Go FedEx! (Randyjw; January 28, 2017)
I’ve always liked FedEx. And, though it’s taken awhile, consumers have finally made the automatic vernacular switch from its former namesake, Federal Express, a part of the lexicon of the landscape. In fact, I now prefer this name, over the former.
Leave it to Fred Smith, the CEO of the company, to push the boundaries and show us success, once again. It’s generally a known story in American business lore that Fred Smith had laid out his business plans for FedEx, which were presented in a school paper, and for which he received a letter grade of: D!
Somehow, it always seems that the educational system wants to stifle entrepreneurial thinking and tamp down bright students’ expressions of individualism, maybe in an effort to eradicate both the beginnings and end points along the bell curve, denoting disparities.
I recall, once, a particular teachers’ questioning of me at the start of the school sessions when he asked me, “Aren’t you friends with so-and-so?” And I said, “Yes.” He then proceeded to tell me, hostility unconcealed, that he didn’t like that girl. He continued to be rather contrary to me the entire duration of the classes, up until the end. He would constantly deride the character of this girl to my face, and he’d give me terrible grades. He’d acted so hostilely to me that I wound up cutting class alot, just to avoid him (I don’t recommend this. I do recommend standing your ground and just bearing with it; but, I was young then. I still haven’t learned the lesson fully, but at least I’ve made great improvements in facing off, sometimes, with those people who want to declare themselves my enemy, and afterwards speak to act to fulfill the reality of their declaration).
I still turned in my expected assignments, though. It was a film studies class; just one of many hippy-dippy useless classes for offer in our liberal school system, supposedly the envy and academic standard of excellence across the nation. The school earned good grades for their educational success, and meanwhile, I somehow escaped never having to read a classic book of literature beyond “Old Yeller” and “Helen Keller”!
In the end, my luck got me through that class with an alright grade (I forget what it was). My last paper was to analyze about seven films from a particular director. The New York theatre not far from my relatives’ apartment was showcasing a marathon of Akira Kurosawa films. So, guess which director was my choice? Right. So, I worked really hard and sat through some very long films and I made a nice cover sheet in faux-Japanese style and turned it in. That son-of-a-gun gave me an “A-“! Right!
While the ridicule and bullying didn’t serve to make me excel, and in fact caused me to tune out the unpleasantness, in some instances it serves to drive those very special shining stars to prove their mettle for their place in the light. So, this is what Fred Smith did.
I don’t know what the statistics are for truth-in-reporting accuracy with regards to those yearbook labels: “Most Likely to Succeed”; “Most Popular”; “Most Likely to Be Drafted a First Pick”, etc.
I don’t think the statistics are really good. So, don’t believe them and don’t let them get in your way of achieving the reality which is good for you. It may seem like junior and senior high school is the prime indicator of how you’ll be for the rest of your life, but it’s not. So, don’t let labels define you and continue on with your dreams. And, now back to the story…
So, I hate brown. No, not the color; I actually find it a very rich and pleasing color, especially in natural wood tones and things. But, that is the colloquial name by which UPS, one of the rival package-delivery systems to FedEx, refers to itself, based on the brown trucks and uniforms in which the company brands itself.
I’ve never really had a particularly good feeling about UPS. There was a claim, also, about a decade or so ago, that UPS was avoiding delivery to Jewish people in Judaea/Samaria (West Bank) areas and in the Golan, both areas which the Arabs are disputing should be theirs. The charges were admitted to, but for the reason given that those are outerlying areas difficult to get to, and it was based on cost measures as a business decision. However, it’s reported that they didn’t deliver to Gush Etzion, a fairly populated district fifteen minutes from Jerusalem, whose population is mainly Jewish.
Rather than searching my records for old articles, I looked online. A Fox News article states in an explanation that Israel does not use postal codes, and so that was the reason given for the clerical inability to schedule deliveries to those locations: hence, non-delivery.
I don’t know about those specific areas, but I do know that Israel has a fantastic postal delivery system. They happened to have located my penpal from my childhood, after I’d lost touch many years ago with her and didn’t know if she’d moved. They were able to find her.
We then began corresponding again. She had no longer resided at the kibbutz of her youth, but was now living in Tel Aviv. She, indeed, had a postal code, which I put on her letters — and these were written prior to 2006, when the Fox News article came out.
This Wikipedia article states that the 5-digit postal code was used until 2013, when it was changed to a new seven-digit code:
Postal Codes in Israel”: Wikipedia.org; edited 12 months ago by Mlevitt1.:
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_codes_in_Israel)
Israel has a very old postal system, in use even before the emancipation to independence of the state. Documents and letters sent to the Jewish citizens here were addressed using the holdover name given to it by the Romans and perpetrated in the more recent British Mandatory Assignment in the early- to mid-1900’s: Palestine. It’s rather amusing to see.
The old Air Mail symbol, or “Par Avion” symbol, seen in the USA in the days of my youth, utilized a gazelle leaping through the air. So, too, did Israel’s postal symbol also use the gazelle, or “tzvi”. I have some stamps left over from a set I bought, although it wasn’t purchased as an investment, but just to have postage available, when needed. The picture appears at the heading of this post.
There are some rules which would be considered strange, transplanting from one culture into another. For instance, moving your residence seems to present a myriad of difficulties in getting the system to change it. Mine doesn’t seem to have ever occured. The post office would not let me put in a change of address, with the strange reason that was given that I couldn’t change the address for the whole building in which I’d had an apartment. That I was only trying to change the fact that I was leaving my apartment, this didn’t seem to be able to happen. Although I did eventually get some kind of piece of paper with the new post office location, which has practically dissolved to illegibility, to stick with my identity information.
And the same thing happened with the bank! They would not let me withdraw money from a branch location of the same bank, unless it was the original location where I’d set up my account. I had since moved hours and hours away from there, and had to spend wasted money and time taking the bus up every weekend just to withdraw some money. Is that strange, or what? Inconvenient, absolutely. Maybe they just didn’t understand what I wanted to do, or didn’t like me, or whatever.
I did hear that there were some problems, which eventually became known, with some of the people at the bank, so maybe that was the reasoning behind it. I don’t know; it’s all basically water under the bridge, at this later point now, anyways.
Many people in Israel have cars, and it can get kindof congested on the roadways. Other people use scooters, take the train (but that only goes up the coast), ride the buses, or walk. For me, it was busses to great distances and walking to the doable.
I spent most of my time walking — way more than I would have said was reasonable within the U.S. It was just something you did, if you wanted to get around. People were more willing to always offer rides, knowing that many struggle with means of personal mobility.
The best times of being in Israel were those when I picked a location to go to and then plotted a route on the Atlas to follow. This was the entire purpose of my walk — just to enjoy and to discover. And that I did. Secret gardens, a street where the houses were all funky and artistic, the fashion district, you name it; unique experiences I would have missed had I been in a car.
I miss all the walking, too. I never understood the attachment with which an Israeli took to telling me the same thing, until I experienced the walking for myself, and then moved back to the States. It’s just like it is in the Torah; lots of walking (as per the Old Testament — not the New. The New seems to give highly erroneous time-distance calculations; for instance, in the time it takes to travel from Jerusalem to Bethlehem — maybe three hours, but not three days). Even though I still walk, bicycle and bus around here, back in the States, the old distance decision creeps back in.
One time, I needed to use a package delivery system. I walked from the Old City to another Jerusalem town, but my body was actually hurting when I returned. Jerusalem is full of hills at every turn, so it makes for a good workout. I discovered a few very delightful printing shops near the FedEx office, and took a business card: goldleaf foil; very nice. Israel has been printing books for a very long time, so I’m sure the skills and acumen have been passed on.
Just in my email inbox recently (I didn’t feel like labeling this piece under that category, though) was a Frontpage Magazine article by Daniel Greenfield in The Point, which he wrote about a FedEx driver, seen on video rescuing the United States flag from desecration by burning.
We need alot more people like this man to counter those destructive, America-hating folks living in the land. I don’t think that these people understand that the tyranny and chaos they are causing is not the way we run the country, when you don’t get your way and you can only act like a sore loser and erupt into violence. Reminds me of Israel’s enemies.
Thank you for upholding the goodness and symbolism of the flag of the USA.
Here is the YouTube video (updated; it was removed by the user. This new one contains a scteen shot and computerized voice giving a summary brief of the incident):
(https://youtu.be/jkW88dRlXE8)
“UPS Seeks to Redeem Self After Rumors of West Bank ‘Package Apartheid'”. FoxNews.com; December 19, 2006:
News Notes 1 