When I have day old chicks delivered to the PO they automatically go to the area's main PO which is about 7 miles away from my rural PO. I have friends in both who communicate with each other. The postmaster of my rural will go to the main and pick up my little peepers for me and keep them warm till I can get there. Is that a crime? We are all criminals I guess. My route carrier will always drive up the driveway and knock on the door with a package that won't fit in the box.
On our rural route, everyone was just courteous and that's how things get done.
We all know they have a lot of miles to cover, so we tried to not ask for anything special. The guy would do just about anything to help you out, but simple stuff like leaving money in the box when you were out of stamps can slow them down. Plus who wants to carry around 50 bucks in change?
Like I said, we'd show up outside with a cup of coffee once in a while and try to keep the chit chat to a minimum. But if you needed something, the guy was more than willing to help out.
I can even remember a couple of times seeing people help him dig his car out of the snow somewhere on some country back road. In our area, the carriers always drove their personal vehicles too. I never saw a mail jeep until I moved into the city. I also always wondered WHY on earth the guys in town got the 4X4 Willies and the rural carriers, where they could actually use the 4WD, were driving an old Buick