# So where did my lost piece of mail most likely go? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 14, 2006, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071 "2006-12-14T03:58:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2006, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/21 "2006-12-14T22:48:30Z")
[QUOTE=BobT] So in which part of the mail delivery process did this envelope (it was a small one, not a business size one) go astray most likely? [/QUOTE] It is likely that “it was a small one, not a business size one” accounts for the probability of it going astray in one of the various ways others have suggested. Being ‘eaten’ by the routing machines is a distinct possibility. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2006, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/22 "2006-12-14T23:01:17Z")
[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord] "They lost a super important packet… " [/QUOTE] It may not help you in this matter, but anything important, or even super important, should be sent via certified mail, signature confirmation, or, registered/insured, etc. I read somewhere that a lottery winner - a big winner of several hundred million dollars, sent his ticket in for official verification in a plain envelope through regular mail. Everything went OK, but that’s just not a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/23 "2006-12-14T23:05:10Z")
[QUOTE=drachillix] I know one of these guys and from his description of their systems this is pretty hard to do and they audit these guys pretty thoroughly. [/QUOTE] No, I meant the mail carrier.. We used to get, every now and then, the mail for a house with the same number, but a street just a few houses away. I’d just go play mailman and deliver it to the right box. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/24 "2006-12-14T23:05:35Z")
I lived in this apartment for about 13 years. There have been three rent checks that have gone astray. So 3 out of a little over 150. I don’t know what’s an acceptable percentage. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2006, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/25 "2006-12-14T23:48:33Z")
[QUOTE=Common Tater] It may not help you in this matter, but anything important, or even super important, should be sent via certified mail, signature confirmation, or, registered/insured, etc. I read somewhere that a lottery winner - a big winner of several hundred million dollars, sent his ticket in for official verification in a plain envelope through regular mail. Everything went OK, but that’s just not a good idea. [/QUOTE] It happened many years ago and duplicates had to be gathered. It was registered mail, but it still was lost down the hole where mail was found years later. The Post Office looked but couldn’t find it, which was noted to the district or whatever they’re called Post Office. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2006, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/26 "2006-12-15T00:11:40Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] I was a summer sub carrier 35 years ago. Back then mail got sorted to a route, and the carrier on the route sorted it into little cubbyholes before bundling it for delivery. They never let us subs do this sort, which probably would have taken us until noon. I did lots of routes, so I would never have learned any one well. Today, does mail get sorted to the final delivery ordering, or is there still a manual sort done? [/QUOTE] There’s still a manual sort done by the mailman before he sets off on his route. He has to order the stuff, and as I work in a sorting centre and not a post office, that’s all a bit of a mystery to me. For most metropolitan post offices, we sent them their mail already sorted to the level of the individual routes, but not any finer (house numbering) and they tidy it up at the PO. In some cases, especially for smaller places, we just send that given post office all their mail in one lot, and they have to pre-sort it to the various routes themselves. In the manual days this was the norm for everywhere. It’s still the norm today for the stuff that is manually sorted - mostly handwritten mail and ex-overseas stuff. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2006, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/27 "2006-12-15T00:29:14Z")
[QUOTE=drachillix] I know one of these guys and from his description of their systems this is pretty hard to do and they audit these guys pretty thoroughly. Just for ignorances sake, these facilities are called Remote Encoding Centers and they do manual reads where the OCR systems fail. They never see the actual mail, an image is sent for processing, the REC recieves it, sends it to the encoder stations where a human looks at the address and makes the needed adjustment. The mail gets tagged with a barcode and will sort accurately after that in any later machine passes. You wanna listen to bitching…every so often a bulk mailer with 700,000 pieces of mail gets his mail merge feilds out of sequence … [/QUOTE] Yeah. I work on the other end of that equation. I’m with the actual mail, and the guys doing the video coding (as it’s called here) are about fifteen miles away. Here’s how it works: The “raw” mail is fed into an MLOCR sorting machine. The operators pick out any stuff that is obviously not going to go through properly, and then everything else gets fed into the machine. The first thing that happens to it is the tag code is applied (strangely like a newborn baby’s first thing being a wristband). This tag code, located on the back of the letter, is NOT a ZIP or postcode. It’s just the letter’s personal ID and has no addressing details. A split second later, a digital image of the address is captured. At this point, the machine still doesn’t know where the letter is going, and it temporarily spits it out into a “buffer” where the letter cools its heels for 90 seconds before going back into the machine. During this 90 seconds, the software decides whether it can handle the job itself, or wether it needs human help. If the machine can do it itself, it’s got the postal code ready and waiting to match up with the letter which it will recognise by tag code. When the ninety seconds is up, the letter goes back into the machine and heads past a reader which identifies that individual item from its tag code, then it goes past a printer, which prints the postal or ZIP code on the front of the article, and then it heads for the relevant output stacker (there are usually about a hundred of these). One of the output stackers is “Video Coding”. Letters which end up here have been through the same process except that during the time they were in the buffer, the machine decided it couldn’t resolve the address, and sent the image to the remote coding centre\*. This mail still has no postal code on the front. It is removed and placed in storage for an hour or two. During that time, the folks doing the video coding will manually enter the postal codes for all the images they can see on their screens, and the satellite connection sends these codes back to our machine which stores them in memory matched to their tag codes. Then we feed the mail back through the same machine, and this time the machine can just print the postal code and despatch the items. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2006, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/28 "2006-12-15T00:30:43Z")
\*And I forgot to add the footnote for the asterisk. The rumour is, of course, that the satellite-connected Video Coding Centre is going to end up in Bangladesh. There’s obviously no technical reason why it can’t. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/29 "2006-12-16T20:25:18Z")
The letter came back today. It was not mangled. What happened is that I wrote the right ZIP code on the envelope, but the wrong city. I sent the letter to ZIP 90248, but addressed it to Carson, CA, instead of Gardena, CA. In my defense, I copied the address off of stationery that the management company uses. However, I knew what the city should be. So, now you know why you need to have BOTH the city and the ZIP written correctly don’t you? The odd thing is that the street address is right and somebody at the post office, crossed out Carson and wrote Gardena instead. And it still got bounced back to me as being undeliverable. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/30 "2006-12-16T20:30:25Z")
Could it be stuck in the inner workings of the mail drop? That isn’t unheard of, and it can happen with the slots built into buildings, and the free standing boxes. I might inquire as to the last time the mail drop in question was “cleaned” and examined to see if it needed repairs? ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/31 "2006-12-16T20:31:36Z")
Heh, missed the update… ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/32 "2006-12-16T23:15:48Z")
There is also a note that the letter went to the “Nixies”. I have horrible handwriting, but I think this is the first time, I’ve ever had a letter go there. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/33 "2006-12-16T23:32:38Z")
I think I saw them in concert once… they rawked! ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2006, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/34 "2006-12-17T00:49:29Z")
TheLoadedDog, my wife, who is now a carrier but was CFS for the longest time, claims that the machines “munch” their own weight in paper every hour (slight exageration). And that the “nixies” were just all too happy to send the stuff to Atlanta (DLO). Then again, she worked next door to one of the pilot Lights Out operations and her own position took so long to get excessed (after a million delays) that she actually relocated before that ever came to happen. So maybe she just got to witness the teething pains of the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2006, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/35 "2006-12-17T08:22:59Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] I was a summer sub carrier 35 years ago. Back then mail got sorted to a route, and the carrier on the route sorted it into little cubbyholes before bundling it for delivery. They never let us subs do this sort, which probably would have taken us until noon. I did lots of routes, so I would never have learned any one well. Today, does mail get sorted to the final delivery ordering, or is there still a manual sort done? [/QUOTE] Mail which is “short coded” which means that it does not have the post-code or zip code on it is manually sorted. The rest is sorted by machine except for parcels/packets. It isn’t unusual to receive mail addressed thus: Mr and Mrs ??? Sorry don’t know address but they have 2 cars and one of them is a black Ford Manchester M33 0RT if the post code is valid it’s odds on the regular postie will know them. I once had a letter addressed Miss.Blonde girl aged 19 House has yellow painted gate and I met her in Turkey 2 years ago Bowdon Cheshire WA 14 8TY I found the house and the girl ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2006, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/36 "2006-12-17T12:57:49Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] Mail which is “short coded” which means that it does not have the post-code or zip code on it is manually sorted. The rest is sorted by machine except for parcels/packets. It isn’t unusual to receive mail addressed thus: Mr and Mrs ??? Sorry don’t know address but they have 2 cars and one of them is a black Ford Manchester M33 0RT if the post code is valid it’s odds on the regular postie will know them. I once had a letter addressed Miss.Blonde girl aged 19 House has yellow painted gate and I met her in Turkey 2 years ago Bowdon Cheshire WA 14 8TY I found the house and the girl [/QUOTE] You might like the following, which I know I have posted here before… It was from China, obviously from a person with no English who had made a hand-drawn facsimile of the address from a restaurant menu (I forget the exact wording, but it was something like): _Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant Eat in or Take Away No MSG SYDNEY_ Now, normally it’s not my job to sleuth these out (I don’t work in the DLO), but for this one I just couldn’t resist, and I spent some time with it. Ended up getting a match out of a telephone directory. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2006, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/37 "2006-12-17T16:02:09Z")
and then there is North Pole, Alaska. They are really nice with incomplete addresses directed to Mr. Claus. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2006, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/38 "2006-12-17T16:21:16Z")
[QUOTE=Sapo] and then there is North Pole, Alaska. They are really nice with incomplete addresses directed to Mr. Claus. [/QUOTE] Actually there is a proper mailing address for the fat guy dressed in red. I kid you not ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/39 "2006-12-17T18:53:28Z")
Also, you might want to allow a [few extra years](http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=qw1166131087515B236) if you’re sending something to Russia by way of Finland. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2006, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071/40 "2006-12-18T00:48:27Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] Actually there is a proper mailing address for the fat guy dressed in red. I kid you not [/QUOTE] please provide (and quickly!). 🙂 at any rate, I just learned that there is a town by the name of North Pole in Alaska (near Anchorage, Google map it). They will reply to any mail they receive that has a return address. The USPS will even send there unstamped mail. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-did-my-lost-piece-of-mail-most-likely-go/384071.md?page=3)