Fact - Some time ago I had sent a package by Priority Mail to Minot, ND which is approximately 200 miles from Grand Forks. It took more than three weeks to arrive at it’s destination.
Fact - Nearly fifty percent of the “when is my order going to get here?” emails I get come from buyers living in Wisconsin just two states away from North Dakota where I live.
Inquiries at my local post office regarding why this should be have never produced any kind of a legitimate response. Today a conservation I got involved in at our Post Office provided a somewhat comical (to me) insight into the fact the the good old US Postal Service isn’t nearly as efficient as they would like us to believe.
If you ship to international buyers you are aware that most countries have some kind of a postal code similar to our ZIP codes. What you are probably not aware of, but need to know to appreciate this, is that the two ZIP codes for Grand Forks, ND where I live are 58201 and 58202.
When I walk into the post office at about 8:30 yesterday morning there are postal clerks at two of the windows. I know both of them fairly well. One of them is helping a woman who is mailing a small package to somewhere overseas. I walk up to the other window with my three packages.
The woman at the other window pays for her package and after she walks out the door the clerk that was helping her says to the clerk who is helping me, “This is going overseas to a postal code of 5820. I wonder if we’ll try to deliver it here in Grand Forks?”
My clerk responds, “Wouldn’t surprise me.” I jokingly say, “You’re kidding, right?”
Her response, “Not at all. We average about a dozen pieces of mail a day with overseas addresses with postal codes of 5820 that get routed here.” I repeat, “You’re kidding, right?”
Her response, “I’m dead serious. I should know, I’m the person responsible for seeing they get moving back in the right direction.” I ask, “So how many pieces of mail for Grand Forks end up going overseas first?”
Her response, “I have no idea, but you can be sure it happens.”
Multiply all that by the number of different ZIP codes and international postal codes there are and that probably adds up to several thousand pieces of mail a day merrily winging their way through the friendly skies in the wrong direction.
So, the next time a buyer from Clarksburg, WV emails you and asks where their order is you can tell them it’s probably taking the long route through somewhere in France, South Africa, or some other country using a postal code of 2630.
And, if it’s an international buyer with a postal code of 5820 you can tell them it’s likely making a detour through Grand Forks, North Dakota where it will be well taken care of and given a gentle nudge back in the right direction.
Photograph by Borkur Sigurbjornsson.
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