Post Office Flooded With Beginning-of-Year Packages
In recent years, the mailroom has seen an unmanageable increase of package deliveries. Two weeks before classes even started, staff members constantly worked to maintain order in a growing pile of deliveries. Now, when early morning classes are dismissed and swarms of students enter P.O., these employees have to sift through deliveries from the morning and days beforehand.
“A few packages are fine here and there, but don’t send your whole room,” Joseph Goudreault, PEA mailroom supervisor, warily joked. Everyday, the mailroom receives and sorts anywhere from 200 to 300 packages. In order to adjust to the rate of growth over the past two to three years, they have added additional mailroom hours and hired additional part time employees. “We’re learning how to make things run smoother at the right times and have people in place to do the right thing,” Goudreault said.
From Aug. 1 to Aug. 31, a total of 24 working days, there was an average of 250 mail flats, flyers, magazines and large envelopes delivered daily. There were about 500 United States and international letters and around 64 boxes and packages per day. From Sept. 1 to Sept. 15, the average number of boxes shipped daily continued to rise to almost 250. This data did not even include packages moved between departments on “daily courier runs, other internal distributions or daily transactions.”
“It seems every time we turn around, there are more packages being delivered on our dock.”
Lower Ursula Sze said that she ordered items to the mailroom so often last year that the employees knew her name. However, she did not order anything to Exeter over the summer, explaining that if she wanted to order something, there was no need to send it to school and wait an entire summer. “I just get things I need when school starts or go to Target,” she said.
On the other hand, Upper Alex Brufsky had a dozen packages delivered to him over the past two weeks. “I was excited to receive my packages, and when P.O. notified me, I went to get my package as soon as I could,” he said. “To be honest, I did not know that the P.O. was having trouble. I do feel bad partially,” he said, acknowledging the trouble that the staff experienced. “But it is the job of the post office to try to anticipate the flow and act accordingly.”
Goudreault emphasized that the facility that students nicknamed P.O. is not a post office but a mailroom at the Academy. “We resemble a P.O.; we look like a post office. But, we can only do limited services and sales here,” he said. Unlike other departments, only cash sales are permitted. The box number is assigned at the beginning of the academic year is a PEA number — a subset of the post office at 20 Main Street.
He continued to explain that one of the major issues that the staff runs into is the mislabeling of packages. Misinformation ranging from students with the same names, the names of parents, packages with no name or box and outdated box numbers only seem like a minor inconvenience to students. However, when a number of packages are not addressed properly, the staff spends much more time on an issue that could be easily solved when students take an extra moment to check the address before shipping while online shopping.
Perishable packages bring up another concern for the staff, as the mailroom does not have any way to store goods that are likely to expire without refrigeration. They coordinate with the staff in Grill by sending the packages before the mailroom closes. Afterwards, they let students know through email to pick up his or her perishable package at Grill before 10 p.m. at night. However, this configuration is not completely effective because they sometimes receive the perishables shortly before closing time and must choose between staying late and ensuring the items’ quality.
The mailroom now gets packages from the post office on Sundays because there was such an increase in volume. The post office delivers on Sunday, and when the staff come in on Monday morning, they sort and deliver around 40 to 50 packages that were held in a storage room overnight.
Packages come in during all hours of the day. “It seems every time we turn around, there are more packages being delivered on our dock,” Goudreault said. He hoped to work with the students in understanding that every package is important, but the mailroom should not be used as a storage room. Students received reminders through email and the packaging slips they found in their P.O. boxes. He explained that after three weeks of sending second and third notices and notifying the adviser of the students, they send the overdue package to an off-site storage where additional payment is required.
The mailroom opens at 8 a.m. until about 10 minutes before four in the afternoon, with the exception of Sundays. Goudreault encouraged students to pick up packages during Saturday morning, adding that it is still open on Saturdays with classes.
While most students believe the P.O. staff only interact with them in the Academy Center, Goudreault explained that their job also includes “interoffice transactions between departments.” They travel around campus twice each day in a mailroom van to the Alumni Office, Davis Center, Lamont Health and Wellness Center, Love Gym, Bissell House and the accounting offices.
Acknowledging the obstacles that the staff must deal with everyday, students expressed appreciation for the efficiency and helpfulness of the mailroom. Upper Ellianne Lee said that she loves ordering things online, and after two days since returning to campus, she picked up her packages and the mailroom employees were extremely helpful.
Goodreault hopes that P.O. can continue its role in Exeter student life, but needs students to help free up valuable space in the mailroom for future shipments.
“Ordering packages has gotten so much easier, but it’s at a point where we’re going to need to stop receiving [packages], because we have so much coming in…we can’t make it happen until students can work together with us to get them out.”