Sun, 09 Jul 2006

Going Postal?

Masson's Blog has an excellent little tale of government stupidity. Which reminded me of my favorite "going postal" story...

In a former life (the late 70's) I was a technician for the Friden Mailing Equipment Company, one of the peanut sized competitors that Pitney-Bowes allowed to survive to ward off Justice Department scrutiny. Friden as an independent company is long gone by now. I think they survive as a brand name, the company having been first swallowed by a French concern, then folded into a German company. I lost track years ago.

One of the products I worked on was a very early model of electronic scale, and one of our customers kept getting overseas mail (a letter going to Vienna) returned with no clear explanation. They figured it was the new-fangled contraption, so they called in the tech.

The scale was dead accurate, and had the latest rate module. So I took the scale, my reference weights and the letter to the main post office to find out what the problem was.

I found the international section and the clerk responsible, and began setting up my scale to compare rates and see what was the matter. She just glanced at the envelope and told me "You don't even have to set that up - the problem's in the address."

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's abbreviated incorrectly."

"Huh?"

"Look, you have to spell out the country name: A-U-S-T-R-A-I-L-I-A. You can't abbreviate it as 'Austria'."

The customer sent the letter by private international courier.

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