I’m No Longer An RCA

PollenFarm · Wednesday at 8:58 PM

My bid was accepted & I converted to full-time on 10/31. It’s POV 100 miles and currently a 45k.

I got extremely lucky & only had to endure the RCA grind for 5 years.

HUGE thanks to everyone on this forum! I’ve been lurking for a while and wouldn’t have made it this far if not for the plethora of knowledge, encouragement and advice.

Missed a scan · Wednesday at 9:02 PM

Congratulations

Gotrope · 2026-11-05T00:44:43-0600

congratulations and put as much as you can in TSP. that is your real retirement money, not the pension.

Rt2mailman · 2026-11-05T01:25:44-0600

Welcome to the career side of the USPS. Sorry that you now make less than you did as an RCA.

oi veh. · 2026-11-05T05:49:01-0600

congratulations!

Link · 2026-11-05T14:33:01-0600

Congratulations, remember to setup your tsp contributions!

Missed a scan · 2026-11-05T16:27:02-0600

If you have not read the "NRLCA Comprehensive Guide to the Rural Route Evaluated Compensation System, Revised January 2024", do so. from front to back. I printed it off and it is 100 pages long. It's worth your time.

neciat · 2026-11-05T17:03:56-0600

Good for you !!!! You'll be making some decisions in the coming weeks. Terminate the guarantee or not / which is hourly for awhile or evaluation. Also, expect a bunch of paperwork from HRSSC. Insurance decisions , TSP decisions, etc. I know you are excited, happy, and relieved. Do what you can to bone up on the edit book. Generally speaking, the only time a RCA even touches an edit book is to move it out of the way. Then, upon converting to regular, it's all of a sudden THEIR responsibility to have everything in that book correct when they have had no training or experience with how to make changes. As @Missed a scan mentioned above, get real familiar with The Guide as there is a digital edit book as well. Again, I am truly happy for you and yours and all the best to you in your career !!!!!

TheMailman302 · 2026-11-05T17:57:09-0600

Yay!! Congrats!!

new guy · 2026-11-05T19:40:28-0600

congrats to you. My Postmaster told me something I didn't do at the start but did later was to put any raise into your tsp. Her thinking was you didn't have it before you won't miss it now. If you can't put the whole one percent of the cola put half. By the time I retired I was putting 25 percent of my check into my retirement fund each paycheck. I thank my Postmaster every time I look at my tsp.

Rt2mailman · 2026-11-05T21:35:20-0600

PollenFarm said:
My bid was accepted & I converted to full-time on 10/31. It’s POV 100 miles and currently a 45k.

I got extremely lucky & only had to endure the RCA grind for 5 years.

HUGE thanks to everyone on this forum! I’ve been lurking for a while and wouldn’t have made it this far if not for the plethora of knowledge, encouragement and advice.

One thing to take note of that no pm ever tells new regulars. You have a choice to make. Do you believe you will beat your evaluation on a weekly basis or do you believe that you will be working over your weekly evaluation?
If you believe you will be working over your evaluation, it would be wise to make the choice to be paid hourly until the end of the guarantee year, which in your case is NEXT October. If you are fast and want to get off early, forget i mentioned this, but if you want to take the time to make every possible scan and longest load/eos times, choose hourly. This will allow you to set up your next year of evaluated pay while you are being paid to do it.