More tales of the Archives

A recent email exchange at work with a member of another Federal Agency:
__________

I said:

I recently began to service your request when I discovered a
problem. You did not note which specific documents you needed scanned
from the file. Can you please inform me of which documents you want
OR
if you desire the entire folder to be scanned. Thanks."

Reply:

"Need entire folder mailed to the court.........thanks"

I then said:

"Mailed? You populated the "Shipping Method" field as "Scan and email"

If you want to have requests physically mailed (as opposed to scanned
and digitally sent) please be sure to mark that field as either USPS
(for FedEx Ground) or FedEx (for overnight service). I will change it
on this one if you tell me which one you need."

The reply to that:

"Mailed.................thank you"

Frustrated, I responded:

"You said:

'Mailed.................thank you'

In my previous email I explained that there were two options for having a file physically sent to you. It seems that I may have miscommunicated or you may have misunderstood.

When you want a file physically mailed to you, the options are:

1) Populate the ARCIS "Shipping Method" field with "USPS" - this tells
us to send the file to you via FedEx Ground. Typically this courier
service takes 3 business days. We will pay for the shipment up front
and then charge your agency on the backend.
OR
2) Populate the ARCIS "Shipping Method" field with "FedEx" - this
tells us to send the file to you via FedEx Overnight. In this instance,
we need you to provide us with a FedEx account number to charge for the
shipment. You will find a field in ARCIS directly below the "Shipping
Method" to place the account number in.

Please select one of the two options detailed above. I will be looking
for your response so that I may begin preparing this folder for
shipment."

This was the reply to that very unambiguous outline:

"Please mail the entire file to the court.......................thank you"
__________________

Does everyone now understand why I have the angst I mentioned in my recent post?
http://words100.blogspot.com/2009/06/national-archives.html

I had to call the court employee in order to sort this one out. During our phone conversation I continued to be assailed with a few incoherent statements and other nonsense. It finally was taken care of. I need LOTS of prayer to keep trucking along at this job. On top of everything, think about this fact: the current administration wants the government to take on the operations of nation-wide healthcare - that would go well.