And not just China. This RU barcode worked at USPS tracking during transit. All seven weeks of transit. Did they drive this thing all the way across Europe and thru Checkpoint Charlie?
The USPS system displayed nothing about this item other than its transit after entry into the USA and of course, the delivery address that USPS had coded for the benefit of their own systems.
In a truly integrated system, the USPS system would have displayed the FSUERP (Federal State Unitary Enterprise Russian Post) data as well.
<tangential_anecdote>
That bar code reading systems read bar codes - pretty much
any bar codes - is why I sanitize my luggage upon arrival at any destination.
Other folks leave old luggage tags (which means that they leave old
routing instructions) on their luggage as if they were ski lift tickets or Gilded Age steamer trunk stickers.
What a singularly stupid idea! The more bar codes there are on a piece of luggage, the more likely it is that the wrong one will be read or misread, to bad effect.
True enough, the first reason that I first sanitized my luggage is that I was visiting places that were not on the best of terms with some of the other places I was visiting, so why 'have that conversation', as the kids say nowadays?
Old barcodes are not like old postage stamps; rip 'em off, two steps outside of baggage claim, every time.
<\tangential_anecdote>
Cheers,
Posted 04/10/2015 08:05 am
