Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Now, as my mail delivery persons skip delivery at a minimum one day a week (he claims he had too much mail to deliver), and will not deliver a letter without all the info, including the unit number which occasionally gets forgotten or cropped out and which they could easily get from the lobby of the building, I am more than jalous!
But it is Iceland!
rrr...
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And in the opposite direction...
Here in the US the level of primary education of most people has been poor for several decades. Hence people just don't know basic geography.
I sent an item to the Faroe Islands - it came back to me with a note from the post office saying they did not know where the Faroe Islands were located.
I got out a large Post-it note (yellow sticky) and wrote the latitude and longitude plus the geographic location of the Faroe Islands - North Atlantic ocean halfway between Great Britain and Iceland.
The item got there within a week.
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01:45:12pm
I noticed that mail to friends in British Columbia, Canada seem to arrive much faster if use the abbreviation "B.C." and avoid the side trips to Bogota or London.
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Back around 1968, '69, or so, my folks got the notion to contact a couple in Germany whom they had not been in touch with in God knows how long, but they had no idea of the address, other than the town. All they knew was (something to the effect of) "the small white house, near the bakery, across from the large oak tree," so, that is how my dad addressed the envelope. A few weeks later they got a reply from the people saying they received my folks' letter.
Unfortunately, the German postal service does not tolerate any such deviation from postal standards today. Last July, I got a Christmas card returned, with a Deutsche Post label saying it was undeliverable as addressed. I couldn't figure out what I did wrong (note to Michael#####: it was not nearly as bad as the one I attempted to send to you that got returned 
), so I scanned it and sent the image to my cousin. She couldn't believe it, saying there was no reason they could not have delivered it. The problem? I had placed the postal code AFTER the city name, instead of before it.
Ted
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The Royal Mail used to have (at least)one person in every post office who used to pride him/her self on being able to locate the recipients of poorly adressed mail. However at that time post office employment was secure and (relatively)well paid. Post Offices and all the functions thereof were local, and postmasters were wellknown, respected and active in the community ( and had to have a fairly high educational standard).
The problem is not that the quality of postal employees has deteriorated,but that the required standards have had to be reduced, as a result of the job desirabilty and relative payrates of postal employees.
As my old Dad was fond of saying "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys " - especially today.
Malcolm
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It makes ya wonder. I received a bill in the mail from the vendor inside of another envelope. They had sent it to 246 instead of 248 house number and it had been returned to sender as "addressee unknown". They noted their mistake and sent it to my correct 248.
It's the house next door for Christ's sake!! Obvious nobody even looked at it. Never mind having an address detective on staff!
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A long time ago, in a different age, two au pairs from Austria thumbed a lift somewhere on the A4, and I stopped, naturally, and took them all the way to where they were staying in Richmond, and nothing would do but I asked them what they were doing that Saturday, and so I showed them Oxford and we rowed on the Cherwell and it was summer...
That Christmas - or more probably several days after Christmas - this arrived:
No surname... no address... A phone number (to let me know whether they were up for the day-trip to Oxford), a tube station (where I met them that Saturday morning), and 'the primary school teacher'.
So, you tell me. What kind of Post Office employee took the trouble to derive the correct address from the phone number (can they do that?), or the London Borough of Harrow's list of schoolteachers (could they do that?).
Sadly, I didn't keep a record of the date it arrived. Inside, a Christmas card with "We hope you get this card and we send you Christmas wishes and a Happy New Year... Erika and Margit. PS We are the 'au-pairs' whom you showed Oxford this summer."
As if I'd forget.
I loved that "whom".
Of course, I never saw them again.
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@ Guthrum,
That's possibly the best post on SoR ever.
1. Great cover
2. Great story
3. Not one but TWO damsels in distress
You're my hero.
-Ernie
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07:11:19pm
Thanks for sharing that.
I have only one question: Where did that world go?
Roy
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This letter was delivered....the postman actually went the extra mile.
Now, as my mail delivery persons skip delivery at a minimum one day a week (he claims he had too much mail to deliver), and will not deliver a letter without all the info, including the unit number which occasionally gets forgotten or cropped out and which they could easily get from the lobby of the building, I am more than jalous!
But it is Iceland!
rrr...
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like this post.
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re: Postal Dedication
And in the opposite direction...
Here in the US the level of primary education of most people has been poor for several decades. Hence people just don't know basic geography.
I sent an item to the Faroe Islands - it came back to me with a note from the post office saying they did not know where the Faroe Islands were located.
I got out a large Post-it note (yellow sticky) and wrote the latitude and longitude plus the geographic location of the Faroe Islands - North Atlantic ocean halfway between Great Britain and Iceland.
The item got there within a week.
Login to Like
this post
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
01 Jun 2016
01:45:12pm
re: Postal Dedication
I noticed that mail to friends in British Columbia, Canada seem to arrive much faster if use the abbreviation "B.C." and avoid the side trips to Bogota or London.
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re: Postal Dedication
Back around 1968, '69, or so, my folks got the notion to contact a couple in Germany whom they had not been in touch with in God knows how long, but they had no idea of the address, other than the town. All they knew was (something to the effect of) "the small white house, near the bakery, across from the large oak tree," so, that is how my dad addressed the envelope. A few weeks later they got a reply from the people saying they received my folks' letter.
Unfortunately, the German postal service does not tolerate any such deviation from postal standards today. Last July, I got a Christmas card returned, with a Deutsche Post label saying it was undeliverable as addressed. I couldn't figure out what I did wrong (note to Michael#####: it was not nearly as bad as the one I attempted to send to you that got returned ), so I scanned it and sent the image to my cousin. She couldn't believe it, saying there was no reason they could not have delivered it. The problem? I had placed the postal code AFTER the city name, instead of before it.
Ted
Login to Like
this post
07:57:12am
re: Postal Dedication
The Royal Mail used to have (at least)one person in every post office who used to pride him/her self on being able to locate the recipients of poorly adressed mail. However at that time post office employment was secure and (relatively)well paid. Post Offices and all the functions thereof were local, and postmasters were wellknown, respected and active in the community ( and had to have a fairly high educational standard).
The problem is not that the quality of postal employees has deteriorated,but that the required standards have had to be reduced, as a result of the job desirabilty and relative payrates of postal employees.
As my old Dad was fond of saying "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys " - especially today.
Malcolm
Login to Like
this post
re: Postal Dedication
It makes ya wonder. I received a bill in the mail from the vendor inside of another envelope. They had sent it to 246 instead of 248 house number and it had been returned to sender as "addressee unknown". They noted their mistake and sent it to my correct 248.
It's the house next door for Christ's sake!! Obvious nobody even looked at it. Never mind having an address detective on staff!
Login to Like
this post
re: Postal Dedication
A long time ago, in a different age, two au pairs from Austria thumbed a lift somewhere on the A4, and I stopped, naturally, and took them all the way to where they were staying in Richmond, and nothing would do but I asked them what they were doing that Saturday, and so I showed them Oxford and we rowed on the Cherwell and it was summer...
That Christmas - or more probably several days after Christmas - this arrived:
No surname... no address... A phone number (to let me know whether they were up for the day-trip to Oxford), a tube station (where I met them that Saturday morning), and 'the primary school teacher'.
So, you tell me. What kind of Post Office employee took the trouble to derive the correct address from the phone number (can they do that?), or the London Borough of Harrow's list of schoolteachers (could they do that?).
Sadly, I didn't keep a record of the date it arrived. Inside, a Christmas card with "We hope you get this card and we send you Christmas wishes and a Happy New Year... Erika and Margit. PS We are the 'au-pairs' whom you showed Oxford this summer."
As if I'd forget.
I loved that "whom".
Of course, I never saw them again.
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07:01:58pm
re: Postal Dedication
@ Guthrum,
That's possibly the best post on SoR ever.
1. Great cover
2. Great story
3. Not one but TWO damsels in distress
You're my hero.
-Ernie
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BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 500 categories
22 Jun 2016
07:11:19pm
re: Postal Dedication
Thanks for sharing that.
I have only one question: Where did that world go?
Roy
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