Higher Education != Higher Intelligence

Too funny! Actually, whether the letter went to the airport depends on how the PO in the Cities has their sorting set up. Down here in Chambana, there isn't a sorting center open on the weekends, so if you post a local letter late Friday or on Saturday, it will be sent far away to be sorted before it gets sent back to town.

Moral of the story: Never send out local mail on the weekends.

I can't see the stamp of origin on it, but check the zip code to see if it was actually sent from the U or if it was sent from another location. I know the entire LSU system has quite a few of their letters sent from Baton Rouge even if the degree is from Shreveport, New Orleans, Eunice, or Alexandria.

Well, at least it only cost them a postage stamp.

So funny that no commenter has not said the appropriate thing; CONGRATULATIONS!

sigh, obvious error is obvious.

Jared: That occurred to me .. It was sent from the U! It would have made sense if there was a subcontractor from far away that did this, but the letter was sent from right where that arrow points.

Thanks Abtruse! I'll pass it on. (This was mentioned last week when Amanda finished her exam, so lots of people have already given their felicitations!)

On the other hand, how many of these do they send out? It probably makes more sense to send them all the same way than to sort out the few that should be different.

I used to think that that was the reason they had braille keypads on drive through ATMs.

They (UM office) ran out of envelopes without the AIR MAIL pre-printed on it; so they just used those. No big deal.

Okay, Greg, I know I'm late, but congratulations to you and especially to Amanda. No matter how jaded we academics pretend to be (or really are), this has got to feel special for you. Hell, I'm even proud.

Rich: Well, this is the graduate school, and they gradaute all the MA/MS/etc the the Twin Cities campus every month, so they probably send out between 50 and 200 per month. I'm guessing for Sept 30 graduation there are about 50. (There are two or three months that are much larger). Close to 100% of the grad students are local. The different parts of the greater TC metro are not really connected by airports yet!

I suspect somebody set the meter machine to airmail for one envelope and didn't set it back, so everyone who got one of these this month got the airmail version.

When I completed my degree requirements at the university, the graduate office gave me a certificate of completion and explained that the suitable-for-hanging diploma would arrive later in the year and that my academic transcript would be updated when the academic year's data was processed in late summer or early fall. (Sounded cumbersome.)

I took the certificate of completion to my college's personnel office so that I could get the nontrivial pay-raise that goes with an earned doctorate in my district. The human resources clerk informed me that I needed an official university transcript. I told her what the university graduate office told me and explained that was the reason for the graduate office's certificate of completion as interim evidence that I had earned my degree. The clerk said I could bring in the official transcript when it showed I had earned the degree and she would process it at that time. Of course, that would make it too late to meet the once-per-year deadline to adjust people's pay levels, so I would start earning my new salary one year late.

I was displeased.

I went back to the university graduate office. They laughed and said they knew the clerk in question. They gave me a letter on university letterhead (looked a lot like the certificate of completion!), explaining that the certificate of completion meant that I had graduated. I took the letter back to my college personnel office. The clerk accepted the letter from the graduate office explaining that the certificate from the graduate office was the real thing.

The clerk told me, "Oh, this happens all the time."

Yeah ... because of her!

(And also because the university's mill grinds exceedingly slowly in the registrar's office.)

Thanks Joe. Amanda's pretty happy.

BTW, on our first date this was the topic of conversation ... her getting a Masters degree.

Zeno: At any point did you consider talking to your Union rep about this?

Congratulations to Amanda!

AFAIK, there has not been domestic airmail in the U.S. for a long time. I think it went out when priority mail came in. That actually makes it even dumber for the envelope to have it printed on it.

First of, congratulations to Amanda

Second, are these the same people that mail my (US printed) Scientific American by airmail to London via Tokyo?

Alcari:" Actually, that could make sense. Zillions of cubic meters of stuff is shipped to the US from the Asian side of the Pacific Rim every day. That must produce a lot of empty cargo space going back the other way. (I'm just guessing here). I'm told that trans-pacific shipping is so standard that Europe gets it's East Asian cars via a route that runs from the US west coast, then across the US by train to Duluth, then via ship from the Great Lakes, down the St. Lawrence Seaway and across the Atlantic.

AFAIK, there has not been domestic airmail in the U.S. for a long time.

There has not been a separate domestic airmail class for a long time. All first class mail, if it is traveling a sufficiently long distance, goes by air. But obviously not this one. The postmark zip code is 554xx--I can't read the last two digits, but they are irrelevant since the first three digits (which are the same as for Greg's home address; all 554xx zip codes are in or around Minneapolis) determine where the mail gets sorted. Presumably the sorting center is somewhere in the MSP metro area (maybe even near the airport), and probably all mail from a big chunk of southern Minnesota goes through that center. (In the case of New Hampshire all mail goes through one of two facilities. Most of the state goes through Manchester. The western third or so goes through White River Junction, VT.) Maybe this office sends letters to the Duluth area, and those letters may or may not travel by air.

Eric: I think the sorting center is at the airport, and yes, it did go from 554XX to 554XX!

But I chose to believe that since it had "air mail" on it, there was a small side trip somewhere by plane. Maybe to Panama or someplace.

First class mail is first class mail. I don't think "air mail" has any effect on how it's delivered. If you live in a big city, your mail is likely handled there. If you don't, local mail is often sent to the nearest sorting center regardless of when you drop it in the box. You will note that in most small-town post offices there is no longer a "local" and other slot - it all goes to the same place.