[meteorite-list] Unbelievably late package - my story

From: MexicoDoug <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Sep 18 15:50:46 2006
Message-ID: <00a701c6db5b$8a493c00$30cf5ec8_at_0019110394>

Bernd wrote:

> finally arrived (again) after this transaltantic odyssey
> which lasted "only" three months!

Awww:-) ! I love those tearful stories like Bernd's above that have
storybook-happy endings! Reminds me of the time the most gentlemanly German
sent to the US the most exciting sample meteorite that I had been pursuing
to the ends of the world. It arrived in 3 or 4 days !! Talk about meteoric
speed!

My case: I ordered a photocopy of a short, old article from a library
reprint service in Washington DC for the painful amount of $25 including
rush global priority mail service. It was sent the same day, and I got it
slightly over 3 months later. This prompted me to initiate an outraged
inquisition on why the capital of the USA can't send mail to the most
important industrial city in Mexico that basically makes a great portion of
their cars, washing machines, electronics, etc. etc., and has half of US Dow
Jones 30 corporate headquarters in the outskirts which is probably 50% of
the GDP from Ohio and Michigan and the rest of the US iron belt. Not to
mention - for example - is much closer to DC than Tucson to them. The
purported answers: The Mexican and US Postal Services have terrible
relations at the border mail transfer points. Each one fingers the other
and no one wants to improve. There is NO responsibility on either side. A
truck is sent sporadically from the receiving side to pick up mail
supposedly twice a week the ONLY two transfer centers along one of the
longest bi-national borders in the world, and top three of international
commerce (USA-Mex). It is sent when (i) either the mail fills up the
storage area and starts going through the chimneys, doors and windows or
(ii) when there happens to be a truck in the area with a driver who wants to
work. From the USA transfer cities, it passes sealed through my city on the
way into Mexican sorting facilities deep in the country (Mexico City) and
then it is sent back in my case by the same route it came in. At the
transfer points is the real problem - each nation does little to worry about
the mail that gets stuck inside the warehouse floorboards or that gets
stomped on or blown into the corners, what order it arrives in or is sent
out (frequently making it an effective FIFO inventory system). In other
words, complete international irresponsibility bi-directionally. The
Mexican side often defends itself saying, we are a government agency and
"US" Mail is private (yes it is usps.com, not .gov), and they are driven by
cold capitalistic "business" decision. We may be a day or two slower
internally but we depend on them to call us when the mail warehouse is full,
well, of course we won't go until we get a trailer full of mail ourselves
since we aren't just backhaulers. I suspect the US side thinks alike, if
not feigning convenient ignorance, or if they don't just dismiss the
possibility of even questioning their equally empty boasting of being the
greatest cheapest service in the world. So Postal services seem to be bored
of fulfilling the obligations worldwide...

Best wishes, Doug
Received on Mon 18 Sep 2006 03:49:20 PM PDT