Shipping Clerk Thoughts

I can spell Schenectady, Canandaigua, Poquonock, and Worcester without even thinking about them... but Albuquerque takes a little work.

I can't abide loose boxes or flappy tape. Tight, flat, and ready to be hurled across a room is the only way to go. Pack your boxes as if they're going to be angrily thrown on the floor and then have an air conditioner dropped on them, because that's more likely to happen than you might think.

Street (ST), Road (RD), Avenue (AVE), Boulevard (BLVD), Terrace (TER), Circle (CIR), Cove (CV), and Apartment (APT) (among others) get abbreviated, but Way, Route, and Unit  generally don't, nor do compass directions (North, South, etc.) in town names (N MAIN ST, SOUTH BOSTON, MA, for example). USPS standard is all caps, all the time, and as little punctuation as possible.

Labels with scannable codes should be placed such that a code section isn't over a seam. Zebra barcodes can wrap around an edge as long as the edge is perpendicular to the stripes. Human-readable information can be over seams or around corners if necessary, because humans, unlike most code scanners, can read across lumps, ditches, and edges.

I love some of Massachusetts's zip codes, because they're a zero followed by a year, and I get to spend a few seconds thinking about what might've happened in that year every time I type in one of those codes. North Hatfield (01066) is the Battle of Hastings, Sudbury (01776) is American independence, Nutting Lake (01865) is the end of the Civil War, and Ipswitch (01938) is my father's birth.

There are some strange street names out there. Cool Lilac Avenue, Turkeysag Trail, East 4 1/2 Street, High Barney Road, and Calmer Ernst Boulevard have all been destinations for packages I've packed.

Some people don't know the proper format for their own addresses.

There are good packing tape dispensers and bad ones. May the gods have mercy on your soul if you take one of my good ones.