I needed to mail a chart to another office, which, for whatever reason, doesn't have a working fax this week. So on the way home yesterday I stopped at the post office.
Postal clerk: "That will be $5.21... Thank you. Where are you mailing this to, sir?"
Dr. Grumpy: "Lakeside Grumpyville, about 5 miles north of here, near Main & 28th street."
Postal clerk: "Under security precautions a package of this size cannot be put on a plane, so it will have to go by ground delivery with consequent delay. Will that be ok?"
Dr. Grumpy: "Um, yeah."
Why didn't you just drive it to the other office?
ReplyDeleteBecause Lakeside Grumpyville traffic is a nightmare in this weather. Those 5 miles can take 30-40 minutes compared to 5 minutes to mail it.
ReplyDeleteHer brain is probably numb from having to say that so many times a day. I work in a call center and do that sometimes too--it just comes out automatically.
ReplyDeleteI'm probably going to get for this, but, was she blond?
ReplyDeleteyou could scan the document and then email.
ReplyDeleteThey took the package from Grumpyville, drove it to the regional distribution center 300 miles away and then redirected it to Lakeville. This is why the USPS is alway strapped for cash.
ReplyDeleteDang! Just how big was that patient's chart?!?!?
ReplyDeleteHow large was that chart that it couldn't go on a plane?
ReplyDeleteFrom what I understand of the USPS these days, they don't generally run a truck from the "Grumpyville A" office to the "Grumpyville B" office.
ReplyDeleteThey run from "Grumpyville A" to "Grumpyville regional hub" to "Grumpyville B".
Now, here in Columbus, we're big enough that our regional hub is in town. From downtown, it would go 5 miles or so to the airport sorting facility, then 7 miles or so to the address.
But if Grumpyville doesn't HAVE a sorting facility of it's own, and it's between two sorting facilities, it's (barely) possible that the routing might be Grumpyville A to sorting facility south of Grumpyville to sorting facility north of Grumpyville to Grumpyville B. And the trip between sorting facilities would be by plane for a letter....
(I have seen some VERY strange routings for Fed Ex - from southern Ohio to Lexington before coming back for delivery in central Ohio, for example...)
I always wondered who was still using fax machines.
ReplyDeleteYep........University of Florida mailed my stipend to me from 3 miles away. The check went to Jacksonville a 1-2 hrs away and then was routed back to me in Gainesville. Crazy
ReplyDeleteSoon, you'll be able to order anyone's medical chart from Amazon and have it delivered the same day by drone.
ReplyDeleteWhen he asked whether anything dangerous was in the package, you probably shouldn't have responded, "The chart of a patient with an inflammatory disease."
ReplyDeleteWell, of course it's too heavy to go by passenger pigeon. Just what were you thinking?
ReplyDeleteSo he quotes you the price and THEN asks where you're sending it to? No wonder the postal service is losing so much money...
ReplyDelete"But I'll give you a tip- if you put it inside a giant steamer trunk, you can carry it on and then spend 20 minutes jamming it into the overhead compartment. It's what everyone else does."
ReplyDelete"Just to be clear, that's 'ground' as in 'the past participle of the verb 'to grind.''"
ReplyDelete"We call this service, 'Fax on the ground.'"
ReplyDeleteIf you were both using an electronic medical record, you could have shared it electronically and it would have gotten lost that much quicker.
ReplyDeleteYour district post-office normally has local deliveries by helicopter?
ReplyDeleteAwesome!!