City and rural carriers deliver and pick up mail, including letters and packages. In addition, they are familiar figures who care about the people they serve, often helping in dramatic ways while making their rounds in neighborhoods 6 days a week. The U.S. Postal Service has many examples of carriers sending for help when senior citizens fail to collect their mail, alerting residents of fires, aiding accident victims, and even stopping burglaries.
But what else can carriers do? Could they provide additional services because, after all, carriers and their vehicles are present 6 days a week in every neighborhood in the U.S.? Each potential service opportunity for carriers should be evaluated by three criteria: the investment required, the risk assumed, and the potential benefits that could be achieved. So, what are some other responsibilities that carriers can take on while delivering the mail that would result in a positive return on the Postal Service’s investment?
How about:
- Meter Reading.
- Gathering data on road and weather conditions in metropolitan areas by placing Global Positioning System (GPS) devices in carrier vehicles.
- Collecting Census Data.
- Updating mapping components in metropolitan areas (new addresses, etc.).
- Delivering other items besides mail. Right now, the Postal Service offers last mile delivery service to UPS and FedEx. Who else can benefit from this service?
Loading ...What do you think about carriers handling non-postal related tasks? Do you think the Postal Service should provide additional services that can be handled by carriers? In addition to the services listed what would you suggest? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
This blog is hosted by the OIG’s Delivery Directorate.
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Our union a couple of years ago said we may need to deliver other items besides mail. I believe what ever revenue we can bring in to protect our job is the right way to go. We just need to keep programs more than one month and then get rid of it.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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The postal carrier that we have now, is not very nice, has decided that he will not come back our driveway to pick up any mail upon request in our rural area, and is just nasty. The problem that I have is being rural, we have had mail stolen from out of our mailbox, checks worth 17K, and other postal items, that were insignificant. If he can’t or won’t pick up mail when I need him to, I will send my mail in other ways. I hope he loses his job!! Who do I complain to?
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You are talking about extensive safety training in electricity, meters etc. The postal service is a mail delivery service and should keep that objective as its core responsibility. Some of the task are tied to the local government in a community. It takes years to understand the network of water and sewer and electricity in a community. Leave this to the people who understand and can figure out why one meter could be off and another on. Water pressure is another whole entity on to itself. Not much one person can do in a emergency situation of some of the magnitudes. That is why the city or town has teams, of able physically people. Census data may sound easy, you are collecting the data from households that have not responded to the census pamphlet. Forget about this time consuming waste of man power. Weather gathering, forget about that too, another field of extensive knowledge must be obtained. Some other the other things that could be delivered may need specialized equipment, forget it.
The postal service is there for the mail. Final Answer!
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To anonymous, great post. I am a mail carrier & first of all I’m completely disturbed that there would be consideration by the OIG to have postal carriers take jobs away from other middle class Americans at a time when that is the last thing we need to see happen. Not to mention many of these possibilities are only being looked at because of serious misinformation provided to Congress by senior postal management about the decline of mail volume and the loss of revenue. The financial problems of the Post Office are neither as significantly large nor caused by the internet as Postal Management has tried to convince Congress and the public of. That same misleading information is what led to proposals by right-wing republicans to not only gut the UPS service to the public but also to destroy the rights of its workers to bargain for not only fair pay & healthcare but also for workplace safety measures, a fair adjustment program to deal with any changes in work volume on an annual basis, and many other things. They have tried to destroy what made this nation great, hard working middle class Americans who make this economy run. Now it seems they’ve decided to see if they can go out & take others jobs away to support a supposed drop in work volume for carriers? I’ve been on this job for 7 years and mail volumes are as high now as they’ve ever been since I’ve been here. Thank u for your post. Not only do mail carriers not need this extra work, but taking away from others to give to us is wrong..
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Working inside with lights and working outside at night is completly different. I deliver rural, and getting in and out of a vehical to deliver to NDCBU’s in the dark is dangerous and unnecessary. I’ll work (and have) from sunup to sundown, but not outside in the dark!!!
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Letter carriers already work long and hard hours each day with the implimintation of the new Flat Sequencing Sortation method. In some cases it is physically impossible to cover the geographic area we are now asked to deliver. To have Letter Carriers do other services while delivering your mail will not only delay that delivery even more but will jeopardize the the sanctity of the mail and the safety of the Letter Carrier. Timely universal service is or was the goal of the USPS and it should continue. Postal officials should return to what is good for the people of this country and stop trying to be fortune 500 wannabes.
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Well, I don’t know much, but I do know they don’t pay you guys & gals enough money. And, if you are “serving” a dual purpose already, I personally appreciate it. The bankers hours comment was absolutely not intended to make it sound like you had it easy….
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The postal union has actually negotiated very good wages for them. A non-union postal carrier can make over 20 dollars an hour. Keep in mind, that while this job is hard, and physically demanding it is not skill intensive. Many people with master degrees fresh out of college cant hope to make as much as your local post man. They are paid well for what they do. The only exception is rural carries. They often use their own car and make around 10 dollars an hour. The rate of pay is lower because it is known a mounted route, they are not walking, they are driving, staying in the car the entire time and putting mail in boxes.
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What’s next a Gun and a Badge?????
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It seems unthinkable to add additional responsibility to carriers who have the increasing responsibility of scanning accountable items, the constant pressure of time constraints, and the continuous threat of discipline for any misstep. The only feasible compromise would be to decrease the carriers’ delivery workload to accommodate the added duties.
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It seems unthinkable to add additional responsibilities to carriers who already have the increasing responsibility of scanning accountable items, the constant pressure of time constraints and delivery deadlines, and the continuous threat of discipline for any misstep. The only feasible compromise would be to decrease the carriers’ workload to accommodate the added duties. Other issues to contemplate are: contractual restrictions, safety concerns, and training/competency limitations.
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Making postal carriers jacks of all trades is a plausible idea, but not very realistic with the workload they currently have.
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Being a postal carrier is a really hard and intense work. Why then not make surgeons do massage during the surgery, just because they have access to the body (who cares about fixing the patient)? Why not train every taxi driver to be a professional DJ, just to make extra money (and who cares about safe driving)? Why not teach your local plumber to be a doctor, teacher, baker, dentist etc as well? Why care about profession and specific job properly done at all? Sorry if I sound too rude. But I don’t really thing it’s a good idea.
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this would be rediculous to make people learn new jobs. efficiency comes with looking at the processes used ina a specificx job. efficiency is never about diverse activvities by one person, this is how the safety pin process changed mass production.
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I don’t think that’s a good idea. I am a mail carrier and we have enough responsibilities while we are out on our routes. With all the route adjustments and our routes are getting longer and we do not get any more time to do a longer route how are we suppose to stop and check a meter and record that information? We get pivots almost everyday and if we are running late we get in trouble how are we suppose to do more work? We are getting hurt just trying to deliver the mail I couldn’t imagine doing more in the same time with the same pay. If we did more, we are only taking away someone elses job and the economy is bad enough. I thought the government was trying to produce jobs not take them away?
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I work for the postal service. How about delivering pizza for the service . We could work for the United States Pizza Service! Wouldn’t have to change any of the lettering on the trucks! Still the USPS!
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With new duties. Mail carriers will demand hefty raises. USPS can’t afford this!
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The carriers already do enough and we also deliver the last mile. We donot need to take jobs away from other people, we are still trying to hold on to our own jobs with the USPS trying to cut 120,000 jobs soon. If you need to adjust routes so rural carriers don’t have to work six days every week due to smaller route…make them bigger and let us do our job!!!
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Postal carriers could take the time to know the names of people on their routes — like in the “olden days.” I shipped a package to my sister, who lives a block away from the Post Ofice in Lansdowne, PA and because I didn’t remember to write S. Landsdown Avenue on the (priority mail) package, it was returned to me, as “unknown.” It was my fault, but having a carrier who gave a darn would have helped.
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I know postal carriers and have family members who work for the postal service. They unfortunately do not have the time to be performing other services. Its a fun idea, however, even though when you see them walk up to your door step they seem to be having a nice a day, its a very hard job. Remember, they are walking all day carrying 50+ lbs of paper with them the entire day, absolutely non-stop. Often carriers will call the post office requesting assistance to complete their routes on time. Its unrealistic to ask them to do more, instead make people aware of what they already do. They can pick up items for free, delivery postage, and boxes. And for the love of god, install some printers in the post offices, you need to compete with kinkos/fedex!
You will never get enough man power to have postal employees do more, so work with what you have now. Make people aware of what you can do now. You may also want to make it open knowledge that at times, YES the USPS guy will deliver things from UPS. People are paying UPS premium prices even though much of the time, USPS is the one delivering. Let people know they will get this quality with USPS as well with out the cost.
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