You Know All Those Polish Jokes?
They are true. I've been working with a Polish shipping company in Chicago trying to mail a package to Poland. One cannot use the post office because the package will never get where it's going - The Polish Postal Service will "lose" it but blame the USPS. Umm hmm. I'm sure it's the USPS that opens up my birthday and Christmas cards too. Anyway, this company is quite good and trustworthy but when I call them in Chicago do they speak English? No. Obviously, they want to exclude Americans from using their service. A little silly considering there are 300 million Americans living in the US and only 1.5 million Poles. Also, they are based in Chicago and last time I checked that was in the United States where you know, people speak English (or Spanish but I doubt many Mexicans are shipping to Poland so I can understand that).So eventually I was transferred to the person I wanted to speak with and he promised to fax me the customs forms directly. As an American, I expected that to happen the same day. As someone who has dealt with Poles, I should have known that meant sometime the next week.
Then I took a look at these customs forms. What the hell? There are fields where you have to describe what's in the package. Categories include:
Clothes
Socks
Shirts
Pants
Jackets
Dresses
Men's
Women's
Children's
Cocoa
Food
Chewing Gum
Candy
Chocolate
Raisins
Now can you explain to me why there is a general category for clothes, then specific clothing items, then men's, women's and children's? Or why raisins gets its own category? Are raisins not food? Are many people shipping raisins to Poland?
My favorite category is Vegeta. I'm assuming this is for vegetables, but you can't ship produce so I'm confused. Also, the entire form is in Polish and English and the Polish translation is also Vegeta (Polish word for vegetables: Warzywa). I don't get it. Also, no category for books, toys, things that people generally ship. Whatever, I'm making up my own categories.
posted by E @10:12 AM