I'm just wondering if the post office holds back mail on heavy days. For instance, on Tuesdays our postman delivers the larger circulars for the local grocers/harbor freight, a coupon pack, and some advertisements. There is never regular mail on that day. Not less, but none. I never get a customer payment on Tuesday or bills or regular letters.

Do they hold mail on that day to be delivered the next?

Post office policy or just your delivery person?

Sign up for USPS informed delivery to get an email with scans of what you are supposed to be delivered each day.

https://informeddelivery.usps.com

Yes they do. And they have a contract with Amazon Prime, that Prime orders get priority.

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I'm just wondering if the post office holds back mail on heavy days. For instance, on Tuesdays our postman delivers the larger circulars for the local grocers/harbor freight, a coupon pack, and some advertisements. There is never regular mail on that day. Not less, but none. I never get a customer payment on Tuesday or bills or regular letters.

It has been known to happen. Talk to your mail carrier. The USPS Postmaster will probably tell you this does not happen. Most of your mail issues can be addressed by developing a positive realtionship with your carrier.

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Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

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I'm just wondering if the post office holds back mail on heavy days. For instance, on Tuesdays our postman delivers the larger circulars for the local grocers/harbor freight, a coupon pack, and some advertisements. There is never regular mail on that day. Not less, but none. I never get a customer payment on Tuesday or bills or regular letters.

It has been known to happen. Talk to your mail carrier. The USPS Postmaster will probably tell you this does not happen. Most of your mail issues can be addressed by developing a positive realtionship with your carrier.

Our regular guy retired and now we get real strange hodge podge of interesting characters.

I'm not extremely bothered by it but it did make me wonder if they did this. I would imagine that the local circulars are their biggest local customers.

Yes we did. Done on a small scale at your local PO level but done on a large scale higher than local. Reasons were various. One was to shorten the route time when it came time to evaluate what the route would pay. First class mailis going first. The others can wait.

Amazon and Priority packages have priority for delivery as do guaranteed delivery items.

Yep.

My office mail gets delivered between 1:00pm and two days later. No joke. I’ve given up on getting mail the Tuesday after a Monday holiday. Amazon stuff gets scanned as delivered and might be there day of and probably the next day but sometimes two days. I remember when the daily mail got dropped at 9:00am. Then it was 11:00am. Then by 2:00pm. Now it’s a guessing game. Can’t call because I’m still on hold from last time I called. I get fired if I provided my customers with USPS service levels.

They use to have something called a "load leveler", that was supposed to "level" work loads through out the week. It was crap.

Everything is run through machines, carriers sort very little by hand. So it is not your carrier deciding on what to deliver, or what not to deliver.

Mondays are heavy since they still run mail on Sundays, but it gets delivered on Monday. Tuesdays are heavy because of full route coverage of food ad's. Wednesdays tend to be "light" compared to other days for the most part. Thursdays we get hammered with parcels. Fridays are "iffy" depending on overtime since everyone is pretty much maxed out on overtime, and they do not want carriers going into penalty time.


Saturdays I think they just like to kill us with mail volume, since they know most people have things to do or want to do on a Saturday evening, and are looking forward to having Sunday off. If they aren't working Sunday.

But yes, there seems to be a "system" to what gets delivered on what days.

On the other side of the scale are route inspections. It's when the guys with ties, clip boards, and stop watches show up. They follow carriers throughout the day. Typically the mail volume for a route inspection will be 25% of what the carrier normally has for that day. And to add insult to injury, USPS has scanners with GPS, yet they still pay people to walk around following carriers. Most supervisors hate route inspections, they consider it boring, and are usually out of shape. I've actually heard it is a form of punishment for them.

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I never get a customer payment on Tuesday or bills or regular letters.

Unless they mail them on Sunday they aren't going to show up on Tuesday.

Have been told carriers have an end time. Once they reach it, they go back to the post office. Any mail gets delivered the next day. We’ve noticed that there are days we don’t receive mail. This is odd as there’s always junk mail. Miss one day, get a ton the next.

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Originally posted by Icabod:
Have been told carriers have an end time. Once they reach it, they go back to the post office. Any mail gets delivered the next day. We’ve noticed that there are days we don’t receive mail. This is odd as there’s always junk mail. Miss one day, get a ton the next.

There are several reasons for this. End time is when you're "supposed" to be done with your route, on a "normal" day. You don't just go back to the office, unless you're done, maybe you gave part of your route to someone else so you could get an 8 hour day (not on the overtime list, or it's your "easy 8", or "day off" that you're actually working). Only in extreme cases can you just say "F-it I'm going back to the office."

Routes these days are not set up for a set amount of normal mail. They set the routes up so that with absolutely NOTHING it will take you at least 8 hours. So management have to take an opportunity if you have light mail to get you an 8 hour day once a week, you're not going to take all those Harbor Freight ads that will put you into overtime, when you can take them tomorrow with all the other stuff and you can just get a full 1 hour of overtime. It makes no sense for you to get 30 minutes of overtime over two days when you can just get 1 hour one day. Not only that, but if you're going to go 20/30 minutes over because you have X number of certified letters (or water bills, or whatever), they'll go ahead and give you part of another route, because they might as well work you a full 2 hours of overtime if you're going into overtime anyway.

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Do they hold mail on that day to be delivered the next?

Yes, but only 3rd class mail.

I get lots of mail, usually 5 or 6 pieces every day.
Except Saturdays. Often on Saturday I get no mail at all or just one piece. Today, I got a Shopko circular.

Icabod, I have only even heard of one situation when a carrier is told to "just head back". I believe it was in 2010, and we had the worst blizzard in a decade. Carriers were instructed to be back in the office by 5pm, and the next day, they would start where they left off.

We have an "1800 window". Basically if a carrier thinks he won't make it back by 6pm, he should have called by 3pm, and asked for assistance. I don't know if this in all areas, but the reason for this in our area is the dispatch truck (the truck that picks up all the collection mail), will be leaving shortly after 6pm.

As Seven stated, only 3rd class mail can be held. Usually these are bulk mail items that go to every address on the route.

We are instructed to carry mail in three bundles. A stack of magazines, and a stack of envelopes in one hand, and the third bundle in your bag. I hate carrying 3rd bundles so bad, that if we have another full coverage item that we are told to curtail for the next day, I will just take 4 bundles that day and get it over with. Even if I have to carry it in my front pocket. Three bundles is almost like juggling while walking.

I know for a fact that our rural carrier will just stop his route past a certain time. When I asked about it, I was told it was to keep overtime costs down.