Community Chat

[Starpolisher]

I know mail can get mixed up. Sometimes I receive mail for other addresses in my town. Sometimes it's a neighboring town with the same zip code as mine( they use the same post office)street name and number only their street ends in drive vs. rd. This is the first time I've received a letter from another country and for another state. It came from Finland and was addressed to someone in Rhode Island. I live in NJ. It did have the same house number as mine and the street was the same except my street ends in road and theirs in drive. Nothing else was the same! I thought the post office used zip codes to sort mail not street names. I put it in a larger stamped envelope and readressed it. I didn't want to take the chance of it getting lost again. It was decorated for Christmas and since it was from Finland I figured somebody in Rhode Island was probably looking forward to getting it! Wonder how this happened?

[Kachina624]

@Starpolisher.  That was nice of you but maybe the Rhode Island address was incorrect.  Perhap some postal clerk was using his/her creativity to get it to the right person.

[Starpolisher]

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@Kachina624 wrote:

@Starpolisher.  That was nice of you but maybe the Rhode Island address was incorrect.  Perhap some postal clerk was using his/her creativity to get it to the right person.

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I googled it first and did find the person and her address. Unless she's moved it was correct,  in which case, it should have gone back to Finland. I forgot to say that I also included a note explaining what happened and my return address on the envelope.

[Pearlee]

Mail is commonly missorted and ends up in the wrong place altogether.

[SeaMaiden]

@Starpolisher   How nice of you to do that!

[chrystaltree]

Post Office World can be a mysterious place.  My dad passed away 20 years ago.  He was buried in his home state of GA, at the funeral we met some of  his family, including an aunt who was close to 100.  More than a year after my dad passed, my mom received a letter from that aunt.  It was a true miracle that she got that letter and no one...including the post office manager...could figure out how that letter got to my mom.  She had my mom's first name correct but there was no surname, just the first initial of my mom's surname.  She had the right number for my mom's house but just gibberish for the street.  There was no town or city, she got the state MA correct but she omitted a digit or two from the zip code. It took a little over a year but somehow, the Post Office got that letter to my mother!  Sadly, in the interim, my dad's aunt had passed away so my mom couldn't respond.  I think it wouldn't have mattered because the letter itself was gibberish.  Like the stray thoughts of a 100 year old woman who was failing but she did sign her first name.  

[Starpolisher]

@chrystaltree

I do believe that some things are just meant to be. "Divine Intervention"😇

[chrystaltree]

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@Starpolisher wrote:

@chrystaltree

I do believe that some things are just meant to be. "Divine Intervention"😇

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       My mom believed that, I do too.  My sister framed the letter and the envelope, she hung them in her dining area.  Proof that miracles happen.

[aroc3435]

@chrystaltree.  In the office I worked in one of my tasks was to open, prioritze, and distribute all the incoming mail.  Our business P.O. box was very similar to that of another entity.  I always tried to go the extra mile and forward the mail to the correct place and also write a note to the sender informing them of the correct address and format.

Usually only took all of five minutes to fix each piece of stray mail but was worth it to be sure that things got to the proper place.  That was one of the most rewarding parts of my job in customer service.

I was known as the office detective because I loved research.  Spent lots of time in moldy, dusty file archives, too, some of them going back over a hundred years.

Was very sad when gradually everything was digitized because during that process some things were lost forever or filed incorrectly in the digitized files never to be found again.  And, all sorts of different  methods were used as technology progressed, fiche, film, and finally an in house version of the "cloud" I guess you would call it.

[bonnielu]

Once upon a time mail was delivered correctly and on time.  No more.  Not enough space for my horror stories and everyone I know friends and acquaintances have stories to tell.  

My latest  tale is about hold mail.  I  ended up having to call the office and explain the difference between HOLD mail and KEEP  mail.  What a mess when I came back after a 10 day  trip to visit our daughters.