It appears to not have been the post office that "did better than any phone provider would":
> Did you know that, when the marrow donation center finds a
> match, they try desperately to reach the potential donor? Even
> if that person has moved from their dorm room long ago, even if
> their contact information has changed, even if they’re in a
> different state, even if 16 years have passed? They try. They
> look all over for ways to reach that person.
They succeeded in sending mail to his last known address, which was his old company. He simply failed to set up forwarding from there (although he tried, it apparently didn't work) and didn't pay attention to what get sent there.
The phone equivalent would have tried his dorm and that would have been that. He never would have even known that they had tried to contact him.
Wouldn't the phone equivalent be them calling his office number and leaving a message? It seems like they looked up his name and when they found a hit, they found his office and his office address. Surely there would also have been a similar process looking up his last known phone number if they determined he no longer used whatever number he gave them?
