Where the Heck's the Mailbox?

Imagine if you will that you are a new carrier on your route. Things are going along quite nicely until you get to that one house. You know the one. The one where you can't find the mailbox. You look all around the front porch, curbside, and garage. Nothing. Now, feeling like a prowler, you check the back door. Nope! Side door? Nada. Just as you are about to give up and move onto the next house, the customer comes out and tells you the regular just throws the mail in the basket on the floor.

If only there was a way for the regular to pass on this information and save a newbie like you valuable time and embarrassment? Well you're in luck! There is such a thing. Directional cards! They just take a few seconds to fill out and anyone can do it.

Directional cards are very helpful to other carriers for many reasons. If your route has any hidden mail boxes or boxes that are not mail boxes but some other type of receptacle, fill out a directional card. Alley stops or vacant houses, fill out a card. Odd park points or strange delivery order, map it on a directional card. All of the above circumstances may be second nature to you now if you have been on a route for a while but recall your first time carrying it. Think of all the time you wasted struggling to deal with all the oddities of the route. All that time could have been saved if someone had filled out some directional cards.

Filling out the cards benefits everyone. If you call in sick tomorrow, someone will still deliver your route. It could be a CCA or a veteran carrier who has never done it before. The directional cards will help them provide great service to your customers. The cards will also prevent a stack of mail for you to deal with when you come back because they couldn't figure out how to deliver it. It's a win, win.

Next time you have a few spare minutes, please look over your route and see if it could benefit from some new or updated directional cards. Your fellow carriers will thank you for it!