Community Chat

[baddest_dog]

and in the end, most people take this one incident and carry it forward to big government, the need for privacy and so on i,e, where does it all stop.

Look at it in a different perspective, what was the end result of this? It was just a questionnaire and no one got hurt. If any of my neighbors got some of my mail by mistake and read the return address and brought it to me, I'd be like "ok thanks". End of story. It does not change or affect my life one iota.

Oh and BTW, saying it is not a mail carrier's job to assume - basically then I guess we should take all the humans out of jobs and replace them with robots because humans do, and will, make assumptions and judgment calls. If my mail piled up for several days and my mail carrier made an assumption that I might be laying bleeding in the house and called the police, I would thank my stars that she made the assumption and if it turned out to be incorrect and the police came and checked and I was just fine, I would still thank her for noticing that I hadn't been around. Yes, I know this is not the same thing because she told them to hold her mail, but I'm illustrating it for the purpose of the human-ness of people and why they do the things they do, rightly or wrongly.

[baddest_dog]

On 7/24/2014 JuJu Squeezie said:

Back in the 80's I lived on base, felt comfortable leaving the front door open with a screen door over it. I had a mailman who would come to the screen, call us for mail and talk. I was younger and more trusting and then learned to keep the darn door shut. I actually saw him giving a neighbor lady a couple of massages. It took him a long time to get down the street stopping at ever open door he could find. He had a story for every lady. One day he vanished. Every time I hear "Smooth Operator" I think of him.

He just loved my "Big Brown Eyes"...right.

this had absolutely no relevance to this thread at all.

[brii]

Seeing mail pile up is one thing.

Taking a piece of mail out of the post office to deliver to a neighbor is another. That's just wrong.

[kdgn]

I have no pre-conceived notions at all. I am making no assumptions. I don't care if the neighbor is nosey or not. What I do care about is the original poster was having her mail held and signed for that to be done. She left a phone number as requested.

The mail carrier did something that is not legal and wasn't part of the agreement. She needs to be reported for this and nothing else. She took mail that was being held and delivered it to someone who was not the recipient. Not allowed.

[nun ya]

But the post office had her cell number. If they were concerned, they would have called and not involved the neighbor.

[baddest_dog]

sometimes going out of your way to help out can be perceived as wrong. I guess that's why most people look the other way and say it's none of my business to get involved" in many situations.

I once stopped 2 old ladies from going into a grocery store when I saw that they had locked their dog in a car with windows closed on a 90 degree day. I told them if one of them didn't stay in that car with the windows open or air on with that dog, I would call the police. Guess what happened? Someone else walking by told me to mind my own business. But I stood next to the car until when of them went back and got in and turned the air on. Could that have been perceived as wrong by the passerby since I was not moving from the car? Yep, but I like to think I saved a dog's life that day. Sometimes it doesn't always seem right on the outside but in fact, it is the right thing to do.

[brii]

Yes, the mail carrier assumed something very wrong.

If it was truly an important court document, the recipient would have needed to sign for it or she would have been served by the sheriff.

[Jannabelle]

On 7/24/2014 letsmoveon said:

seems there are a lot of assumptions being made so I had to re-read the original post. Why is it women always have to assume the worst and then make a big deal out of it calling for someone's head? /the mail carrier did not open the mail, she merely saw the outgoing address and perhaps ASSUMED that it was important mail and maybe shouldn't be held as it might be time sensitive. She made a call on that and again maybe thought giving it to a neighbor who could reach you was just trying to be civil, not nosey, not trying to start up trouble, just going out of her way. See, your husband said let it go and IMO most men would not read anything into this scenario and make it more than it is/was.

As for your neighbor, your post stated that she and the mail carrier talk and have some kind of chatty relationship that involves gossip. You again,OP, assumed something stating you just know your neighbor would have loved for you to say to you to open it so she could see what it was about. I am a firm believer that it is not what it said, it is who is saying it and your post seems to suggest you don't like the neighbor or the mail carrier.

Of course she would not get fired over this because she would say the letter looked uber important and she thought she might be doing a good deed for someone on her route wgo was away. May mail carrier is new and I have gotten to know her because I sit outside with my pets often and she was afraid at first and has now gotten to know them as friendly. I feel that in these past few weeks if she saw something important to be delivered and hadn't seen me in awhile, she might inquire from a neighbor and ask them if they could reach me to advise me of the item.

I have been studying a lot of Buddhism lately and feel that too many people are misguided by pre-conceived notions and thoughts that they think are valid in their minds and then ascribe those notions to others., Many times an incident like this one are nothing more than a random act by someone who thought they were doing a good deed. Not something to make a stink about and get someone fired.

Wow, I always assumed, that mail carriers were way too busy to look at personal mail and discern whether it was important or not, and worry about someone getting in trouble if she did not deliver the mail (that was requested to be held.)

[pepes mom]

I think the whole point of the story is that the mail was on hold. Not some of the mail, all of it. The carrier took it upon herself to break protocol, and her actions should be reported. End of story.

[baddest_dog]

On 7/24/2014 nunya said:

But the post office had her cell number. If they were concerned, they would have called and not involved the neighbor.

the post office is an entity, the mail carrier is a person. Perhaps she didn't know the OP left her cell number. But if she did, then maybe the better course would have been for her to ask her supervisor if this particular piece of mail looked important enough to warrant a call to the OP. In retrospect that is probably the better option but for whatever reason she handled it differently.

I still say to let it go. It's not worth any angst in the scheme of things. Last weekend a young 22 year old man went to the Jason Aldean concert. When he didn't come home, his parents filed a missing person report. They found his body in a landfill 30 miles away. I cannot imagine getting a call that your child was picked up by a refuse truck and dumped in a landfill. It's all about perspective. I am doing my best to let go of the little things that are trivial and do not hurt me.