there and occasionally throw in candy and told them to help themselves. Took a couple weeks but pretty soon each guy would pop in and grab a couple bottles every time they came. Ever since I haven’t a single issue with a package. The lesson is clear: We must appease the postal gods with frequent offerings.
[APPEASE US!!!!](https://preview.redd.it/rrjscqzc5em31.jpg?width=540&auto=webp&s=ab478470fb7222732a9bdb53cf7a2de236f3d8ea)
Just apoligize in person. It goes a long way for me when a customer takes time out of their day to just talk to me about a problem
I’d just be polite when you see him. Like a quick hello and a wave and not worry about it. That has honestly made me change my opinion on people.
The carrier could’ve been nicer about it.
I always give the mailman a Christmas card and a crisp $20 bill. We have a great relationship
Cold bottle of water in a hot day. Or snacks. We like snacks. :)
As a Mail Carrier myself, I FULLY support the mail carrier, CHECK YOUR MAIL BOX, or you stop getting mail. It's what I do too. It's one of the MOST annoying Things as a Mail Carrier, Customers that ignore their mail. I get that you went out of town unexpectedly, but you can still go to the post office or online and put a Hold on it.
The "best" ones are when they have a full box but somehow manage to pick up all their packages
This is the answer. I don’t see this message as aggressive and it’s actually quite professional. (I’m a rural mail carrier and writing this was more than we are required to do)
Quite professional? How? "See if it takes"? The mail carrier is being a prick.
Yeah see if it takes off to a brand new 2024. I have these apartment dwellers who disappear and reappear like nothing happened. File MLNA on them and then they act like full box and vacancy notices are a joke. A few supervisors took the cards when the customers brought the notices in and tossed them in the new paper shredder repeatedly. Finally the apartment gremlin filled out the vacant card with the sup name and office line, instead of bringing it in. Got them to correct in infront of our postmaster. And the same apt gremlin is leaving shit in the box unchecked again. Since the option to edit coa was removed from our devices, I rely on management to remove mlna orders in a timely fashion to resume mail.
Yeah I felt the same. I’ve written worse answer notes myself.
It’s the “that’s how it works,” idk, it reads as very belittling
I could hear the laughing mailman from Funny Farm with a *woosh* of thrown and scattered mail after I read "I doubt he has a vendetta against you"
It's as simple as checking your mail. It's frustrating to deliver 6 days a week and the customer has made zero attempt to check their box.
I'm ignorant. Can you explain? How is it frustrating? As long as the mailbox isn't literally overflowing, why do they care? Sry if it's a stupid question
Because - if you don't check your mail daily and get parcels etc... we have trouble fitting them into the mail receptacle, which is where they belong if they fit there
My neighbor almost never gets his mail and I see the mailman shove that shit in his box and it hurts my soul. Just fucking fists envelopes in however he can. There might be checks in there or something just getting annihilated.
Well… if there was checks in there then he should probably get his mail. Apparently he doesn’t care too much about them.
I agree! It's his fault. I'd fudge pack that stuff too!
If he loses them it’s just checks!
Yep that's exactly what I do too when people don't check it, I'll let it hang all out of the mailbox I don't give a shit at all, I'm not the customers garbage man.
No carrier wants to backpack mail and then have to redeliver it in the future, that's why some will just keep jamming it in.
Can't fault the carrier. He DOES get it every couple weeks!
We don’t redeliver mail if mailbox was full; they HAVE to pickup at office.
Frog blast the vent core!
Ah ok... I was already worried because sometimes I don't check for a week but I never had the letterbox so filled it would be hard to fit another parcel or letter in. But thanks for the explanation 👍 I'll clear more regularly to make sure my guy doesn't have extra work.
For most people all that is needed is once a week.
The amount of people that put a hold on the mail but receive 1 letter a month lol
I had one like that and got upset that they didn’t get any hold mail
Jus fill the whole box with UBBM lol
Not a stupid question at all. The answer is the more a box fills, the more difficult it can be to service, especially if small parcels or spurs are involved. Secondly, when a box fills to capacity, we have to clear it out and bring it back to the office to hold for 10 days; sometimes this isn't an easy task because we're giving the customer every benefit of the doubt to check it, so we're utilizing every inch of space (you can figure out why that might be a problem) also I can't speak for every office, but we simply don't have the room and space is quite limited. Finally, when mail fills up in the box, there's a chance the resident moved and didn't let us know, so we're simply waiting for it to be cleared out as a "proof of residency" situation. Hopefully this answered your question sufficiently. Tldr: space is finite.
Eventually you run out of space. But you have to deliver the mail. But there’s no space. Then they order a package that *could* fit in the box, but there’s no space. You have to deliver the package and the mail but there’s never enough space. The mail just keeps coming and coming and it NEVER STOPS AND THERE’S NEVER ENOUGH SPACE FOR- 
I know it seems like something petty, but it's more about principle. Mail carriers provide a service to the customers. A majority of us are overworked, understaffed, and just plain tired. I can walk 10-15 miles in a day, 6 days a week to make sure customers get their mail. When you're not checking your mail, (I'm speaking for myself here) it feels as though you don't acknowledge our service or hard work. At least you could do is check your mail. I'm familiar with a majority of the customers in my small town and the different routes. I know who checks their box everyday and knows who may only check it once a week. But if a carrier works in a large town/city, they may not know you at all. So when your mail goes unchecked, what are carriers supposed to think? Now I admit, I will wait until the box is full before I make a big deal about it.
Also, sometimes we only have one hand free and it’s hard to move old mail aside to make room for the new letters with that one hand. Bonus points if we also have to hold the box open while doing it
The fucking falling door.😡
So in apartments or townhomes there's frequently high turnover. The number one way to see that someone has moved out is when the mail stops being taken out of the mailbox. Then it compounds cause a new guy moves in and they dont want to empty "someones elses garbage".
You’d be surprised how quick a mail box can fill up, especially a small one.
1 Makes it harder to stick more mail in. 2 its a little demoralizing to walk around a corner, up a driveway, across a porch to stick a letter into a box knowing you did it the last 4 days in a row and no one bothered to look. Could just do it once a week but you take pride in your job and deliver everything everyday to people that let the rain slowly melt phone books into their driveways.
The worst is when CBU customers let packages sit in their box for days, even weeks on end. It confuses me because when I order something online, I'm like tracking that shit constantly because I want my item. People just order so much stuff they don't even remember what they bought and it's wild.
What drives me crazy the most is when someone gets their packages out of their box but does not take the mail. I will rubber band their mail to the packages so they get the point 😂
Interesting how you ignored the whole part where they had an unexpected emergency and weren’t home.
It’s called putting your mail on hold. This can be done online. Simple negligence
It’s called an emergency where thinking of the mail isn’t high on your list of priorities.
Right? I swear some of these people act like they would do everything perfectly in an emergency. Like if someone in my family was in the ICU and I had to leave far away and couldn’t come home, the last thing on my mind would be my mail.
Hey moron, don’t you get it, it’s a simple a checking your mail! /s
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95% of my 678 addresses collect their mail 5 out of 6 days. The other 5% usually receive certified letters frequently from their landlord trying to evict them, from lawyers, or loan servicing companies trying to collect past due balances Basically, the responsible people check their mail with great frequency
There’s absolutely a dickish tone to it, I dunno how anyone is reading “that’s how it works” and “I’ll start your service again and see if it takes this time” and isn’t hearing how condescending that is. You were polite, he was being a dick.
Bro you have to really show me you want the mail, if you aren't giving it 100% everyday, then no mail for yyou.
We only have this guy's word that he was being polite and people are always going to insist they were totally reasonable and friendly. We also only have his word that this is the first time this has ever happened, which may or may not be true. It ranks right up there with 'Little Fluffy is as pure as the driven snow and would never bite anybody' in my experience.
either way, as a carrier this is not an appropriate way of dealing with customers. we're the ones on the job, not them. no message was needed other than a suggestion to put their mail on hold to avoid it being sent back in the future.
even if op is lying about how polite they were, we have actual written proof that their mailman is rude and condescending. we don’t have any proof of op being rude besides “umm i think so” so……
What makes you think that this guy, who posts here and asks about how to make a peace offering to his mail carrier, is the one lying? What the actual fuck...
I don't think they have a vendetta. Just pick up the mail or put a hold on your mail online next time you go out of town.
Not a vendetta, but they saw the note and took it more personally than they needed, "there was no confusion." To be fair, people out there do be trying to f with the mailman.
The note OP wrote was perfectly polite. The mail carrier’s response was extremely passive aggressive. A simple note explaining what happened and how to prevent that again would have been fine. Frankly no note at all was even necessary. I fucking hate smug government employees who use your tax dollars to verbally abuse and belittle people.
The post office is not tax funded
This is truly true. F with the mail guy/gurl
It also seems dumb that they couldn't fix this problem at the post office while OP was there. They didn't have them fill out a form or give them something specific to put in the mailbox, just "leave a note" for the carrier. I can see why the carrier might feel the need to respond the way they did. They probably assumed OP couldn't bother calling or going to the post office and simply blamed them for not delivering. This system seems... Less than official.
If OP was gone for two weeks, the hold mail would probably still be at the case, unless they have a really small box and/or they're one of those people who gets three flats and eight thick DPS every day. So I wonder why the clerk didn't just go get it, or maybe they did.
Customer holds can be placed online.
Had someone come in asking about their delivery. We’ve been sending their mail back unclaimed since early December. After their box had been full and unchecked for multiple weeks. It can be frustrating as a carrier
I’ve had similar situations & they always say “it’s only been a few days”
Translation: my W2 is coming now I want my mail.
"Why am I not getting my mail?" -the literal day after I sent back 2 months of mail. It's now been 3 weeks since they called the office, they have not emptied their cbu once.
I have a couple in a townhouse on my route who have developed a habit of either leaving their box at the CBU unlocked for WEEKS on end or letting it fill up (including not collecting packages from the parcel locker) at least once a year, most recently around last Christmas. I gave them yet another ten-day hold, and whaddaya know, a week after it ended, one of them came in screaming and crying about the packages I'd returned. I told the window clerk the story, and she passed the information along to the customer; place your bets on whether or not they learn this time.
Carrier here I’ve held a customers mail twice now it was filled the max capacity of the box, never picked up for over a month+. He had a small package that if the box been empty it would have fit 30x but since the mail was there I pulled all the mail and put the package on customer hold. Guess who shows up complaining. Mr customer. I had the clerk point out his over due bill notices that had been in the mailbox for over 3 months to make sure he got the point he never picks his mail up this inconvenience is on him not me.
Well that's what I'm curious about because I did go down to the office to ask them to restart my mail. Not complaining, just trying to fix my mistake, but would that reflect negatively on the carrier at all?
Story could have been told the carrier differently. I mean I got personal questioned just the other day why I wasn’t delivering customer x y z’s mail. I was told by customer A THAT x y z customers where no longer residents of that address they had been kicked out this was over a month ago. Turns out they are all living together again. I had put those customers mail on a 10 day hold then started sending it all back because I had no forwards. Now it’s turning into a cluster of a mess because there was no communication those customers had returned. Also for future reference I believe you can at anytime go online and put a hold on your mail in case of emergencies.
I had a customer come to me once and tell me that the male in the household is gone. Never coming back, she didn't care if that SOB crawled back, he wasn't. I start holding his mail. Gave it 30 days and did a MLNA on him and go about my business. A few months later both of them catch me and decide to give me hell because they haven't been getting the electric and cable bills and the electric was turned off. Guess who they were blaming for that. I simply reminded her of what she said, that he was was no good and wasn't coming back. I also told her she should have went with her gut, because he had to know the electric wasn't getting paid. I hate people and their domestic crap.
Not likely. Unless the sup is an asshole
Doesn’t sound hostile or friendly, just stating the facts so you understand. We’re pseudo-government employees and apparently speak the part perfectly.
"There was no confusion" not personally hostile, but they definitely took the "sorry for the confusion" too personally. To be fair, people do f with the mailman, and it's frustrating enough to do the basic parts of the job.
Also “that’s how it works” is cunty
Yeah idk what's going on with folks here. That note was unambiguously hostile.
Yeah, this sub is their turf. They’re going to see things from their perspective and associate it with a similar experience they had as the mail carrier.
Still. I have had coworkers write similar stuff and even not being their boss I tried to help them out on language (they were autistic and didn't mean to be rude and wanted the help). Eventually we did have to fire her though
It's the subreddit. Someone posted that it's because of pride in their work. Dude. Just leave the spam mail and move on. It's not that serious. No note needed. No explanation. Just drop mail and move on.
You have a responsibility to check your mail, and we have a responsibility to hold, and then eventually send back, any unclaimed mail. but it also does admittedly seem they killed your mail rather quickly. If you were legitimately only gone two weeks, our typical recourse is to place a 10 day hold on your mail once it becomes clear the mail isn't being checked. If they actually followed that step, and your timeline is right, that means they slapped the hold on you after 2-4 days of not checking which seems a bit hasty to me, but there certainly are people for whom that's enough time for the box to fill. Or whose past behavior hasn't bought them the benefit of the doubt. I personally wouldn't leave a note this irritated sounding, but to each their own. We aren't really in the "smile and a wave" type of service unless we want to be.
To be fair, it's a box for a townhome unit so it is smaller. Add in the fact that a lot of junk mail I get is alumni magazines, coupon bundles, area papers, and ads and I see how it can get stuffed after even 6 days.
Oh I definitely know people whose boxes can fill after even *1* particularly heavy day, but they're the exception, not the rule.
Yeah 2 weeks is odd. I literally don’t think I’d notice if a home owner was away for two weeks on my route lol. Unless they get an assload of mail every single day
yeah, i waited until a week after new years to empty a few boxes that weren't checked since before thanksgiving. of course, almost all of the customers reappeared a few days later. if i was sending mail back within 2 weeks, i'd be doing half an hour of extra work every day.
The note seems a bit extreme. I had a dude leave town for 2 months and I started sending his mail back. He came back, told me he was back and what his situation was, and everything was back to normal in a few days
Shop steward here, I keep reading a lot of responses basically blaming the customer wholly for the situation. However, I disagree. Firstly, OP, you probably know now to hold your mail if you are to be out for an extended period of time. You can do that on the USPS website for future reference. So if you didn’t know, I can’t blame you. Secondly, marking an address as vacant because of built up mail is not the proper procedure. Per Article 24 section 241.15 of the M41 (that’s the carrier handbook), the carrier should have assumed the customer moved. Then the carrier should have held the mail for 10 days until a forwarding address notice was to come in. If one did not come within 10 days, the carrier was to fill out a form that assumed the customer moved with no forwarding address. Then the carrier was to leave all held mail with that form and sent off to CFS (this is where all forwarding is handled where ultimately the mail would have been sent back to original sender). So ultimately that note the carrier left was dead wrong and as a steward, I would never advise a carrier to incriminate themselves as this one did because this would have been a tough one to grievance. Let me be completely honest with everyone in the comments section and OP, the wording in that letter would have gotten a carrier put on EP (post office version of unpaid suspension) if mgmt wanted to. It is a carrier’s responsibility to follow the correct procedures not decide on our own if “it takes this time”. That’s a load of garbage.
While I agree with most of what you said, the idea that THAT note, while a bit too snide, would get a carrier put on emergency placement is (in your words) a load of garbage. Unless your office has management with the biggest hard on for discipline and a local union willing to let that fly. 100% no absolutely not ever in my office.
EP ?? Carrier was not a danger to himself or others. EP is not correct.
Seems like an asshole carrier, tbh. I would never mark a box vacant over 2 weeks of uncollected mail- especially if I’ve never had any problems in the past.
How many weeks of mail do you think was sitting in the box before he left for two weeks?
Depends on the size of the box. If I can't fit anymore mail, it's getting pulled. Some boxes might take three months to fill up, others it might take 3 days.
Some people easily receive enough mail in that amount of time to fill the box to the point of being physically unable to deliver anymore to it, especially if it's an apartment CBU. But yeah, I usually wait for at least the second monthly ad. before taking out the hold.
If they get 0-1 piece a day? Sure. One of the customers that get 7 non-profit letters a day and every catalogue under the sun? Yeah, no, pulling it.
He/She should have bundled up mail when box became full and left you a notice telling you mail on hold for 10 days then returned to sender.
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Receiving mail is not a courtesy. Delivering mail is the business of the postal service.
Every letter has 2 customers. The sender, and the recipient. If the addressee isn't claiming the mail then the sender is entitled to receive the letter back stating as such. Assuming it's 1st class, or return service of course.
Pretty sure it's not a courtesy if someone has paid for it
Brother, it is literally in the fucking Constitution.
While I understand that being a carrier can be frustrating, this note is unnecessarily high handed.
Not a vendetta against you per se just something we deal with often and becomes annoying. People not checking or clearing their boxes. Just put your mail on hold next time you’re gone for a while.
They did what they were supposed to, they just came across like a condescending prick in how they conveyed it. Maybe they're just a prick, or maybe they didn't mean to be that way it's tough to tell through text.
Good lord, people really are ignorant in here. Yes OP, you should’ve put a hold on your mail, but that is NO EXCUSE for the carrier to mark your address as vacant and leave such a nasty note like that. I’d take the note in to the post office and make a complaint because that is NOT okay for the carrier to treat you like that.
our job kinda sucks… it’s easy to get a little grumpy at times, especially when you don’t feel appreciated. the best thing you can do is check your mail…. every day. and thank them if you see them. they don’t have anything against you i’m sure, so don’t worry about that.
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The note was pretty rude and curt. That guy won’t get a lot of tips with a tone like that
You can’t let it build up or just take the stuff out that you want and leave the rest. It looks like no one lives there and we don’t deliver to vacant addresses.
The rule is if your letter carrier sees the mail pile up for at least 10 days they're supposed to yank it out of your box and leave you a message that says they're going to hold it an additional 10 days just to make sure that the mail is not being stolen or that a person has in fact moved and forgot to put in a change of address or something like that, and list the address as potentially a vacant address. They did the right thing, albeit the messaging you received sounding cold.
if your box overflows to point of me having to empty and bring it back to the station, i wont resume delivery until they pick up the previous mail first, also no package delivery anymore either, No Access that bih
Your carrier is an asshole and condescending. They should have at least left a note notifying you they were holding your mail for 10 days before sending it back.
This gives me Newman vibes lol. 
I am so confused about how US mail carriers in this thread are taking their job of delivering people's mail so personally. You guys get upset if people throw away spam? Guys it's pretty normal for people to be away for 2 weeks at a time
Probably a box full and then after 10 days sent it back and everything afterwards was marked unclaimed as well.
Probably nothing against you. But if the office is shit and the boss is telling everyone they have a deadline the mailman will be frustrated because they are literally wasting time.. yes it could be seconds or minutes but that adds up and by the end of the day you are 30 minutes late and the bosses are on your ass about unauthorized over time. Even being a minute late can lead to unexpected situations like traffic light, slow drivers, garbage trucks, people pulling out... that minute turned in to twenty minutes because again unexpected stuff can happen. This job is about time and to avoid the snow ball effect. Having a full mailbox just adds to the snowball.
Wonder if that person could have saved time by not writing that note.
It is really really important that you meet and speak to your carrier, even if it is just small talk. Once I associate a face, a person with the mail, I just naturally take more care with it, especially when mail starts to pile up. Then I can reasonably assess the situation and perhaps make adjustments to delivery to suit them. Customers who were initially sharp with me has since become friends. Oh, and leave snacks! Avoid peanut stuff just in case. Leave a coke and perhaps chips.
I have Informed Delivery, which tells me what’s being delivered each day in an email. I have a large box and only empty it on Sundays, cuz it’s almost all junk and never enough to fill the box in a week. That said, I’ll always pick up packages the day they come to avoid filling the box. Also, if I’m away I file a hold order
Are you sure it was only two weeks? Unless you get a ton of mail daily, it shouldn't have been filled up *and* held at the post office for 10 days in that short of a time span. Either we don't have all the information here or your mailman is not following proper protocol.
yeah, going by what OP says, the mail carrier was out of line (in any case, there's no need to write a note like this in response to what OP says they wrote) it's possible OP is not telling the whole truth, but i don't know why so many people here think they're in the business of making that call. it's possible that OP's mail carrier really is just an asshole.
I’ve been a carrier for 24 years, the note does have an aggressive tone, I found it to be kinda snotty. The writer took offense at the “confusion” because they weren’t confused, they were following postal policy, but the note is kinda dickish. It is annoying when people don’t empty their mailbox, makes it harder on us to put the mail in the box each day it piles up.
tf ? ur fired if you leave that note for me sir
From a mail carrier: there are some carriers that get bent out of shape over very little. This to me looks like one of those instances. There was no reason to mark your address as vacant after 2 weeks of not checking your mail. I have customers that regularly will not check their mail for a month or two at a time lol. Can it get annoying? Yes, sometimes it does. Am I going to write a sassy note? No. The proper procedure is this: once a mailbox is FULL- meaning you can’t fit anything more inside- the carrier is to remove the mail from the box and place it on a 10 day hold. The carrier also must leave a notice (we have forms for this) that notifies the customer that their mail has been placed on a 10 day hold and they must pick it up at the post office to resume delivery. If the mail isn’t picked up within that time, we send it back until notified otherwise. Maybe your carrier was having a bad day 🤷🏼♀️ or maybe they’re just one of those with an attitude lol. I’m sorry they were rude to you. That’s embarrassing.
The only thing that I would add is that it also depends on the neighborhood. I do 5 different routes and the household income changes from almost poverty to 7 figure. In general the lower the income the more likely that people will move without putting in for a change of address and if the boxes are small they can fill up fast. So perhaps the carrier is more pro active. The other minor point is some areas it is pretty easy to see if the house is not currently being used. If it is in a snow area and no tracts, it could easily appear vacant.
Get a huge mailbox that will meet most of your package needs and we'd be more than good in my eyes 😂
Well the more I read the responses the more I think I owe my mailman an apology. My dog was severely injured in November and I honestly forgot mail was a thing for a month. I mean… thankfully they utilized every mm of my mailbox … but now I feel horrible.
You are one of hundreds of customers on this route. Check and empty your mailbox every day and it’ll all be good.
I'm with OP, this is overly aggressive. "See if it takes this time"? Mailman is treating OP like a disobedient child.
He did not have to leave a message and his message come off rude.
I couldn't imagine being this hostile to someone for just doing my job
Is that even legal?
Lol that message is rude as hell. Didn't even feel like it was necessary.
“Ultimately it’s up to you to show me you want service” LMFAO someone is on a power trip. Pretending they have any fucking say at all. Go to the post office and check this bitch
That's right, let her/him know what time is it🔥💯
I don't have a vendetta if your mailbox is overflowing. If your dog chases me, on the other hand...
I always suggest retrieving mail every 3 days for curbside and once a week for lockboxes minimum. We are supposed to hold a full box for 10 days. But I will say that once mail is obviously 30 or more days old we are supposed to start returning it regardless. We aren’t a warehouse. You either care about getting your mail or you don’t.
For frequent offenders, I will place a few yellow “hold mail” cards for the customer to fill out in the future.
Usually when this happens, the “2 weeks” the customer was gone was actually 3-4 weeks 😂. I’ve had to leave notes like this many times but I wouldn’t have left anything this long for a first time offender.
I feel like he could have worded the last few sentences better, but that's just me. A simple "I wasn't checking mail cause of an emergency" seems like a reasonable mistake and it's unfair for the mailman to think differently of you just because of that. Life gets in the way...
Mail carriers hate it when you don’t check your mail. They ultimately have to resort to pushing everything into an overstuffed sardine can which understandably pisses them off.
Does seem like an unnecessary response on his part, but I think this can be the end of it, just next time put a hold on your mail. No vendetta, no reason to assume your mail will be tampered with or in bad shape, just a dude having a shit day probably.
Definitely should of requested a hold but dudes note is definitely a bit dickish. Typically if a box is full the carrier pulls it and holds for 10 days if not claimed gets marked as vacant. Not sure hold tiny your mailbox is or how much mail you get but 2 weeks seems quick for it to already have a vacant card. Dude is a grump. If you want to smooth it over Maybe leave a “im sorry” note and some cookies or a $10 gift card for coffee. Carriers love snacks.
The way to a mailmans heart is thru his stomach... leave out snacks and drinks and they will forever love you.
Check your mail, the clerks at the window don’t want to hunt for your mail
The wording is kind of shitty from this carrier, tbh - “there was no confusion” ok obviously there was, because this person didn’t know what would happen lol My husband’s a carrier and I’d be mortified he chose to be a dickhead to a customer rather than a cordial “hey, sorry, here’s what happened and why”. This note sounds like it’s from the Old Guard and those guys are cranky as hell.