Post Office Trucks Gruman LLV

We had a york road crossing north of baltimore near the old Unitas Resturant that was really good for the bus. Not so good for the truck. The driver we had (She's gone for sure by now...) was very good in picking a speed to bounce the kids back there without over bouncing them.

Im pretty good with a heavy vehicle but that was one skill which eluded me. Maybe because of the dual drives.

 

Noting like a 70's Skillet face to start out the morning with . Buy a Qrt of milk and have butter in an hour. No liver or Kidneys by noon. Piss Blood by midnight. Only air ride was the seat. And it was from the floor to the ceiling. Those buttons on the headliners would eat you up for sure.

 

The Osh Kosh is probably the design that will win, but the sentimental part of me wants AM General to get it because the DJ-5 was built here and the Studebaker Zip Van, that was used by the USPS before the DJ, was built in South Bend as well.
I've seen a lot of rural mail carriers using older cars. The sit in the passenger seat and steer with their left hand while putting the mail in the box with their right. I'm guessing they've got a set of pedals to use as well. I have been seeing more of the rural carriers driving RHD Jeeps(Wranglers and Cherokees) and Subarus. Makes more sense than having to reach across and steer.

 

There's two different positions for Letter Carriers. You have City Carrier and Rural Carrier. City Carriers are under the NALC (National Association of Letter Carriers) Union. Rural are under the NRLCA (National Rural Letter Carriers Association) Union. Both positions you'll start off as a Non Career employee. CCA (City Carrier Assistant) for City and RCA (Rural Carrier Associate) for Rural. It's sorta like being a PSE (Postal Support Employee) in the APWU Union Craft...and you'll have to wait until you turn Full-time before you get converted to Career. They start off around $18 an hour I believe and top out around $32-33, but it takes around 10-12 years I think to reach top rate...but by the time you reach top rate, it'll be somewhere around $40 + an hour after 10 + years. They also get paid OT after 8, doubletime after 10 and work A LOT of hours, especially City Carrier. A lot of them make well over $100k a year. Not an easy job though, considering you drive around in a Non A/C aluminum vehicle in all sorts of weather, and do A LOT of walking too.

Here's a video on what a Letter Carrier has to go through. Technically this video is illegal because it's against Postal policy to film or take pictures on government property...but who knows. They may of had permission to do so.....

 

Saw an LLV getting towed this morning by a truck with the US Post logo on it. I guess it makes sense to keep it in the family when the fleet is large enough, but it made me think of this thread and gave me a laugh.

 

I personally would not want to do that job. They are so severely understaffed, it's not even funny. They're planning on hiring 1000 Letter Carriers nationally, but the turnover rate is so high for them, it's a never ending revolving door. Just go on USPS jobs website and you'll see what I mean...nothing but letter carrier positions available. That's why the Full-time Carriers are so overworked right now, because they can't get nobody to stick around. I've heard about Carriers working 14-16 hours a day, 7 days a week, for weeks on end. It's the same thing for the Clerk's too. They're severely understaffed as well. That's probably why the lines are so long. Until they change this whole two tier pay system we have, with the part-timers and full timers, and Congress overturning the mandated prefunding of our retirement for the next 75 years in advance, I don't see things getting any better for the Letter Carriers. But most likely, all of that is about to change, since Congress is already working on that as we speak, to restructure the Post Office, and MAYBE get rid of this Prefunding for the next 75 years crap that's holding us back now. No other agency out there has to deal with this burden like we have to, and no other agency would survive this if they had to prefund they're retirement for the next 75 years. And besides, Trump's task force to privatize the Post Office seems to be a flop.

But anyways, Letter Mail is definitely down right now, but Parcel delivery is WAAAAY up. And that's why we're looking to upgrade from the LLV's because they're not designed to handle package deliveries like the way UPS and FedEx can. That's why many of the Mail Carriers have to make two trips now, because of our contract with Amazon and the boom of e-commerce. Parcel delivery is our money maker now, and that's where we're leaning towards. It's more important for the Letter Carriers to deliver Amazon packages than it is to deliver letter mail now, since there's no money to be made there. And because of that, Amazon and Parcel deliveries is Priority number one, and everything else is secondary.