This is exactly the kind of response I was hoping for! It brings me a lot of joy to know thereās at LEAST one mail carrier out there appreciating Postcrossing! I love that you read and enjoy the postcards on your route, too! Itās really nice knowing correspondence between strangers is getting that extra love. I canāt imagine anyone would have a problem with somebody reading what is written on a very not private postcard lol
Very cool insights from your perspective, thanks so much for sharing your experiences!
A Canadian letter carrier here. I almost never check out a postcard when Iām sorting in the morning: just too rushed for time. This includes postcards sent to me (I deliver my own house!) I do glance at the stamps, though: interested to know where people are travelling. Iāve never seen mail for another postcrosser on any routes Iāve covered over the years; Ottawa and area has about 1 million people, and I estimate there are only about 100 active postcrossers (=logged in within 6 months). Mail art envelopes and beautiful calligraphy do gladden my heart, but these are very rare! - also love those parcels from abroad with dozens of stamps on them;-)
Thank you @adriennefriend, I didnāt even know of this topic!
I work as a mailcarrier here in the Netherlands, have been doing so part-time for over 4 years now, combining it with my studies. I deliver by bike as is typical here, to give some backstory
Same as @schrizzo I learned about Postcrossing first from my job, I wondered what the little codes were at the top of the cards (also known to us Postcrossers as postcard IDās ). They seemed so random and then my mom was talking about Postcrossing and I connected the dots. There are a few people in my area that do Postcrossing but as I only work part-time, I donāt have my own routes so I only come accross them randomly.
I typically try not to read what is on them but I do always admire the stamps (and be jealous of course ) . I do the same with any letters or packages and look for interesting ones, the holiday season is coming and I already spotted some Christmas stamps!
I used to work at a post office partner shop. Basically it was a store with a post office integrated. The post work was probably my favourite part of it. Sadly had to leave it because it was a pretty toxic environment. This has nothing to do with the post itself.
Iāll tell a little secret, I admired when people sent postcards. It happened rarely in my town. Sometimes I checked out where they got it from to get them myself I admired handwriting too, but didnāt read the messages. That feels illegal. But I did check here and there if I see a postcrossing ID. Never did, sadly
Really? Even when there is no secrets or very private informations, I still think itās meant for the recipient, not for mail carrier to read it.
I remember leaving postcards to a postbox here, and I saw the worker collected it. There was only my postcards, and I saw he took those, read those, and then went back to his car. I never left my cards there anymore, because I felt so bad about this. (And also worried, what does he look, as there sometimes is mail theft.) Of course he could have read those in the car and I would have not known.
I contacted our mail and wrote about this, and how I felt about this. I got an answer that they are not allowed to read those, even when they deliver the mail, they can of course read the address, but not the message. They apologised and sent 10 stamps to make me feel better (here itās very good value).
Even when I know sometimes you just āseeā it, but intentionally reading it feels disrespectful and immoral
And I know I canāt do anything about this, but thought to reply, maybe you now can imagine some have problem with such behaviour
(Also often people claim that there is no time to read those, but as we see, there is, and I have seen a mail sorter made a short video about pretty stamp, they are not all very busy )
I worked for USPS for 14 years and the question of privacy always came up. Despite popular opinion, US law only protects messages āsealed against inspectionā. Therefore a postcard can be read by anyone without consequences. Of course workplace rules strongly discouraged us from reading postcards and unsealed letters.
It brings me a lot of joy to know thereās at LEAST one mail carrier out there appreciating Postcrossing! I love that you read and enjoy the postcards on your route, too! Itās really nice knowing correspondence between strangers is getting that extra love. I canāt imagine anyone would have a problem with somebody reading what is written on a very not private postcard lol
). They seemed so random and then my mom was talking about Postcrossing and I connected the dots. There are a few people in my area that do Postcrossing but as I only work part-time, I donāt have my own routes so I only come accross them randomly.
) . I do the same with any letters or packages and look for interesting ones, the holiday season is coming and I already spotted some Christmas stamps!
I admired handwriting too, but didnāt read the messages. That feels illegal. 
But I did check here and there if I see a postcrossing ID. Never did, sadly 
(here itās very good value).