Well yeah, it’s because only 7 people live there and one is the postie.
Some 20 years ago we wrote a postcard, where we didn’t know the address. But we knew how to reach the house from the train station. So we just wrote directions on it and it arrived.
This year I wrote two postcards with perfectly valid addresses, they never arrived 😢
I have just been cataloging letters home from a Canadian soldier in the first world war.
All of them are addressed to:
Mrs. L. Moore Douglas, Ont. Canada
And clearly, since his mother saved them all, they were all delivered properly.
Probably there was just one Moore in Douglas with a son in the service. Else it’s the postman recognition the handwriting after doing a ton of legwork for the 1st (few) letter
Me and one of my exs used to fantasize about running away from everything to Iceland.
It was really dumb, but it seemed like such a nice way to escape everything.
I remember when the US Postal Service used to be considered impressive.
Then we elected fascists.
Most countries’ postal services try their very best to route mail with scant information. It’s not specific to Iceland.
At least in countries where the postal service has not been privatised.
Fuck postnord, all my homies hate postnord
Postmord
Funnily in france it’s the other way around, fuck Colissimo. Everyone hates the post office here.
When I was living in Bhutan, we were having a competition to see who could receive the mail with the least information. My boss won with a letter from the US that only had “white guy law school Bhutan” on the envelope
Do you guys have to get…
Bhutanese passports?
Union staff have the time and energy to go the extra kilometre.
My uncle in rural Italy received a postcard with “house with trees in front yard - Town postcode”. I now live in a region that is sparsely populated and a lot of addresses in the countryside are just the name of the farm. Sometimes even buildings in the city have their own name. (I have no idea how people managed before the internet…)
If postal workers can deliver mail, usually they will try. Overall, people tend to care about their jobs (if its not shit)
People managed just fine, the human mind is more impressive than most people realise. When knowledge isn’t stored outside of your mind, your brain is a lot less lazy in retaining it.
That I can imagine, but how do you find a new farm with nothing to go on but the name?
new farm - village name
Probably ask a local, learn the area. Pretty feasible even if you get rotated around multiple areas.
It’d be along your route, and even if you didn’t know the people you’d still probably see them there occasionally enough to piece it together
We bought our house in 2020. First day I had keys I had to dig up the sewer line. Drunk and exhausted I ordered a hoagie for delivery, called the pizza place. Guy was like ok where do you live? I was like here’s my address. He was like no just describe the directions on how to get there we only deliver to our little neighborhood in the city so what main roads are you close by?
Pretty cool that still happens I guess, felt like I was transported back to the 90s
I hope the postal worker deciphering this gets paid by work time
Either they have a monthly salary and work a set schedule, or they’re hourly and get paid more if they work more hours. At least that’s how it would work in any first world country. I do know there’s a pretty big one where you might have a salary and have to work unpaid overtime, but we don’t consider that to be a first-world country in the modern sense of the word.
They need the power of openstreetmap
In Finland it’s possible to just put their name and it will probably get there. As long as it’s a unique name, it will get there on the first try.
Bill Bryson wrote about this in one of his books…
HILL JOHN MASS
Which translates as John Underhill, Andover, Massachusetts
Not sure if it’s a joke though
