I've had a pretty good amount of mail experience while I've been working in IS (shipping mainframe tapes on occassion), and I can tell you that a lot hinges on the individual driver. I can't tell you how many times something didn't get to the right place because though it might've got to the right place the person signing for it misplaced it (security guard or receptionist at the front), or it was sent the wrong place and the person signing for it apparently believed that everything that Fedex puts in their hands must automatically belong to them, and therefore didn't check from who it was addressed to before signing it, which if they hadn't signed would've hopefully warned the driver of the wrong place. It's a pretty screwy thing. Paul mentioned a very bad USPS shipping ratio, and though I had very little USPS stuff I sent, I maybe had them screwup only once.
I suppose one has to move into an area that is widely known for postal geniuses. I wonder if calling the area postal services and putting them through a few rounds of SPWAW questions, might not be able to tip us off as to what kind of service we can expect in shipping?
