Now That's Service

As it turns out, my friend the bride (aka Neighbor) left on her honeymoon in such a flurry that she forgot her dop kit, including her prescription.  So I just had to FedEx her some pills.  It occurred to me before I went into the post office that it was probably not kosher to ship pills into another country, so I took them out of the bottle and put them into a little envelope.  And I chatted with the folks behind the counter, and said, yeah, my friend left for her honeymoon without her prescription, how soon can we get it to Barbados?  Maybe Monday, maybe Tuesday.  Ooooh, you can't ship drugs into another country, one fellow said, flipping through a little book.  I said, oops, I misspoke, that's not what I want to ship, and gave him a wink.  But I needn't have.  Three of them began making elaborate folded pouches to muffle the feel of the pills and balance out the bulk of the package, and changing the label to read "documents" instead of "medication" as the item shipped.  Customer service is a beautiful thing. 

Comments

[AdriftAtSea]

Yes, some of the people are good at customer service, others are good at following the rules... generally they're different people. :D

[ogged]

I think you mean that being a white woman in Maine is a beautiful thing.

[Scheherazade]

Ogged, I suppose you're right.

[turboglacier]

Being any kind of human in Maine is a fairly beautiful thing, most of the time. Come on up (you've got maybe ten weeks till snow).

[Pat]

And in winter through spring thaw, is being a moose or bear in Maine a beautiful thing?

And of course now your careless disclosure will bring additional scrutiny to the folks behind the counter. Were you disbarred? Is that why you're no longer practicing?

[Fiona]

Isn't this a potential federal felony?

[PG]

The FedEx folks seem to have confused import and export regulations. The U.S. government severely restricts medication's being mailed *into* the country for multiple reasons, including concerns about drugs that wouldn't meet FDA standards and that foreign-sold drugs would undercut American patents and prices. But prescription medication is not on the list of prohibited exports. (Though porn is!) Nor does Barbados appear to prohibit the importation of medication. Such a ban probably would be bad for the health of the local population.

So no federal felony, and brave Anonymous at 3:26PM can go back into his/her hole.

[Fiona]

PG, it may be legal to send those pills to Barbados, and it's unfortunate that the shipping company's employees couldn't figure that out, but I'm pretty sure there would be penalties involved in misrepresenting a shipments of pills as a shipment of documents.

[PG]

Fiona,

I don't know of a federal statute that would penalize an intra-company misrepresentation of a shipment, though the FedEx people at Sherry's counter might get in trouble internally (e.g. lose their jobs). If I messengered something within a law firm from the DC to the LA office, in a "document" envelope that actually contained the Justice O'Connor bobblehead, I don't see why the government need give a damn. You may be confusing the private company FedEx with the United States Postal Service, which does have many federal regulations covering its use.