Posted on 12/27/2015 12:20:56 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Christmas is the busiest time of the year for both Santa and the United States Postal Service. But, while Santa has elves at his side, the USPS must rrely on technology to make its deliveries.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
Like when they delivered my dads letter to Kentucky when they read the first letter of the zip code as a 4 instead of a 9...
It was a very common problem before they started using bar code readers. The processing center I worked at covers the 109.. zip codes (Rockland and most of Orange counties, N.Y.), which was oftentimes confused with 709 (Memphis) or 909, one of the P&D’s in LA. Or someone would get dyslexic and confuse us with 190 (Philadelphia)
It looked like an interesting article but when I clicked on it I got intercepted by things telling me I had to buy an app.
That said, it’s really amazing that the vast amount of mail actually gets where it’s going. And the people at the PO, except for one black power loony I had to deal with in a southern city, always really try hard to make sure your mail gets there.
Don’t she be the girl that can’t read writin’ or write readin’?
The post office should surcharge for handwritten addresses. Use the money to install address printers at the post offices for folks who don’t have computers and don’t want to pay the surcharge.
Of course, there are a lot of things they could do to cut costs if Congress let them run it like a business.
She be the won dat can’t read cursive.
i mean, where else can you go, plunk down half a buck, and have a reasonable expectation that an envelope will be delivered anywhere in the country within a couple of days.
I had a check owed to me for a large amount sent from a town 20 miles away here in Maryland routed through Puerto Rico. Took weeks of tracing and phone calls to get it.
The full timer working with him, noticed the zip on the top piece of a bundle he threw into a sack. It was the wrong sack. The full timer brought it to the temps attention. The Temp informed him that he could not read numbers, so was just throwing bundles into the sacks to equalize the level in the sacks.
The temp was removed from the area, and discharged by the tour sup.
The temp of course tried to play the race card, but being a temp outweighed his race card. He was gone.
If he'd been a full time regular, the race card would have worked and probably he'd have become a postmaster somewhere.
Got it back with "unable to deliver" from a post office in Arkansas.
Bad handwriting, like illiteracy, is evidence of neglectful parents. They send their children off to the government indoctrination center, and assume the government will turn their children into functional adults.
Ad Block Plus solved that problem for me.
Consider adding it to your browser. I’d be lost without it.
Say what you will about the Postal Service, being able to identify and key in an address every 2 seconds, even if it is only the zip code, and to keep doing this for a long period, is quite impressive. I'd be interested to know the female/male ratio of the workers who can handle a repetitive job like this.
I have doctor’s scribble and good parents. But I’m left handed so that might be a partial answer.
I embraced printing my own mail labels in the late 90s. With my handwriting, I have to.
It isn’t often I send something through the regular mail. Almost everything is UPS or FedEx.
Our local post office is wonderful. We know them and they know us. It’s great.
I did over 10 years on a Letter Sorting Machine (LSM.) We were doing 60 per minute for 8 hours, minus two 15 minutes breaks.
The ratio was pretty much even between male and female. Usually the females maintained a lower error rate.
Edits were daily for every operator. Fall below 95% and you'd go back to training. Few ever had that happen. Personally I kept a 99.8% for 7 straight years, then slowly started dropping. We did have a couple sisters who kept a 100% rate forever.
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