I have a funny/interesting story about the barcodes. As part of my job I run the mailed appeals for a non-profit. For certain appeals, we included pre-addressed

I have a funny/interesting story about the barcodes. As part of my job I run the mailed appeals for a non-profit. For certain appeals, we included pre-addressed envelopes that were supposed to come back to our office. For reasons we could understand these letters were taking months to reach us, and when we finally got them they had been opened on four sides and then stapled back together with dozens of staples around the edges, and an address sticker on the face of the envelope. These envelopes generally contain a check, and oftentimes the check was getting lost, plus the people who process these gifts were going nuts pulling all of the staples out of the envelopes so they could open them. The Post Office gave us a different explanation every time we called. At first they blamed a graphic we had on the face of the envelope. So we re-ordered the envelope without the graphic. Then they blamed the weight of the paper. So we re-ordered the envelopes with heavier paper. Then they blamed the color of the text and the font choice. So we re-ordered new envelopes with plain black block letters. After all this, these envelopes were still being opened. The post office said our physical mailing address was causing problems, because mail can't actually be delivered. Instead our mail guys go pick it up. Unfortunately, that isn't really something we can change with the volume of mail we get, so we were stumped. Then one day we got a call from our bank lockbox. They wanted to know why they had a bunch of our envelopes. After we got that call, I went to the basement, pulled examples of all of the envelopes I could find and brought them back to my desk. Presorted bulk mail has a barcode on it called an Intelligent Mail Barcode. It contains the postal ID of the person shipping the letter, delivery information (all the way down to route), plus a few variables for options. When our envelopes were proofed, they just included our address on the face. After we approved the envelopes the plant would put a barcode on them. Every single envelope had the same barcode on it. I decoded the barcode by hand, and lo and behold, the barcode contained the delivery instructions for our lockbox PO address. The plant we were using didn't actually calculate a new barcode for our envelope orders, they just used a barcode they had on file for us. We ended up ordering new envelopes with no barcode. Our mail immediately started arriving unmolested. Moral of the story: barcodes matter.