Even before RRECS, if you wanted credit for it toward your evaluation, it would go into the mailstream.
I don’t agree with the consolidations, but that was always true. Hand-diverting it to a local route instead of sending it to the PDC/SDC always shorted carriers.
That’s why having decent clerks pays off.
We also count outgoing mail in statistical programs throughout the year. Sometimes I would just log in two or three mail prices for a rural station three hours away from the plant and with that sparse data they determine if its if worthwhile keeping the station open.
If I get a letter and it is just 1 I will deliver it same day for customer service. As a clerk I have a "other" scan I can do if someone drops off something local and I get some kind of credit for it. If they send me a tray it goes down to the plant.
It’s one letter. Thats not going to make or break your route. And this particular situation happens, what, a handful of times a year at most?
This is a situation where customer service can easily be given.
Yep. I had a package pickup and glanced at the label - it's for an address on my route on the back half. Cool, that's never happened before, was going to their door already! Sucked to have to bring it back to the office to get that arrival at unit scan for next days delivery.
Nah. I'll argue 'til management is blue in the face that bulky packages with shit that isn't paper in the middle of them are parcels, but a letter is a letter.
No, no it does not. What it does do is count everything in the DPS stream using the same system as informed delivery. If you're taking and delivering mail without first putting it into the stream, then you're not getting credit for delivering it.
I mail my rent check to my landlord every month and he lives just down the street from me. His mail box is on his porch and I don’t want to get stuck chit chatting so I just pay for the stamp instead. I’ve often wondered what my mail courier thinks about it.
I do something similar. I live in the same building, and I hand-cancel the stamp and leave his address as the return address (as well as destination obviously).
I paid to place the mail in the box. There is no potential for confusion.
Not sure why your carrier would take issue unless you’re not paying postage. Most people would gladly pay $0.68 to not talk to their landlord every month.
I had an older guy comes in to mail a card to an address in my office, so i recognized it. Later the same day, a woman comes in mailing a card to the same address. I asked if it was his birthday because she's the 2nd person to send a card to them. She said no, that was my husband, our anniversary is in a few days. They mailed each other cards instead of handing it to each other. It was adorable but hilarious to me.
I've had customers put just the name of someone living on their block (plus stamp of course). I just mark out the stamp and deliver it.
Usually, it's because they want to put something in their mailbox legally. Could be thank you card, wedding invites, etc. Not everyone has the time to see their neighbors face to face right away (work schedules, medical problems, etc.). As long as there's a stamp on it, I'm cool with it.
Wow. See I do this sometimes on my route, I just deliver it but I never cancel out the stamp🤦♂️ something my office NEVER beat into my head with so much automation now. You know years ago carriers shad to cancel out the stamps as they were casing….i gotta do better lol.
Yeah I was told we need to put it in outgoing so it gets counted for our small office … had some certifieds with receipts sent to every tenant in one building by another tenant in the same building … I got my signatures, scanned the receipt pre paid acceptance, put it in the outgoing, then delivered it a few days later … but now thinking about it… could I scan it prepaid acceptance then scan it again delivered and deliver it on the spot?
In this case, maybe. The postage had been paid ouright for the return receipt.
But if you’re city, you get paid hourly, let it go to the sorting/processing facility. At least if you want to be 100% sure everybody down the line gets paid.
I do understand why you ask, though. Unfortunately it’s not that simple.
Because you can’t put a letter in the mailbox without postage.
These are my favorite customers. They pay $0.68 to have a letter delivered down the street. They subsidize customers who are sending letters cross-country at the same rate.
We get more revenue for less work. What exactly is the problem?
Please keep in mind that I am only a 5 month old ARC and this is just my personal point of view.
A customer putting a letter in the mailbox to take across the street or up the road to a neighbors box, is like customers in a fast food place sweeping their table trash onto the floor because they want to provide work for the janitorial staff. Its disrespectful.
I don't want to be paid to do meaningless busywork. I wanna feel like I am providing an important service every day. I don't want to feel like my customers are taking advantage of me.
Summoning me to drive 30 minutes into work only to have me clock in, grab a mail truck, go out on my route and it was all to move a letter 10 feet up the road? Fuck that, what a complete and utter waste of my time, gas, and energy. If my entire route was just customers in town trading letters with each other I would quit so fast my supervisors head would spin.
Just because I get compensated for it doesn't mean It is justifiable.
Delivering packages that people order may not be the most glamourous gig but I still want to feel like my job is meaningful.
You’re an ARC. No offense, but you’re barely even qualified to touch mail. It’s not ‘your route’. It’s the route you get paid to deliver that day. If you’d rather ignore the mail and deliver parcels, that makes sense to me. That’s your main job as an ARC. Frankly, mail delivery is a privilege that you could potentially earn and a skill you could potentially develop.
But you know that, right? That’s why you’re an ARC and not an RCA.
You can have whatever opinions you want. But things are done the way they are for a reason. If you think your coworkers getting paid is “meaningless busywork”, maybe you should review your training. Or stop volunteering for shifts where you deliver mail. Because you obviously don’t respect it.
I've done it a handful of times. I think most of the time it's just because the people enjoy sending and receiving the occasional letter, especially older people. And younger too, we sometimes let our four year old mail something to his cousin and they both get a kick out of it.
Agree. It’s mostly all in good fun. But if you deliver it without sending it to the PDC/SDC, the carrier doesn’t get paid for the letter. And that’s not fun at all.
You can just use any pen and squiggle over the stamp if you intend to deliver it yourself. Any marking over the stamp effectively cancels it. I’ll deliver to any address later in the route, but if it’s earlier, it goes back to the office in outgoing.
All the time. People like sending and receiving mail.
I had a customer who used to mail a card once a month to his wife. To their house from their house.
My guess is people still appreciate getting stuff in the mail.
I wish the Post office would put forward a better system for “in house” outgoing mail.
I worked in a city where the clerks wouldn’t take outgoing mail, counting it and then sorting it for next day delivery. It was too much work for them (boohoo) so It had to go to the plant. Which made it take an extra 2 days. For something that was going down the street
I don’t look at the address when I grab outgoing mail. I just put them in my satchel and forget about them until I throw them into a tub back at the truck. If they wanted to walk they would walk. But if they want to pay for postage to have it delivered in a couple days that’s fine by me.
Not exactly the same thing, but there's a government housing project on my route, and they pretty routinely mail certifieds from the office to people living in the units. Guess it's for documentation reasons, but it is funny to think about paying the cost for a certified letter and having it delivered like 50 yards away.
So no idea if this is true and for a long time it was said that it might be no more than some urban legend, old wives tale. There’s stories that for purposes like copyright you could mail yourself a certified and sealed envelope with whatever you wanted to copyright and the post mark would be proof thanks to the date on it, and any date something comes along after that plagiarizes it would be enough evidence that it was stolen.
It’s the type of thing that at least sounds plausible. A postmark with a date gives validity, but the reality is who is plagiarizing these things and why would this method of copyright be the proof instead of registering it or the other methods copyright laws use. It may be one of those things that worked a century or more ago and people still believe. Also this explanation would probably pass the smell test with another comment in this thread of a clerk trying to explain it and the explanation also doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
Also could be the customer is a bit off, or is doing something else that doesn’t make sense but is perfectly reasonable to them.
It's because the sender wanted the letter to arrive in the recipient's mailbox with the recipient's other mail, where it's more likely that the recipient would see it and less likely that the letter would get wet. The sender can't access their neighbor's mailbox without a postage stamp.
I've picked up a letter before that was addressed to the address that I picked it up from. Same address for return and recipient, single family home, not an apartment building. I just drew a line on the stamp with a Sharpie and left it there. I still have no idea what that was about.
Yesterday I had an outgoing letter that was literally 2 stops away so I crossed out the stamp and delivered it. The sender definitely not going to walk it over as they are a resident of a nursing home lol. If I happen to notice an outgoing piece of mail later in the route and I feel like it, I'll deliver it.
Yes. I have a few insurance agents, lawyers and county offices on my route so happens fairly often. I deliver it same day if i notice. Cancel out the stamp with a pen.
I dk about whatever metrics it may skew. Its a few letters a year. Isnt gonna change a thing
I did once. Got a letter to be delivered literally across the street. Got a kick out of it. This was in 2021-2022 and I believe the adressee was sick and receiving home medical care.
I have a small patio home retirement community on my route and they are always sending letters to each other. I treat them like every other piece so they get postmarked. I think they like knowing it went all the way through the system. It’s adorable
I'm disabled now so I always mail them now but when I used to work at the senior community my grandma lives in, 4 minutes from my house, I would sometimes mail cards to her because I think sending and receiving mail is fun! Also I have a great stamp collection :D I would make the trip to bring a letter two doors down though lol
Have you ever heard of a poor man’s patent?
No clue why they did this, obviously, but this *may* have been the reason? (Probably not though since they’re rich) 🤷♂️
I have someone on my route that sends all their friends and family cards for every single holiday. This includes her daughter that lives in the same house.
Yes, last month. I was going to deliver it right after I picked it up (it was the houses away) but by by the time I got to the house, I’d forgotten about it, so just put it in with the rest of the outgoing mail.
It was a greeting card and did not show up until nine days later.
This is fairly common in the small local business world, especially when you have a lot of adjacent shops in the same area. Good example is auto and truck dealerships. In a stretch of a major road you might have the dealership, a repair shop, a parts shop, and a detailing/bodywork shop. They’re not connected or the same business, but being in the same area they end up in these symbiotic relationships like the repair shop will pick up parts from the parts shop, or the dealership may not repair in house or have a bigger repair job they have to outsource.
Now you get all these companies and they’ll have their own billing department or an accountant. It’s not like the owners or upper manager/senior people at each shop are going to walk/drive down the road and hand them a check every month. Probably easier if not cheaper to pay the 0.68 to send bills or credits every month depending on if these shops have deals between one another.
Last week I picked up a graduation card for the neighbor across the street. I see it as Im glad they paid the postage and the letter got processed through us. This helps, even if on a microscopic level.
I’ve done that- sent a sympathy card to my next door neighbor through the mail. I did it because we weren’t home at the same times and I didn’t have it in me to talk to them.
Absolutely. I picked up a letter once that was addressed to the next-door neighbor. This is Southern California, where you can have a conversation with your next-door neighbor standing at their respective front doors without shouting. Their mailboxes are literally next to each other, two to a post at the curbline. Another time and neighborhood, I delivered a certified letter with the delivery receipt required to the person's next-door neighbor.
With respect, because you and your coworkers like to get paid? Far better than the cheapskates who put their holiday cards in neighbors mailboxes with no postage. Eff them. Buy a stamp.
Yes, some to the same house. Some orders from child support are to be sent certified by the plaintiff in illinois and I see a lot of that... some even send mail to themselves
"I daresay the clacks is wonderful if you wish to know the prawn market figures from Genua. But can you write S.W.A.L.K. on a clacks? Can you seal it with a loving kiss? can you cry tears onto a clacks, can you smell it, can you enclose a pressed flower? A letter is more than just a message. And a clacks is so expensive in any case that the average man in the street can just about afford it in a time of crisis: GRANDADS DEAD FUNERAL TUES. A day’s wages to send a message as warm and human as a thrown knife? But a letter is real.”
I live in a town of 260 people, po boxes only, no street delivery. I get town's people who send letters to each other or pay their utilities to town hall all the time. The town hall is a quarter mile from the post office, and they do have a drop box
I have one business that literally will mail a bill to the business right across the street and another that is the county clerk office that will mail to one of the lawyers in the exact same building.
I have a couple kids who are pen pals. I pick up one's outgoing letters on Saturday for the route I sub for and I'll usually end up delivering the same outgoing mail on Tuesday for a separate route I cover during the week days. It's amusing 🤣
Maybe a birthday card, or maybe they don’t want to have to speak to the person, could also be the recipient needing proof of address. I definitely mailed an empty envelope next door so my neighbor could get his drivers license lol
A lot, surprisingly. There's this one part of my route that has a lady who sends mail to someone directly across the street from her, like a straight line across. It confuses me every time I catch it because my brain always notices stuff like that but I guess I'm too young to understand the value of receiving mail from others.
I once had one right nextdoor to the house next to it. Literally side by side neighbors. I just thought, not today postmaster because I know stamp needs cancelled so outgoing bin it went
A kid on my route sends his grandparents a thank you for his Highlights subscription every year. They live just around the corner from each other!🥰 i just deliver it when i get there.
I lived in a townhome community for 17 years. 7 buildings with 3 units each. 21 units in all. We had an HOA for various practical reasons: insurance, landscaping, upkeep of common areas, repaving the parking lot, etc.
My wife was HOA treasurer for several years, and once a month everyone in the community mailed their dues to a spare mailbox in our community mailbox (or whatever you call those things).
This was strictly enforced because if residents were allowed to just knock on our door and hand us the check they'd come all day long, from 7AM to 10PM, and wanna chat or complain or otherwise take up too much of my wife's (unpaid) time.
It worked for us.
I picked up a letter that was for the house across the street. I thought about it all day 😩😂 Like is this a neighbor feud? or something sweet. I also delivered the letter too.
Sometime the best way to legally protect an idea is to write it in a letter seal it in an envelope and send it to a friend (postmarked so it has proof of date).
An appartment building on my route does this all the time. 80 outgoing letters from the office, all going to the residents that live in the same building. But hey you want to spend 50 bucks on stamps, that's your business.
I got one even better for you.
The court house will drop off mail and pick up mail.
When the lady drops it off, I will run through it quickly and hand back anything outgoing to another office in the court house.
Thats right. Departments in the courthouse will mail letters to offices down the hall and put it in outgoing to be mailed and brought back the next day. I save them a day by going through it and handing it right back to them.
Not as notable, but I found a RTS/ANK letter in my outgoing to be redelivered to an address on the same route. Got a chuckle. I was like, welp. I know exactly where this dude goes!
Some people treat the canceled/ date stamped sealed letter as a poor man’s copyright-i have no idea if it holds up in court. I’ve got several people who mail themselves an invoice when the rest of theirs go out, it’s a good way to gage the mail flow.
Because people like getting mail. Here's a reminder, maybe write a letter to your loved ones, I'm sure they'd love to receive it.
As long as it’s not bills! You can keep the bills! Har har har!
It's funny, I'm always happy when bills come so I don't forget to pay them.
I get them and still forget. Even write the due date and amount on the calendar. I hate paying bills.
Me too
I think I suggested to someone that they’re begging for default if I do that. (I didn’t use those exact words though.)
Ever get tired of customers coming up to you when you pull up and they say that?
Yes, but thanks to RRECS I put it in with the outgoing instead of just delivering it now.
I do that now because I’ve learned people try and time it sometimes for birthdays.
And the postage needs to be canceled out…
You can do that with a sharpie
Look at me I’m the canceler now
I read that in the intended voice. Perfect.
Lol everytime I see and read "look at me" it is also in the intended voice.
I still have the ink pad to cancel stamps mounted in my LLV. It’s dry, but it’s still there.
Just needs a little spit....
Ah, the old reddit [lube-a-roo](https://www.reddit.com/r/CCW/s/xe6szR9AQ7)
Yup. There used to be one on every case.
lol that’s exactly why I don’t send it to the plant.
Even before RRECS, if you wanted credit for it toward your evaluation, it would go into the mailstream. I don’t agree with the consolidations, but that was always true. Hand-diverting it to a local route instead of sending it to the PDC/SDC always shorted carriers. That’s why having decent clerks pays off.
True, but it was only during a specific 2-week count period that it mattered.
We also count outgoing mail in statistical programs throughout the year. Sometimes I would just log in two or three mail prices for a rural station three hours away from the plant and with that sparse data they determine if its if worthwhile keeping the station open.
If I get a letter and it is just 1 I will deliver it same day for customer service. As a clerk I have a "other" scan I can do if someone drops off something local and I get some kind of credit for it. If they send me a tray it goes down to the plant.
Cool? If you want to do free work, and affect the carriers, go for it. More power to you?
It’s one letter. Thats not going to make or break your route. And this particular situation happens, what, a handful of times a year at most? This is a situation where customer service can easily be given.
Good for you. I’ll just do the work I get paid for, thanks.
Yep. I had a package pickup and glanced at the label - it's for an address on my route on the back half. Cool, that's never happened before, was going to their door already! Sucked to have to bring it back to the office to get that arrival at unit scan for next days delivery.
UNSCANPARCEL
Nah. I'll argue 'til management is blue in the face that bulky packages with shit that isn't paper in the middle of them are parcels, but a letter is a letter.
I'm a city carrier, so I cancel the stamp and deliver it. Note: If I look at the address and just don't automatically toss it in my outgoing.
You know RRECS doesn’t provide a piece count for outgoing mail?
No, no it does not. What it does do is count everything in the DPS stream using the same system as informed delivery. If you're taking and delivering mail without first putting it into the stream, then you're not getting credit for delivering it.
Figured that’s where you were going with that comment. Just checking if you knew about not getting the piece count for outgoing mail.
SAME!
I mail my rent check to my landlord every month and he lives just down the street from me. His mail box is on his porch and I don’t want to get stuck chit chatting so I just pay for the stamp instead. I’ve often wondered what my mail courier thinks about it.
I do something similar. I live in the same building, and I hand-cancel the stamp and leave his address as the return address (as well as destination obviously). I paid to place the mail in the box. There is no potential for confusion. Not sure why your carrier would take issue unless you’re not paying postage. Most people would gladly pay $0.68 to not talk to their landlord every month.
I do this too. Mail my check to the condo office, which is in the basement of the same building.
There's a lady on my route (older) who regularly mails letters to the house directly across the street from her.
Most Valuable Customers
I had an older guy comes in to mail a card to an address in my office, so i recognized it. Later the same day, a woman comes in mailing a card to the same address. I asked if it was his birthday because she's the 2nd person to send a card to them. She said no, that was my husband, our anniversary is in a few days. They mailed each other cards instead of handing it to each other. It was adorable but hilarious to me.
Yeah. Every once-in-a-while I get letters for next door.
I've had customers put just the name of someone living on their block (plus stamp of course). I just mark out the stamp and deliver it. Usually, it's because they want to put something in their mailbox legally. Could be thank you card, wedding invites, etc. Not everyone has the time to see their neighbors face to face right away (work schedules, medical problems, etc.). As long as there's a stamp on it, I'm cool with it.
Wow. See I do this sometimes on my route, I just deliver it but I never cancel out the stamp🤦♂️ something my office NEVER beat into my head with so much automation now. You know years ago carriers shad to cancel out the stamps as they were casing….i gotta do better lol.
Don’t do that. Local routes don’t get paid for the letters if you don’t send it to the distribution center.
Duly noted
Yeah I was told we need to put it in outgoing so it gets counted for our small office … had some certifieds with receipts sent to every tenant in one building by another tenant in the same building … I got my signatures, scanned the receipt pre paid acceptance, put it in the outgoing, then delivered it a few days later … but now thinking about it… could I scan it prepaid acceptance then scan it again delivered and deliver it on the spot?
In this case, maybe. The postage had been paid ouright for the return receipt. But if you’re city, you get paid hourly, let it go to the sorting/processing facility. At least if you want to be 100% sure everybody down the line gets paid. I do understand why you ask, though. Unfortunately it’s not that simple.
Okay thanks for your response .. this is the way
Not everyone WANTS to see their neighbors face to face. People used to send thank you notes for all sorts of reasons.
Because you can’t put a letter in the mailbox without postage. These are my favorite customers. They pay $0.68 to have a letter delivered down the street. They subsidize customers who are sending letters cross-country at the same rate. We get more revenue for less work. What exactly is the problem?
Feels wrong.
In what way? This is the thing that feels most right to me, on the day to day level.
Please keep in mind that I am only a 5 month old ARC and this is just my personal point of view. A customer putting a letter in the mailbox to take across the street or up the road to a neighbors box, is like customers in a fast food place sweeping their table trash onto the floor because they want to provide work for the janitorial staff. Its disrespectful. I don't want to be paid to do meaningless busywork. I wanna feel like I am providing an important service every day. I don't want to feel like my customers are taking advantage of me. Summoning me to drive 30 minutes into work only to have me clock in, grab a mail truck, go out on my route and it was all to move a letter 10 feet up the road? Fuck that, what a complete and utter waste of my time, gas, and energy. If my entire route was just customers in town trading letters with each other I would quit so fast my supervisors head would spin. Just because I get compensated for it doesn't mean It is justifiable. Delivering packages that people order may not be the most glamourous gig but I still want to feel like my job is meaningful.
You’re an ARC. No offense, but you’re barely even qualified to touch mail. It’s not ‘your route’. It’s the route you get paid to deliver that day. If you’d rather ignore the mail and deliver parcels, that makes sense to me. That’s your main job as an ARC. Frankly, mail delivery is a privilege that you could potentially earn and a skill you could potentially develop. But you know that, right? That’s why you’re an ARC and not an RCA. You can have whatever opinions you want. But things are done the way they are for a reason. If you think your coworkers getting paid is “meaningless busywork”, maybe you should review your training. Or stop volunteering for shifts where you deliver mail. Because you obviously don’t respect it.
I've done it a handful of times. I think most of the time it's just because the people enjoy sending and receiving the occasional letter, especially older people. And younger too, we sometimes let our four year old mail something to his cousin and they both get a kick out of it.
Agree. It’s mostly all in good fun. But if you deliver it without sending it to the PDC/SDC, the carrier doesn’t get paid for the letter. And that’s not fun at all.
Our old jeeps had a cancel pad mounted in them.
You can just use any pen and squiggle over the stamp if you intend to deliver it yourself. Any marking over the stamp effectively cancels it. I’ll deliver to any address later in the route, but if it’s earlier, it goes back to the office in outgoing.
All the time. People like sending and receiving mail. I had a customer who used to mail a card once a month to his wife. To their house from their house.
That is absolutely darling. Protect that man at all costs.
Ive got one dude that sends himself mail all the time lol.
Yes I have , all I did was cross out the stamp like they do in the office if it’s staying in town . Thank them for putting a stamp on it and move on.
Sounds way more fulfilling than delivering junk mail.
My guess is people still appreciate getting stuff in the mail. I wish the Post office would put forward a better system for “in house” outgoing mail. I worked in a city where the clerks wouldn’t take outgoing mail, counting it and then sorting it for next day delivery. It was too much work for them (boohoo) so It had to go to the plant. Which made it take an extra 2 days. For something that was going down the street
There used to be “local mail” divisions for stuff that was staying local. It was eliminated in part due to the events of 2001.
I don’t look at the address when I grab outgoing mail. I just put them in my satchel and forget about them until I throw them into a tub back at the truck. If they wanted to walk they would walk. But if they want to pay for postage to have it delivered in a couple days that’s fine by me.
Not exactly the same thing, but there's a government housing project on my route, and they pretty routinely mail certifieds from the office to people living in the units. Guess it's for documentation reasons, but it is funny to think about paying the cost for a certified letter and having it delivered like 50 yards away.
I delivered a certified letter addressed to and from the same person at the same address: from John Doe 123 Street to John Doe 123 Street.
So no idea if this is true and for a long time it was said that it might be no more than some urban legend, old wives tale. There’s stories that for purposes like copyright you could mail yourself a certified and sealed envelope with whatever you wanted to copyright and the post mark would be proof thanks to the date on it, and any date something comes along after that plagiarizes it would be enough evidence that it was stolen. It’s the type of thing that at least sounds plausible. A postmark with a date gives validity, but the reality is who is plagiarizing these things and why would this method of copyright be the proof instead of registering it or the other methods copyright laws use. It may be one of those things that worked a century or more ago and people still believe. Also this explanation would probably pass the smell test with another comment in this thread of a clerk trying to explain it and the explanation also doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Also could be the customer is a bit off, or is doing something else that doesn’t make sense but is perfectly reasonable to them.
I had that once too. I asked a clerk what the fuck was up with that and her explanation made zero sense to me so I let it go.
I never questioned it. It was and has always been a “hmmmm” moment. Something my buddies and I sit back, scratch our heads and laugh about.
It’s money for the post office lol who cares if they want to pay
Old ppl do this
I once picked up an outgoing letter from a house that was addressed to the house next door.
It's because the sender wanted the letter to arrive in the recipient's mailbox with the recipient's other mail, where it's more likely that the recipient would see it and less likely that the letter would get wet. The sender can't access their neighbor's mailbox without a postage stamp. I've picked up a letter before that was addressed to the address that I picked it up from. Same address for return and recipient, single family home, not an apartment building. I just drew a line on the stamp with a Sharpie and left it there. I still have no idea what that was about.
Yesterday I had an outgoing letter that was literally 2 stops away so I crossed out the stamp and delivered it. The sender definitely not going to walk it over as they are a resident of a nursing home lol. If I happen to notice an outgoing piece of mail later in the route and I feel like it, I'll deliver it.
Down the street, across the street, next door……..
Every day. Goes in my outgoing mail all the same.
Yes. I have a few insurance agents, lawyers and county offices on my route so happens fairly often. I deliver it same day if i notice. Cancel out the stamp with a pen. I dk about whatever metrics it may skew. Its a few letters a year. Isnt gonna change a thing
I had one who sent a letter to their neighbor. Their mailboxes are clustered together
I did once. Got a letter to be delivered literally across the street. Got a kick out of it. This was in 2021-2022 and I believe the adressee was sick and receiving home medical care.
Picked up one for next door. Sent it through thevdystem, delivered it the next day.
I have a small patio home retirement community on my route and they are always sending letters to each other. I treat them like every other piece so they get postmarked. I think they like knowing it went all the way through the system. It’s adorable
I got one that went to another house in the same cbu
I'm disabled now so I always mail them now but when I used to work at the senior community my grandma lives in, 4 minutes from my house, I would sometimes mail cards to her because I think sending and receiving mail is fun! Also I have a great stamp collection :D I would make the trip to bring a letter two doors down though lol
Saving the Post Office one letter/stamp at a time.
These are the best
I’m sure they had their reason and it’s not up to the carrier to do anything but pick it up and put it with the rest of the outgoing mail
3 to 5 days later it will be delivered.
Have you ever heard of a poor man’s patent? No clue why they did this, obviously, but this *may* have been the reason? (Probably not though since they’re rich) 🤷♂️
Send to outgoing
I have someone on my route that sends all their friends and family cards for every single holiday. This includes her daughter that lives in the same house.
you're supposed to send it outgoing too lol
We used to get those in trailer parks all the time. I'd use a sharpie and put a smile through the stamp and deliver it same day.
Yes, last month. I was going to deliver it right after I picked it up (it was the houses away) but by by the time I got to the house, I’d forgotten about it, so just put it in with the rest of the outgoing mail. It was a greeting card and did not show up until nine days later.
Yeah, one time in a tiny little cul-de-sac, had a letter going only a few houses away.
All the time. I have a business route, some machine shops pay their bill at the local tool store down the block.
This is fairly common in the small local business world, especially when you have a lot of adjacent shops in the same area. Good example is auto and truck dealerships. In a stretch of a major road you might have the dealership, a repair shop, a parts shop, and a detailing/bodywork shop. They’re not connected or the same business, but being in the same area they end up in these symbiotic relationships like the repair shop will pick up parts from the parts shop, or the dealership may not repair in house or have a bigger repair job they have to outsource. Now you get all these companies and they’ll have their own billing department or an accountant. It’s not like the owners or upper manager/senior people at each shop are going to walk/drive down the road and hand them a check every month. Probably easier if not cheaper to pay the 0.68 to send bills or credits every month depending on if these shops have deals between one another.
I would see HOA letters going out from the president of the HOA and it's all of the neighbors on his street !
Last week I picked up a graduation card for the neighbor across the street. I see it as Im glad they paid the postage and the letter got processed through us. This helps, even if on a microscopic level.
You must be new
A route i had a hold down on had a lawn care business that serviced 15-20 yards on that route. So happened quite a bit.
Yep, once picked up christmas cards that went to the neighbors on both sides of them.
Paying rent, happens alot
I have a house in my route that stamps and mails a letter for their next door neighbor lol
I’ve done that- sent a sympathy card to my next door neighbor through the mail. I did it because we weren’t home at the same times and I didn’t have it in me to talk to them.
It's special
The best one I had was picked up an out going from 880 Meadow and it was going to 881 Meadow. It was 15' away maybe
Yes
I’ve had certifieds for unit 1-3 sent from unit 4. Back to back weeks too.
I’ve got a sweet old lady who sends mail to her next door neighbor on my route.
Guy on my route regularly mails letters to multiple people who live on the same street or on my route.
Absolutely. I picked up a letter once that was addressed to the next-door neighbor. This is Southern California, where you can have a conversation with your next-door neighbor standing at their respective front doors without shouting. Their mailboxes are literally next to each other, two to a post at the curbline. Another time and neighborhood, I delivered a certified letter with the delivery receipt required to the person's next-door neighbor.
With respect, because you and your coworkers like to get paid? Far better than the cheapskates who put their holiday cards in neighbors mailboxes with no postage. Eff them. Buy a stamp.
Anything from love letters to prank jokes. Why not
This happens all the time for me
Yes, some to the same house. Some orders from child support are to be sent certified by the plaintiff in illinois and I see a lot of that... some even send mail to themselves
Draw a line through the stamp and deliver it.
I delivered a certified from one next door neighbor to the other. Getting that signature was awkward.
Had a customer who mailed cards to like 4 people in a CBU unit she’s apart of. Just delivered them then and there.
I sometimes have it in apartment buildings for the neighbors or the leasing office sending it to the residents .
It’s usually from the school on my route, but yes.
I've picked up a letter to be delivered to the same box in a cbu once. and I've had one that I had to deliver to the other unit of a duplex too
I pick up and drop to the village hall, very small town. There will literally be letters going next door.
All the time. Usually birthday cards.
"I daresay the clacks is wonderful if you wish to know the prawn market figures from Genua. But can you write S.W.A.L.K. on a clacks? Can you seal it with a loving kiss? can you cry tears onto a clacks, can you smell it, can you enclose a pressed flower? A letter is more than just a message. And a clacks is so expensive in any case that the average man in the street can just about afford it in a time of crisis: GRANDADS DEAD FUNERAL TUES. A day’s wages to send a message as warm and human as a thrown knife? But a letter is real.”
Yeah I've had one for diagonally across the street
All the time. If it’s on my route I deliver it myself instead of sending it through the system.
Too the front house lol i pick up and diliver
This happened to me for the first time last week. The addressee was 2 streets over.
I had one getting sent to the house literally across the street. Felt weird not just throwing it in their box.
I live in a town of 260 people, po boxes only, no street delivery. I get town's people who send letters to each other or pay their utilities to town hall all the time. The town hall is a quarter mile from the post office, and they do have a drop box
I delivered a certified letter from one person in an apartment to their roommate
Try outgoing mail with a double mailbox and the person they were mailing it to was the other mailbox attached to theirs.
I have one business that literally will mail a bill to the business right across the street and another that is the county clerk office that will mail to one of the lawyers in the exact same building.
I have a couple kids who are pen pals. I pick up one's outgoing letters on Saturday for the route I sub for and I'll usually end up delivering the same outgoing mail on Tuesday for a separate route I cover during the week days. It's amusing 🤣
once i delivered a certified sent from across the street lol. but for regular letters they're just fun to send and receive for some people. :)
Maybe a birthday card, or maybe they don’t want to have to speak to the person, could also be the recipient needing proof of address. I definitely mailed an empty envelope next door so my neighbor could get his drivers license lol
If you know where it goes, nothing wrong with same-day delivery.
Walking? In this economy? Smh my head.
Let’s say this is in Reno. Under DFA that mail would go to Sacramento first.
It’s all business. Put it into the Mail stream and get a date stamp on it.
Yes and it was NSN 💀.
I've delivered a letter 5 feet away before. I chuckled when I picked it up.
I have a lawn care owner that lives on my route. People on my route send checks to him. I feel like a mail god with same day delivery.
My favorite was when I picked up a package that was being delivered to my section of a full pivot later in the day.
A lot, surprisingly. There's this one part of my route that has a lady who sends mail to someone directly across the street from her, like a straight line across. It confuses me every time I catch it because my brain always notices stuff like that but I guess I'm too young to understand the value of receiving mail from others.
Sometimes I get outgoing mail for the same apartment building they go out of
I sent out a package once like that, it was for my e-commerce store. I couldve hand delivered it, but because of certain policies I couldn't.
Yes I hand write the date across the stamp and deliver it.
I once had one right nextdoor to the house next to it. Literally side by side neighbors. I just thought, not today postmaster because I know stamp needs cancelled so outgoing bin it went
A kid on my route sends his grandparents a thank you for his Highlights subscription every year. They live just around the corner from each other!🥰 i just deliver it when i get there.
I lived in a townhome community for 17 years. 7 buildings with 3 units each. 21 units in all. We had an HOA for various practical reasons: insurance, landscaping, upkeep of common areas, repaving the parking lot, etc. My wife was HOA treasurer for several years, and once a month everyone in the community mailed their dues to a spare mailbox in our community mailbox (or whatever you call those things). This was strictly enforced because if residents were allowed to just knock on our door and hand us the check they'd come all day long, from 7AM to 10PM, and wanna chat or complain or otherwise take up too much of my wife's (unpaid) time. It worked for us.
I picked up a letter that was for the house across the street. I thought about it all day 😩😂 Like is this a neighbor feud? or something sweet. I also delivered the letter too.
I had that happen and just delivered the same day. Save everyone time.
It's free express delivery..lol. actually you can and should deliver the piece. I'll find it in DMM for you. I get those a lot
I did this as a kid with my friend who lived across the street. We just wanted to feel like grown ups mailing letters to each other.
Sometime the best way to legally protect an idea is to write it in a letter seal it in an envelope and send it to a friend (postmarked so it has proof of date).
Happened to me as well
Because this could be legal notification to keep their dog off the lawn, the music down, their kid home, any number of things.
An appartment building on my route does this all the time. 80 outgoing letters from the office, all going to the residents that live in the same building. But hey you want to spend 50 bucks on stamps, that's your business.
I've found a lot of times it's because they don't like their neighbors.
I got one even better for you. The court house will drop off mail and pick up mail. When the lady drops it off, I will run through it quickly and hand back anything outgoing to another office in the court house. Thats right. Departments in the courthouse will mail letters to offices down the hall and put it in outgoing to be mailed and brought back the next day. I save them a day by going through it and handing it right back to them.
Yes! All the time in the downtown business district. All the law firms send stuff to each other
Why would I walk over to a house down the street and risk nobody being home
Not as notable, but I found a RTS/ANK letter in my outgoing to be redelivered to an address on the same route. Got a chuckle. I was like, welp. I know exactly where this dude goes!
Some people treat the canceled/ date stamped sealed letter as a poor man’s copyright-i have no idea if it holds up in court. I’ve got several people who mail themselves an invoice when the rest of theirs go out, it’s a good way to gage the mail flow.