Pros
Pay can be good depending on your area Eventually good benefits (pension, health, etc.) and pay after becoming career Job security (high resilience to recessions, layoffs, termination) due to being a government job Job is not difficult once you make career (you have 1 route)
Cons
Daily Schedule Changes (often via calls and texts from management the day of) 2-Tier pay system, RRECS, and increased "productivity" means employees are doing more for less in this position than in previous years No Benefits for Years (Until Career Position is Available) Very Fast Paced, routes often are longer than the deadline set for everyone to be finished (logistics hang by a thread) Inconsistent Hours (Feast or Famine) Often Long Hours (up to 12, at which point you can opt to quit for the day) High Stress (many reasons, worse if you care about doing a good job) Working on Routes and for Other Offices you do not know (they can send you to any office or route within 50 miles of your regular place of work) Working in Dangerous Conditions (mailboxes on highways, delivering at night, during rush hour, etc.) Repetitive and mind-numbing work if you are on a route you know, or your mind will be goop at the end of the day working a route you do not know. Difficult to tell if you are being paid correctly (everything is entered manually and paystubs use codes you must decrypt to understand) As an RCA, if you don't hit 40 hours a week you are often not paid your nominal per-hour rate, as you are paid by the route instead of actual time worked. If you go over evaluated time for a route, you are working for free.