Life as a City Letter Carrier Trivia Quiz

Answer: Nine

Really!


1.) Fill out a card indicating that you want to take the clerk/carrier exam. You will then be notified by mail of when you are scheduled to take the test.

2.) Take the exam. In some cities the Post Office will offer a pre-test warm-up, which I heartily recommend taking! (In some cities a private group also offers coaching for taking the test. It was the best $45 I ever spent!)

3.) Receive your score. If you are a disabled veteran you get up to ten extra points, a regular veteran gets five. All others get what they score. Your score will give you an idea of how long you might have to wait to actually get a job, depending on the total number of people that took the exam and how they did. (I scored 98.6 and waited 1 1/2 years to get hired!)

4.) Finally, the Postal Service will send you an application. The one I got was 6 pages long.

5.) Go for an interview. Two or three managers ask you why you want to be a carrier.

6.) If you pass the interview, you will be sent for a physical by a doctor contracted to do exams for the Postal Service.

7.) If you pass that, you will be sent for a driving exam.

8.) After you pass the driving test, you must take a Postal defensive driving course.

9.) And finally you must pass a computer based exam.

If you fail the exam you are terminated. If you do pass the exam, you must take the National Safety Council Safe Drivers course. There is no test. Once you have completed the NSD course, there is final road test you must pass to obtain postal driving privileges. If you fail the final road test, you may not be a City (or Rural) Carrier. If you only include the two tests, the total number of steps is nine.

Answer: 90 days

The probation period in the US Postal Service is 90 days. Every 30 days your supervisor should review your performance with you, telling you what you are doing right and helping you to do better at the things you haven't mastered. During this time you can be let go, but you would be wise to talk to your Union steward if this happens, because the Union has been known to save the jobs of probationary employees.

(For overall poor performance you might be better off in another job. In my personal experience I've seen a probationary employee have an accident on his 89th day and be shocked that he was let go when it was discovered that he was driving without a license. I've also seen several people be brought back when it was determined that the problem was a personality conflict with the immediate supervisor.)

Answer: False

The US Postal Service is an open shop, which means that you do not have to join the Union. In spite of this, the NALC boasts a 89.9% membership level. Of 238,000 city letter carriers, 214,042 were Union members in 2003.

Answer: None

Management doesn't have to give you any hours at all. If they do schedule you to work, it has to be a minimum of two hours.

Answer: 40+

Many people decide against working for the USPS when they find that they aren't guaranteed any hours at the start. Most CCAs are shocked that they are scheduled 6 days a week from the very beginning, thinking they wouldn't get many hours. Becoming a full-time regular employee, who can choose to work only 40 hours a week; it's sometimes the first break a CCA gets!

Answer: at your case waiting for you to sort it into delivery sequence

80% of the mail you will deliver on any given day should be at your case (sorting area) when you report to work. The time it takes to case the mail (putting it into delivery sequence) varies from route to route and from season to season. In my office, some routes are ready to go in as little as an hour, others are scheduled to take as long as three hours. And during the holidays all bets are off.

Answer: False

It is true that most Post Offices are only open until noon on Saturday; this just means that window services, such as selling stamps, stop at noon. Most carrier routes take a full eight hours to do, even on a Saturday. Routes that have a lot of businesses that are closed on Saturday can be assigned additional work to bring them up to eight hours.

Also, as a CCA, you may be scheduled to work on Sundays, delivering parcels or collecting mail from collection boxes.

Answer: at some point

Employees can be CCAs for as little as 90 days and as long as YEARS! The letter carrier craft is run by the rules of seniority, CCAs start at the bottom of the seniority list and move up as people retire, leave the Postal Service, take different jobs within the Service or transfer. There is generally a celebration when someone "makes regular".

Answer: False

Once you are a Regular, you are a regular unless you tranfer to another craft (e.g. become a clerk or custodian, etc.) or transfer to another Post Office. Management cannot "bust" you back to CCA.

Answer: call the Postal Inspectors

Assaults on letter carriers have become so common that the Postal Inspectors now recommend calling them first, then the Police and finally the supervisor. It used to be the opposite order.

Whatever you do, DON'T touch the customer! You don't have to take verbal or physical abuse. Get yourself to a safe place before making any phone calls.

Answer: make sure that the dog cannot escape the yard and continue on your way

Look to make sure that any gates are secured. As long as the dog is in the yard, behind a fence and on a leash, you should be able to walk on by.

There are carriers that will spray a leashed dog, in my opinion this just makes the dog more likely to attack you if it gets the chance. There are also carriers that give dogs treats, some think this could make the dog bite a carrier who doesn't give a treat. That seems a little iffy to me.

Yelling at a dog can be an effective deterent if the dog is loose and coming after you. You have to be VERY LOUD. "NO, NO" worked for me. I have a big voice.

Answer: keep delivering the mail, making an effort to keep it dry

You know the saying, "Through rain, sleet, snow and gloom of night..." While that is not really the Postal Service's motto, it does describe the work of the letter carriers. When there is a thunderstorm you put on your raincoat and keep delivering. UNLESS there is also a tornado warning, in which case you should seek shelter; not under a tree.

Carriers in the southern states work through floods in the aftermath of hurricanes; in the northern states it's blizzards and frigid temperatures; and in Alaska they work in the dark for several months each year!

Answer: must make you aware of their presence and inform you immediately of any deficiencies

Your supervisor is obligated to make you aware of his/her presence and immediately make you aware of anything you are doing wrong.

In the "bad old days" supervisors DID hide in the bushes and DID observe carriers with binoculars, any information that they collected using these methods today could not be used to discipline you.

And, I did once have a supervisor that told me a carrier is required to walk at 120 paces per minute, but there is no pace per minute requirement.
Addendum - Player wtfd8639 advises:
For 30 years I WAS a route examiner by the USPS. We were REQUIRED to pace the carrier. IF he/she did not meet the 120 pace requirement, we were suppose to reduce the street time by the allotted amount. I would be willing to bet that none of your people ever required to evaluate a route. Lastly, prior to retirement I was the National Training Manager at HQ at L'Enfant Plaza in DC.

Answer: Stealing mail

It is against the law for a letter carrier to read the mail, outside of the address. It is also against Postal Regulations to delay the mail and in certain instances you could get fired for abandoning the mail. But stealing the mail is a heinous crime in the Postal Service. Getting caught would result in your immediate removal from the workplace, the Postal Inspectors would be called in and you'd better call your Union steward, as well as a lawyer, because you could be facing time in prison. Don't do it!

Answer: all of these

From the USPS website: "The overall mission established by the law was: to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people, and to provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas. They shall also wear uniform pants with leg lengthening stripes."