When you work as a rural letter carrier you face challenges that city carriers do not. Today we want to offer some tips to all our hardworking rural letter carriers out there! Some of these tips may also apply to city carriers, but all of these tips are here to help you make your job easier.
First off, we recommend not casing DPS unless you will be facing intense weather such as rain or snow. On the whole this will save you time. If you find this slows you down, try casing it, but overall most rural carriers report that the former method is faster.
If you own your vehicle that you are taking on your route, make sure you have a spare key. You do not want to get locked out of your vehicle.
Invest in a tool to help you retrieve mail from mailboxes. If mail is stuffed in the back of mailboxes, it really slows you down if you have to exit your vehicle. You may choose to invest in a retrieval hook, or even some type of handle that you can manipulate to drag the mail closer to you. This saves a lot of time.
Mark large parcels that you will need to take to the door. You may also choose to label these parcels and arrange them in order in your vehicle. This will save time while you are actually on your route.
You may also choose to arrange your parcels street by street, with each street assigned a box or bucket that you can keep parcels in.
If weather allows, try to keep your window open at all times. It makes the mail delivery much faster. You may consider modifying your personal vehicle with some type of wind or rain deflector which makes driving with an open window much more pleasant in colder weather.
Keep a towel in your vehicle or on your lap for rainy days. You may want to invest in some sort of raingear because when it rains, there is no way to avoid getting wet.
Get warm gloves with a strong grip for winter delivery. And it’s also a good idea to keep a warm beverage in your vehicle with you, since opening your window so often is going to keep your vehicle much colder than you’d like.
Invest in safety products. This may be a sticker warning other vehicles that you make frequent stops, or some type of light on the top of your vehicle. Your car will not be utilizing the road like the average car, so having some visual safety markers can help keep you safe.
