more mail order fun

[merle_]

My local USPS delivery woman appeared yesterday, and talked to me quite angrily. Apparently packages to my name were going to another address and I should fix it. No, she did not know anything about the packages, just that I should fix it. Her look was like one of those Japanese grandmothers who is about to pull out a Broom Artifact of Smiting

Comments

[fub]

So packages to you get mis-adressed, the USPS woman didn't know by whom, and it's your responsibility to correct it? ....right.

[merle_]

I thought it seemed unfair. She seemed to think I was a kid doing it on purpose in an attempt to Subvert The System.

[en_ki]

In a desperate attempt to leave the IT field, I once took the exam for the postal service. Coming up with the best plausible guess for a misaddressed item is, in fact, the main skill tested on the exam. That said, I bet computers do it these days and they use your name as an input.

One trick I never got the chance to try out in Boston: my street was a short one, about 2 blocks in Cambridge as XXX street followed by three blocks in Somerville as YYY street, and my house was the last one on the block. Somerville and Cambridge each had a parking permit regime. I figured I could register my car at (nonexistent) NNN XXX street in Cambridge, the post office would autocorrect when delivering my mail, and I could get a precious Cambridge parking sticker.

[merle_]

Yes, I think they use computers based on various thunderstorm databases (not sure if there is an accepted term for conglomerate cloud yet?). One financial company happily created a melange of two of my addresses and one of a friend (we cosigned) and created a really bizarre address that will probably haunt people, for it is at a number that does not exist on a street where said street does not exist in the city and the zip code is for the number. Aie.

More and more sites are "autocorrecting" my address. It does not seem to be based on the USPS correction, but rather some credit report clouds. Scary.

The permit.. heh. I wonder if I could do that. Within half a mile I could be in Concord, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek, or unincorporated (one street is actually in all three: north is C, south is WC, the street itself is owned and maintained by the county). It is the freakiest wacky place I have ever lived.