The hard-knock life of a student mailroom employee
I work in the Willard mailroom. Those six words probably make most of you assume I’m lazy, I’m incompetent, I never show up to work, I hide your mail and I eat the food your grandmother sends you. I might even eat babies.
Don’t fret. Not only am I a confirmed future crazy cat lady, but I’m way too broke to risk losing that high-rolling $6.50 an hour so that I won’t have to shamble all the way down the hall and into an uncomfortable plastic mailroom chair.
The job goes something like this: You show up. You sit in aforementioned uncomfortable plastic chair. You try to do homework but resort to Facebook stalking and FreeRice. You stand up and retrieve packages from the other room. You play Tetris. You say: “No, if you don’t have a slip, we don’t have your package. Yes, I’m sure your mother mailed it three days ago. Maybe you should wait a little longer. No, we didn’t take it. Yes, of course, that’s still funny. Obviously, I’ve never heard jokes about my stealing things. You are so original. Check your own damn mailbox.”
(If you work an early shift, add: Sort mail. Write package slips. Stack packages.)
I can’t speak for every mailroom on campus, as I’ve never lived or worked anywhere but Willard. For all I know, the Hinman mailroom really has degenerated into an orgy of unprotected mail grabbing, as the Residential College Board’s recent complaint letter suggests. But we have three people on every shift, so there goes the “understaffed” gripe. As for not being open: It’s a funny thing, but sometimes mailroom employees attend classes. If no one is free from 2 to 3 in the afternoon, the mailroom’s not going to be open. We don’t exist at your beck and call, and we can’t make packages appear out of thin air.
Working in the mailroom isn’t a primary commitment for most people, and when you can work, you work; but if you’ve got meetings and classes like everyone else, you can’t take giant chunks out of your weekday schedule. The shifts that can be staffed are filled, sometimes even to the point of cramming mailrooms. It’s a very small space for three people.
As students first, mail clerks second (or third, or fourth, or seventeenth), some things will suffer. But that doesn’t mean we can’t handle the taxing task of poking envelopes into the appropriate slots and filling out package slips, then sitting around waiting for people to show up and ask for little brown parcels. (Or, as it often happens, ask us to check their mail for them. You have a key. Walk the extra three feet.)
We do sort your mail when we get it. We even (gasp) fill out the package slips when your package arrives. So maybe the problem’s not us. Maybe it’s you.
We can’t forward standard mail. Did you remember that you don’t live at last year’s address anymore? Does the person sending you mail know that? And if you had it sent to the wrong address Fall Quarter, your mail went home. Yes, your home. Official policy is to use the directory to find the current address and, if it’s last year’s directory, mail gets forwarded to your permanent address.
Or possibly the problem is that we still don’t know how to teleport anything. I know, this is the 21st century, but your package may not be here the day your mother tells you she sent it. We’re not implanted with package-tracking chips once we’re employed; pay for tracking or resign yourself to agonized, uncertain waiting. It could even be that your package is stuck in UPS limbo because you’re not here to sign for it. Just like we can’t open your letters, if your package requires a signature we can’t forge it. Call UPS.
No, we didn’t steal it. We sign confidentiality agreements reminding us that it’s a felony to tamper with someone else’s mail. I can’t even open the envelope hanging on the mailroom wall right now that’s addressed to Frances Willard. Nor do I have the smelling capabilities to be able to differentiate a box of banana bread from one full of socks.
In RCB’s letter sent to Vice President of Student Affairs William Banis, the board made a series of seemingly reasonable requests that warrant some reply, including:
Regular, unchanging hours for Northwestern package centers that are set each quarter.
Done. Willard’s are 2-8. The question is not whether we have hours, but whether those hours are staffed.
Mail and package notification slips delivered within 24 hours of delivery to campus.
Also should be taken care of already.
Adequately staffed mailrooms to support the high volumes of mail coming through the system.
Is three people sitting around Facebooking enough, or would you prefer four? If so, we might need more space. And more chairs. And more money.
Mail handled only by mailroom employees, not left in open bins.
Also done. The only things we leave in open bins are catalogues with the wrong address on them. And it’s either that or the garbage, since we can’t forward them.
Daily mail delivery to all campus dormitories.
Take this one up with the U.S. Postal Service. We only sort your mail.
Tighter job enforcement of mailroom employees.
Managing Northwestern students is kind of like herding cats. You can’t make people show up if they don’t want to.
Package center hours clearly posted outside each package center.
I’m fairly certain they are. If not, make a sign. This requires a piece of printer paper and a Sharpie. Ask your friendly mail clerk if he can write down the hours and duct-tape it to the door.
Easy student access to dorms in which package centers are located.
Well, you could walk there. The mailrooms generally close at 8, which is when the doors lock, so it shouldn’t be hard getting in there in the first place.
Technically speaking, all these demands are already met (or should be). Things can get lost in the execution. People can be late to work. Sure, working in the mailroom can be a slacker job and people don’t always take it seriously. But we’re there, not hiding your mail or eating your brownies; we work with what we get, and that’s really all that can be done. Now stop asking us to check your mail for you.
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If the mailrooms are really pissing you off, you could always try the dining halls. Or you can return home.
Hear, Hear! (I work in a mailroom too and would like to add that we appreciate hearing “Thank you” from time to time. Just a suggestion.)
Vi-An Nguyen
February 8, 2008 at 12:00 am
Ultimately, the letter from the RCB was directed largely (if not entirely) at the situtation with the Hinman mail room. The key difference there is that they’re responsible for delivering the mail to 3 buildings outside of their home base. And frequently (though this has much improved since the letter) that doesn’t happen.
And as I’ve pointed out before, a job is a job. I know that if I just didn’t show up to my work study (its in an academic office) they’d can my ass. If you can’t seem to squeeze in the time, there are many, many more people on campus who would LOVE to have your job.
Ben R
February 8, 2008 at 8:17 am
I work in the EVIL, DESTRUCTOR OF PRETTY PUPPIES AND KITTIES, SOUL STEALING, 1835 Hinman Mailroom!
And I am glad that you wrote this, cuz we are not lazy, mail stealing, people hating employees! It’s hard to deliver mail, when mail arrives at 5 or 6 because of weather conditions, but people don’t get that. Also, what is the RCB thing sent to the Administration, cuz I haven’t heard of it….
and a thank you every now and then would be GREAT!!!
thank you for writing this
El Luchador
February 8, 2008 at 8:17 am
I used to be a CA in a building on south campus last year, and I can tell you that there would be WEEKS where mail was not delivered to our building, which was separate from where the mail was sorted. I was told various excuses by mail room employees (who were often playing on the computer or doing their homework), but mostly they would just “forget” and sometimes even ask ME if I could do it. Things have vastly improved this year, thanks in part to a much better mail manager, but last year was a total nightmare and I think employees and mail managers need to be responsive to student feedback.
SR
February 8, 2008 at 9:53 am
You draw a pretty dumb distinction. If Willard is open from 2-8 every day, then there damn well better be staff there during that time, otherwise those hours are meaningless. Starbucks couldn’t get away with saying they are open to 10-5 but may not have staff at several points during the day. Neither should the mailroom.
Sean
February 8, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I really wonder why people are constantly pissing on mailroom staffs.
Being a frequent ebay and amazon.com customer (the two only main sustainable .com IMO), I have gotten a few dozen packages off the net and has never experienced any serious delay (see below) or loses.
I can say with great certainty that when UPS or USPS tracking says my packages are delivered, Kemper has them. The staff members even know its my package when I accidentally wrote my last year’s room # in the mailing address.
Those people are students just like you and me. Furthermore, they are the people who make it possible for your distanced other half’s valentine gift to appear in your hands. They also make it possible so you do not have to stay in your room 24-7 for UPS or USPS to drop off packages requiring signatures. School hired them to make your life better, so RESPECT THEM.
P.S.
I do have to note that few times when I did experience serious delay in receiving shipments, they are usually from Eastern Europe or some other countries with tighter customs.
and here is an example of a company’s shipping policy FYI:
http://us.creative.com/shop/shippinginfo.asp
Ricky Pai
February 8, 2008 at 4:15 pm
“If Willard is open from 2-8 every day, then there damn well better be staff there during that time, otherwise those hours are meaningless.”
Our official hours are 2-8. And they’re all staffed. When we have hours that aren’t staffed, they aren’t posted (for instance, last quarter we weren’t open from 5-6 on Thursday nights, and the sign listing hours clearly said so). Official posted hours are staffed hours. I merely was referring to the fact that while everyone thinks the mailrooms should be open all the time, sometimes it’s just not possible, but we aren’t deliberately deceiving people that we have employees on shifts that we really don’t.
Rena
February 9, 2008 at 2:49 pm
While there are knowledgeable, friendly, and intelligent mailroom workers across campus, you can’t deny that there are employees that do not do their work competently.
Hinman’s mailroom has been plagued with problems, and you dismiss the points made by the RCB letter simply because the one mailroom you work in at Willard doesn’t have those problems. Your position is lacking all of the information that the RCB is working from to formulate their complaint.
The mailroom does its job a lot of the time, but when they do things wrong, students have to right to complain about it. Its not the little things like not being able to track packages that people really care about, its the leaving mail out for people to rummage through, or having clearly posted signs with mailroom hours and then never opening for them. Those are the kinds of problems Hinman has been having, and that prompted the letter from RCB. Mail needs to be secure, and regular hours are appreciated. Hinman’s schedule is ridiculous, with hours that don’t resemble Willard’s regular 2-8 schedule. While you may only get paid $6.50 an hour, mailroom workers are paid that money to do their job properly, and there are employees that are not following through on what is proscribed for them to accomplish in their job.
I understand that you would feel as though you’re under attack by working in the mailroom, but you are ignoring the actual, legitimate problems in the mailrooms outside of your own that students are making substantiated complaints about, and that’s unfair to the students that are respectful to the mailroom staff yet still are mistreated by negligent employees.
K.M.
February 9, 2008 at 4:16 pm
I never claimed to have all the information about every mailroom on campus. I get that there are people who do a shitty job in the mailroom. What I don’t think other people get is that not all of us are package-stealing slackers. It’s easy to blame the mailroom staff for all your mail problems, and really, that might not always be the case.
And I think “mistreated” is a bit harsh, unless as you try and pick up your package you’re being verbally abused, in which case you might want to try and find out who the mailroom supervisor is.
Rena
February 9, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I think you are taking this a bit too personally. While I haven’t had the chance to read RCB’s letter, it seems like it was directed at the adminstration, not the mailroom employees (it was addressed to William Banis as the NBN article states). It does not seem like a student problem, but rather an administrative problem from above. Just because a student has class does not mean the mailroom should simply close. The administration needs to find a way to fix this so it can remain open.
“Easy student access to dorms in which package centers are located.”
I could walk there. Really? No way. I think what they are saying is that there are locked doors between mailrooms and the outside for some mailrooms.
David
February 10, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Just thought it was worth noting that the Hinman Mailroom opened at least 2 hours late this Saturday without any explanation. These aren’t imaginary problems.
Ben R
February 10, 2008 at 8:34 pm
The problems exist; I’m not denying that. But to assume every mailroom employee is a lazy mail-stealing slacker is unfair. I firmly support the idea that every mailroom needs clearly posted hours stated which shifts are staffed and which aren’t.
Here, I’ll even ‘fess up: I’m missing both my shifts this week due to unavoidable conflicts. I sent out an email to every other mailroom worker, but they’re not working those times for a reason, so if my coworkers don’t show up, Willard mailroom’s going to unexpectedly close. I can’t be everywhere, and neither can anyone else.
Rena
February 10, 2008 at 8:52 pm
I don’t understand this “I can’t be everywhere, and neither can anyone else” business. If you have your scheduled shift, and then have to make appoints and such, surely you can schedule those around your work. When I work at my day camp, with young children, and I have to have a meeting, I make sure to schedule it around my hours – because when I signed the contract, I said that work was more important during those hours. By being paid, you are gaining compensation for a service rendered. If you fail to render service, I fail to see why you need to be paid.
Believe me, I understand that not everyone is awful. That’s not what I think at all. Instead, I think it is unacceptable, and outrageous, to fail to uphold one’s end of the mail-room bargain, and then complain when we (the general populace) notice, and call you out on it.
For the record, I live in CRC, and I know for a fact that for the first three weeks of the quarter, the Hinman mail room didn’t have a key to our mailboxes. I don’t know how to spin this any other way, than to say that it deprived me of my mail. and in the end, they did cram all of our mail into a postal mail bin, and had us search through it to find our stuff. Just saying.
Abraham
February 10, 2008 at 10:50 pm
You know what, you’re totally right. I secretly *am* a slacker who just doesn’t want to show up to work because I’m lazy. And I plan to record all those hours that I don’t work on my timesheet as hours that I actually did work, so I can scam you out of your money. My agenda really is to make everyone’s lives as difficult as possible and then hide all your mail.
I don’t get paid for shifts I don’t show up to. And I can’t always schedule everything around the mailroom. What’s more, I don’t usually have to, because as established, 3 people work every shift of what’s really a one-person job. My having to miss work but upholding the “if you can’t show up, notify everyone 24 hours in advance” rule does not count as “not upholding the mailroom bargain.” I wouldn’t quite put it at the level of sacred covenant that must be upheld at all costs. If you can’t go, you can’t go; it’s pretty far from qualifying as “outrageous behavior.”
There are poorly-managed mailrooms. The system could stand some improvement. But I still maintain that it is far from the pit of disorganization and horror that people maintain it is. Except maybe in Hinman, which apparently is just a mess, but not every mailroom is the Hinman mailroom. Go ahead and get angry at them, but don’t vilify the rest of us.
Rena
February 10, 2008 at 11:20 pm
The letter, as has been previously mentioned, addressed primarily the 1835 Hinman mailroom. I live in Hinman, and the mailroom does NOT work as it should. I have never dealt with the Willard mailroom, so maybe it works like clockwork. Chances are it doesn’t. Hours posted should be the hours the mailroom is open. If the workers can’t fill a certain time, then it should be closed at that time and listed on the hours sheet as closed.
A job is a job. You don’t get to decide not to show up because of “unavoidable conflicts.” You’re getting ready to go into the real world, where your job comes first. If you absolutely couldn’t show up, then your mailroom manager should have known a long time ago. If they then scheduled you for those shifts, then that’s their problem. It may be “just a work-study job” but that is still a job, and that means it should be your priority.
No one assumes every mailroom employee is a lazy slacker. I am sure whoever works at the Hinman mailroom are nice people. But quite frankly, the problems with the hours is unacceptable. I also have friends in CRC who have difficulties receiving their mail or picking up packages. Just because they are students doesn’t mean they don’t have a right to their mail when it arrives. When it’s more common to see “Sorry we’re not here!” messages than an open mailroom, there is a problem.
Honestly, you flippantly disregard entirely valid arguments, arguments that don’t necessarily affect your mailroom. No matter how hard you work at other times, there is no excuse for unstaffed, posted hours. If it says the mailroom’s open and no one is there, someone deserves criticism. Maybe that person is the mailroom manager, maybe it’s the employees, honestly I don’t know. But it needs to be fixed.
Seriously.
February 10, 2008 at 11:31 pm
To address and define “unavoidable conflicts” — I once overslept a squash team commitment. My extreme tiredness unavoidably conflicted with my ability to show up.
I understand sometimes people cannot be places they are supposed to, but to consciously skip an obligatory responsibility in order to do other things – no matter how pressing – is disrespectful. Maybe not disrespectful to me, a college student who doesn’t rank punctuality among his most adhered to virtues, but it is disrespectful to my mom. Yes, my mom.
Once in a while my mom sends me Priority Mail packages, the kind that are supposed to get here in a day or two. I’ve received them four or five days later. This may be a function of slow mail, but it also may be a function of people being slow to put slips in boxes. My mom pays to get that package to me at certain time, and by being lax in mail room duties, attendants are depriving my mother – my sweet hard-working loving mother – of what she paid for. And no one disrespects my mom.
Matt
February 11, 2008 at 12:12 am
here a great one to read from FORTUNE Magazine !
WHAT GOES ON IN YOUR MAILROOM?
By Alan Farnham REPORTER ASSOCIATE J. B. Blank
February 27, 1989
(FORTUNE Magazine) – WHERE’S the letter mailed to you three weeks ago? What happened to that contract you sent yesterday? They’re probably mired in your mailroom, where guys in smocks are smoking White Owls or something worse and shooting rubber bands at each other. One clerk has accidentally glued his fingers shut. Water drips. Steam hisses. Mail is strewn about. On the wall are posters of the kind that give silicone a bad name. No windows here on snowy vistas. This is Hell — with postage due. Not all mailrooms fit the stereotype, but even cosmetically superior ones often house major problems. Staffed by underpaid workers with little hope of escape up the corporate ladder, largely overlooked both in modernization programs and by otherwise cost-conscious top management, corporate mailrooms can waste millions. Pitney Bowes, which makes postage meters and ought to know, estimates that the mailroom of a FORTUNE 500 company can go through $50 million a year in postage, salaries, and equipment — more if the company belongs to a mail- intensive industry like finance, publishing, direct marketing, or insurance. Marcus Smith, editor of Postal World, a Washington-based newsletter for commercial mailers, estimates that most companies can cut 10% to 15% right off the top. They often don’t, he says, because they still think of mailrooms as nickel-and-dime operations. ”It’s quarters now,” says Smith. Just the savings through the provident use of overnight express can run into the millions. Warren Boero, vice president for transportation at Bank of America, warns: ”Ignore your mailroom, and you’ll pay an awful price.” For example: — Several years ago Crocker National Bank decided to upgrade its mail sorter. A ceremony was held to celebrate removal of the old machine. Bolts were loosened and the faithful unit swung away — to reveal a pile of letters that had fallen through the cracks during its 15-year tenure. Some contained ”quite large dollar items,” remembers Dave Main, a Los Angeles consultant on mailroom design. — Though Merrill Lynch denies it, sources told FORTUNE a few years ago that staffers at the company’s New York headquarters, irate about poor service, were sending interoffice mail by Federal Express. Memos were whisked from floor to floor via Memphis. — The mailroom of a large manufacturer received ten sacks of mail a day, but could process only nine. The mailroom’s solution: Toss out the oldest of the accumulating bags and keep the newest in hopes that they could someday be delivered. — The secretary to the chairman of a market research company enjoyed the mailroom’s confidence. One day she saw a mail clerk collect her boss’s mail, look it over, and coolly drop it in the trash. She asked why. He winked conspiratorially and told her that, down in the mailroom, they didn’t think much of the chairman — thought, in fact, that he was kind of a grouch. To get his goat, they periodically threw out his mail. < — Materials needed for a meeting of a financial services company’s board were entrusted to the mailroom for ‘’special handling.” The meeting arrived; the directors’ mail did not. Hard words were exchanged. The next time board members met, the same thing happened. It’s still a mystery why. Such mishaps are funny, of course, until they happen to you, and the odds of that go up as the education and skill level of mailroom workers sink. A generation ago buttoned-down young men like J. Pierrepont Finch, hero of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, began their rise to the top in mailrooms. Basements were the business schools of their day. Look in one now: Nobody’s singing. When companies stopped seeing the lowest starting level jobs as a source of future talent, employees started seeing those jobs as dead ends. ”No one wants to be a career mail clerk,” says Salvatore Stabile, who ran E.F. Hutton’s mailroom before joining Choice Courier, a management services company that manages other people’s mailrooms. ”It’s difficult work. The pay is at the low end. You get the immigrant, the dropout, the person who doesn’t want to take responsibility.” MOTIVATING these workers is an essential step to setting mailrooms right, and managers like Ed Meyers, whose staff of 81 delivers mail for the University of California at Los Angeles, have found ways to do it. Ask him how he improved mailroom morale and he stops you cold: It isn’t a mailroom, it’s a ”mail center” — workers found that name less derogatory, more professional. Besides renaming his department, Meyers designed a crisp logo and dressed employees in uniforms that display it. He also began measuring productivity. ”If you don’t,” he says, ”you’re going to be stuck with the status quo.” Compared with 1985, when he took over, the center handles 23% more mail (45 million pieces a year in all) with five fewer people. Traditionally, if top management thought of mailroom performance at all, it was only when personally annoyed by something: ”Nothing gets me into a company faster than the chairman not getting his Wall Street Journal on time,” says Philadelphia postal consultant Bob Belz. Now, however, computer software can measure productivity, and mailroom managers are using it to justify the cost of new mail-handling equipment necessary to upgrade service. ”It used to be,” says Belz, ”that when managers fought for pieces of the company pie, the mailroom lost out: There was no way to substantiate its needs.” Now managers brandish efficiency reports. By keeping track, they can also charge back mailroom costs to departments that incur them. What goodies are on the mail manager’s shopping list? Sorting machines, bar- coders — even robots. Bell & Howell sells a self-propelled, mail- delivering robot called Mailmobile, which roams the halls now at Reader’s Digest and other companies. It looks like what it is — a sorting box on wheels. The unit moves between predetermined destinations, beeping to announce its presence. Nonbeeping personnel become fond of Mailmobiles, giving them nicknames (”Norman Mailer” is popular). The robot justifies its $30,000 price tag two ways: It costs less over time than an employee, and it increases the frequency of mail delivery. Reader’s Digest used to offer three mail calls a day; now, six. Before you dream of major reductions in the human element, however, a word of caution: Mailmobiles know where to go by following an invisible chemical trail. Bell & Howell tries to keep that chemical stored off customers’ premises to deter pranksters bent on sending ”Norman” into ladies’ rooms or down stairs. Bell & Howell says its unit goes down stairs only once — very fast. ELECTRONIC MAIL delivery may ease but won’t eliminate the mailroom logjam, because electronic blips tend to get printed out at some point and turn into conventional mail. So it’s likely that the problems of the past will remain the problems of the future — cartons marked this side up will arrive and mail addressed to Chicago will arrive in Mexico City (the two have similar zip codes). A few prosaic, cost-saving reforms can produce generous rewards: — Clean up your mailing lists. Hunter-killer software roots out incomplete addresses. Use even correct addresses intelligently. Sending circulars for lawn-care products, say, to people with ”Apt.” after their street addresses probably doesn’t make sense. — Stop employee abuse. An audit of outgoing mail at Time Inc. (publisher of FORTUNE) found that employees were mailing credit card, telephone, and utility bills at company expense — $70,000 a year in pirated postage. Two hundred purple invitations to a private social event of indeterminate nature also were intercepted. — Educate. ”Everybody dumps on mailrooms,” says Gary Bailey, Simon & Schuster’s mail boss. But in fact many abuses can be traced to higher-ups. An executive at one company had told his secretary to paste 90 cents’ postage on all first-class letters. Why? ”They get there faster,” he said. (They don’t.) Consider sending personnel to seminars. The U.S. Postal Service offers some for a nominal fee. Pitney Bowes gives a course on mailroom management for $600 a student. — Cut overnight express. Customers regularly underestimate what they spend by a factor of three. Consultant Phil Binkow, whose company, PayTech, helps cut these charges, advises seeking competitive bids. Marriott does and saves $1 million a year. Bank of America saves $4 million by comparison shopping and by restricting employee access to air bills. Make sure the things you are sending by courier absolutely, positively have to get there overnight. — Consider using an outside contractor. Companies that want to manage your mailroom for you include Pitney Bowes, Charles P. Young, Choice Courier, and Archer Services. They may not save you much money (expect no more than a 10% break on what you’re spending now), but they do wonders for how well you sleep. ”I pay a flat fee and have no worries,” says Gordon Satterley, office administrator for Patterson Belknap, a Manhattan law firm using Charles P. Young. One advantage is worker motivation: A messenger or mail clerk working for a contractor can rise to manage one mailroom, then go on to larger ones. — Capture Post Office discounts. With 800,000 employees, the Post Office has the same personnel problems you do and processes 40% of the world’s mail. It delivers in half a day what Federal Express does in a year. It needs all the help it can get and offers postal discounts to companies that presort outgoing mail, add bar codes, or use zip-plus-four (extra digits that direct the mail even more precisely than the basic zip code). What’s more, if you help the Post Office, you will feel like a good citizen. You’ll free Postmaster General Anthony Frank, former head of First Nationwide Bank, to concentrate on weightier matters, such as whether to issue an Elvis commemorative stamp. ”Do we show the fat Elvis or the thin?” he asks. ”The fat would need a bigger stamp.”
SCOTT
March 26, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I keep looking up this letter to show to people because I find it so funny.
I love this part:
Managing Northwestern students is kind of like herding cats. You can’t make people show up if they don’t want to.
I am a Northwestern student and my job is managing Northwestern students. And if those Northwestern students don’t show up to that job, we fire them.
Cary
February 14, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Seriously, Rena Behar, I don’t know you, but shut up. Now.
I lived in Bobb last year, and I always had problems getting my mail. Now I live off-campus, and I never have problems at all. If shipping services can get mail to off-campus residences without a problem, but the same services run into problems when it comes to delivering mail to dorms, the dorms are clearly at fault.
These problems are not necessarily reflections of mailroom employees’ work ethic (though they could be), but the fact that you’re laying some of the blame on dorm residents is simply ridiculous. Really, how could this be the student’s fault when this is a campus-wide problem?
And while you’re right that working in the mailroom shouldn’t be a student’s highest priority, I don’t see why you’re using this point to defend mailroom employees. In fact, it accomplishes the exact opposite. It merely shows that employees like you are not only late to work, but that you feel entitled to be late sometimes.
Seriously, are you an idiot? Because that has got to be the dumbest line of logic I’ve ever read. Unless someone in your family dies, there really are no excuses for not showing up to work on time. If a student consistently comes late to work, guess what? He or she should be fired. You should be fired. That’s how the world works. Schedule in advance, moron.
Stop bitching about your job. It’s not that hard. And while mailroom employees are not necessarily responsible for the inefficiency of campus mailrooms, there is obviously a problem here. The system is flawed, and something damn well needs to change.
A final point: Since you clearly have a problem with time management/showing up to work on time, maybe you should stop wasting your time by replying to every single reader comment with yet another sarcastic, self-righteous response. You already made your point with your piece, so shut up already.
Kate
February 14, 2009 at 7:01 pm
And by the way, I wouldn’t have made my comment so personal if you weren’t taking this whole thing so personally yourself. I glanced over a few of the reader comments above, and many of your peers make legitimate points. Most of these points don’t even attack you personally, so to respond to them with sarcasm or by dismissing them is disrespectful. You’re not really paying attention to what your readers are saying.
For example, I never once thought mailroom employees were stealing my stuff. I just think the system would benefit from some changes. And that’s what a lot of your readers are saying, as well. I think you owe it to some of your readers to respond with a little more grace.
But since you’re incapable of objectively reacting to some of your readers’ feedback, I felt you deserved a reader comment that sinks to your level. In fact, here’s a second.
Maybe you should take a tip or two from your editor-in-chief, Lisa Gartner. Look at how she responds to reader feedback. She notes that she’s taken the readers’ ideas into consideration/understands where they’re coming from, then she objectively (not vehemently) reiterates her own position.
Kate
February 14, 2009 at 7:19 pm