The one with the charred insurance bill

Sun, Oct 12 2008 by Vanessa.

A while back I received quite an interesting piece of mail.  A clear plastic bag sat nestled in a pile of bills and junk mail.  Of course, the plastic bag caught my attention so I pulled it out of the pile to find a completely charred insurance bill inside.  The poor envelope’s edges were black as could be, small pieces of completely burned paper floated around the package and a message from USPS sat inside.

“March 2008

Dear Postal Customer

On March 24, 2008 a postal contract vehicle carrying mail to the San Antonio Processing & Distribution Center was involved in an accident which resulted in the vehicle catching fire and destroying some mail.

Any mail that was not completely destroyed has been recovered and transported to the San Antonio P&DC to be re-processed.  Mail containing a legible address or return address will be re-processed and delivered as soon as possible.

The enclosed mail piece was addressed to you or is being returned to you because we cannot determine who the mail piece should be delivered to due to a missing or incomplete address.

The loss or delay of any piece of mail is frustrating to both the Postal Service and our customers, and we agree that incidents such a this should not occur.   We realize your mail is important to you and that you have every right to expect it to be delivered on time and in good condition.

Please be assured that we are constantly working to better meet your expectations and our service standards.  You are a valued customer and we apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Sincerely,

BT”

You never really stop to think about the dangers related to delivery of mail.  In fact, I imagine the most commonly proposed threat to Postal Workers is dog attacks.  In San Antonio multi-family mailboxes sit throughout our neighborhoods though, so the number of dog attacks should diminish compared to other towns.   After all, dogs tend to guard their own dens, not multi-family mailboxes.

Most of the time, I see postal workers walking nonchalantly from their vehicle to the mailboxes positioned strategically throughout our neighborhood.  Our mailman always smiles, says hello and genuinely appears happy and carefree.  What cares could you possibly deal with while delivering mail?  You don’t show up to work each day just to sit in a cubicle next to Mr. Hum-All-Day-Long, or go to meetings designed to prepare for the preparation meeting needed in order to get everything together for the meeting you’ll have in 1 month to create a plan of action for the final meeting scheduled 2 months from now, nor are you faced each day with the delimma of “How am I going to avoid so-and-so today because I swear … if s/he opens her/his mouth one more time I’m going to have to knock them out”.  I guess you might feel lonely during the day as a postal worker.  Introverts might not mind this type of solitary work.  However, with the arrival of my charred letter, I now recognize that your vehicle going up in flames could be a concern for every postal worker.

I wonder if the postal worker responsible for transporting my letter survived the wreck.  Drivers in this geographic region appear to be a bit more reckless, in my opinion, than drivers in other geographic areas.  For many years, John rode his bicycle to work and it drove me nuts.  I knew he would ride his bike with caution but after being nearly rundown on my own bicycle several times while riding down neighborhood roads, I lost all confidence that the majority of San Antonians understand that a bicyclist can die when you hit them.  Driving comes with the job when you deliver mail so I guess automobile accidents rate as a high danger for USPS.  Funny how you really don’t stop to think about all aspects of something you don’t completely understand.  I guess that makes sense but that thought is depressing.  The more knowledge I obtain the dumber I feel.  As you learn more and more you begin to recognize how much you don’t know and will never know.

Anyhow, thank you Mr. Postman for batting the streets of San Antonio each day to bring me my mail!  Be safe!

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