Once in a while - not very often, but perhaps two or three times a year - it happens that a package meant for us here at Able Courier to pick up and deliver is actually picked up by a US Postal worker by mistake. It happened again today (which prompted this blog post).
What happens after that? "It depends" (isn't that great?). In this particular case our customer was able to re-print the contents fairly quickly, so we were still able to deliver the package on time. This is not always possible, so sometimes it becomes necessary to try and track down the worker involved (time-consuming and not always successful).Why does this happen? Most often because a business tends to leave outgoing items of all sorts in the same general location without an explicit indication that the one intended for us should be left where it is until we arrive. A busy US Postal worker may just assume that anything in that area is meant for pickup. A particular hazard is if it's an envelope with postage already on it, which can happen if it was meant to be mailed earlier but now has to go by courier because today is the deadline and it has to be there by 4:00!!!
How can this be avoided? The simplest way is to make sure a package meant for us is obviously indicated as such, perhaps by attaching a Post-It saying "Able Courier" or placing it in an area marked with a sign saying something like "Outgoing Courier". It may be helpful to have a similar area for the Postal service or even just a tray marked "Outgoing Mail".Making sure everyone knows who is supposed to pick up what can save a lot of time and aggravation.