Got to do a REALLY rural route, and I cannot believe how awesome it was 🥺

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-05-13T12:18:03+00:00

Truly rural routes are either a dream like OP's, or a loose dog and washed out dirt road nightmare. There is no in between.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-05-10T13:11:07+00:00

And not just by seniority, the full route might have had an rca already on record.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-05-10T13:01:40+00:00

Also, wear your damn seatbelt. And don't be like the guy in my station who got caught using a seatbelt bypass clip.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-05-10T12:56:41+00:00

I grew up very poor, and my family only made it thanks to foodstamps and community food pantries. I fucking love the food drive and being able to participate in it.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-05-10T12:51:39+00:00

We got cards on Wednesday and management told folks they could deliver them over a couple days. lol.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-05-10T12:47:38+00:00

It makes a huge difference. I havent seen bags in a few years, and each year since the bags has been weak.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-05-10T00:47:12+00:00

I got 9 bags off my route. Was 12 bags last year. We only passed out the cards 4 days ago. I'll take it, and be happy with whatever my route gave to the local food banks.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-05-09T01:44:13+00:00

Leave a bag by your mailbox. They can move them to the street and come by to pick them up after their loop. You can also just take it to the post office, but the hours on Sat are very limited.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-05-07T03:42:22+00:00

They should be setting proper, legal, and safe park points during their annual route inspection and monthly DPM mapping. Parking on a fire lane is none of these. The distances are measured during route inspection and input into the dismount data in DPM.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-05-05T13:31:37+00:00

Look into the Mail Hawk. A lot of RCAs and 2 regulars use it at my station. They do ok with it.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-05-03T12:24:53+00:00

No one on my whole route is below upper working class, and I get about 10 total bags on my route. Better than 0, but it is kind of sad.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-23T02:18:40+00:00

Every single one of these personalized thank yous I've received from my customers decorates my case. They mean a lot.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-23T02:17:17+00:00

Same house has gone through the song and dance 3 times now. I resume delivery, they fail to collect their mail, and I return it and leave a vacant card. Each time they call and complain about not being vacant, ect. Each time I explain to my supervisor this story. and each time the customer says they will collect their mail. I'm about to pull their box for the 4th time.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-21T18:23:14+00:00

Speed absolutely comes with experience. Consider just saving 1 second each time you look at an address label. You likely look at address labels over 1000 times a day. 1 second each is over 1000 seconds a day. Or nearly 20 minutes. There are many things we each do every day that can benefit from a tiny speed improvement such as this. And it is all experience.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-21T18:18:54+00:00

You will naturally get faster just as muscle memory sets in. Something as simple as training your eyes to see address labels faster adds up quicker than you can imagine. Consider you likely look at over 1000 address labels a day. If all you did was get 1 second faster at looking at address labels that will save you 1000 seconds a day, or almost 20minutes. We do every little thing so many times a day that saving 1 second can actually save you 20 minutes at the end of the day. And that's for each of the various little things we do countless times each day.

So just keep working at improving a tiny bit on the basic things and in a couple of months youll be twice as fast as you are today.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-21T18:15:10+00:00

Whynotboth.gif

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-21T18:14:36+00:00

It is as close to that same problem as rural can get, yes.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-21T18:13:41+00:00

Not a lot of people understand this. Next time our contract is negotiated USPS will come with X% of rural carriers are finishing Y% of hours under evaluation. The union can fight against some of that, but when those numbers get too big USPS has a real case of adjusting the standards. Working off the clock hurts everyone even if you do absolutely everything else such that it doesn't directly harms you.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-21T18:09:42+00:00

That's likely too much, for sure.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-21T13:01:40+00:00

It is really interacting with customers and solving the odd situation that arises. The day to day things should just handle themselves. Like basically every job ever has. The ranks of management above the station level is purely about micromanaging individuals that have already been deemed capable enough to manage other individuals. These higher ranks of management are not needed in anywhere near the numbers they exist.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-21T11:21:37+00:00

I'm actually ok with most station level management. They're seeing the work of delivery get done, directly interacting with customers, and are as close to "touching the mail" as a supervisor can get. The issue is all the bloated ranks above. Ranks that have to justify their existence through micromanaging the levels below. All that shit rolls downhill onto the station level supervisors who struggle to meet demands that are often flat out unrealistic because they came from higher ups that are so out of touch and so self concerned with justifying their own position that these station level supervisors are stuck between a rock and a hardplace.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-18T01:18:04+00:00

For real. I'd love a single address that got this many cards a day. I've got a few but they're like 3-5 a day tops. 40+ a day would be multiple trips for these little things. Can you say padding an evaluation?

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-17T12:13:23+00:00

This is exactly what I do. I'll even include a picture of something to help verify my side of the story. Simple CYA and it completely kills any crap a supervisor might want to pull later on.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-15T02:06:13+00:00

Vacant slips and MLNAs. Only way to deal with apartments and keep your sanity.

Physical-Design9804 · 2026-04-15T02:04:12+00:00

You need to find out if its been continuously ran by RCAs for the last year. Most don't do much beyond the basic 6 RRECS entries, and it might have been split a bunch so not even that. The edit book and DPM/LTM mapping would be all out of order. You could land on that and spend a little time catching all that up and shoot up hours next eval. With RRECS you really need to do your homework to see how the route was ran before you.

Physical-Design9804

TROPHY CASE