Text 12628, 69 rader
Skriven 2010-11-27 16:05:52 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
  Kommentar till text 12588 av David Drummond (3:640/384)
Ärende: Mailboxes
=================
25 Nov 10 16:58, David Drummond wrote to Robert Bashe:

 DD> On 24/11/10 5:23 PM, Robert Bashe -> Roy Witt wrote:

 DS>>>>> How does the mailman take mail out of your box?

 RB>>>> He doesn't. This business of putting _outgoing_ mail in the
 RB>>>> mailbox is an American specialty that doesn't exist elsewhere.

 RW>>> Your's can't be much of a mail service if that's the case.

 RB>> People here tend to go to a mailbox (about 3 minutes on foot) or to
 RB>> the post office (7-8 minutes on foot). Don't assume the post office
 RB>> is a half hour drive from home, as is often the case where you live.

 DD> Do they get any English TV shows in USA?

The BBC, which most of us block out. Not because we don't understand it,
but because of the English slant on news and programming that doesn't
apply here. There is also PBS, which is a viewer supported network of
programming, mostly made by US colleges (supported by public funds), but
some imported programming.

 DD> One often sees in those where the mail is shoved through a slot in
 DD> the front door.

We have that sort of mail slot here. Mostly office doors and private
residents with a closed-in porch. The porch door has a mail slot while the
door to the house doesn't. But then, there are also those doors leading
into the house proper that also have mail-slots.

 DD> The post-person certainly doesn't open that front door and collect
 DD> outgoing mail.

The outgoing mail in that cercumstance is left in the door mail-slot in
the US.

 DD> So it is here with my lockable letterbox on the stick out at the
 DD> street in front of my home.

I think the difference might be in how the laws governing mail crime in
the US vs elsewhere is that it's dealt with quite agressively by the
Postal Investigation department of the postal service. i.e. we don't have
locks on street-side mail boxes because hardly anyone ever bothers with
it. (there's not much there to steal that will be worth the effort anyway)

 DD> I'm hard pressed to remember when the last time I posted a letter
 DD> was... all I get in my mailbox is bills and junk mail.

I write checks to pay bills and post them in the mailbox every month. That
box has a red flag on it that is raised to indicate that there is outgoing
mail in the box.

 DD> My telco doesn't even send me a paper bill any more, they email it to
 DD> me.

I prefer the paper trail for my own records. Telco's are well known for
their errors in billing. (I have a dispute with AT&T for a landline that
they say I owe for, but my bookeeping shows that I've overpaid them.)

 DD> I pay the bills online.

I used to do that. It was a free service, but I didn't like doing it.

                R\%/itt

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