The Connecticut College Post Office operated in crisis mode at the beginning of this semester. After a decrease in staff that came with no technological upgrades, just a few mailroom employees struggled to manually process a record number of packages while also manning a counter that opened for just three hours a day.
While the student body received thousands of delivery notifications from carriers such as UPS, FedEx, and the U.S. Postal Service, nearly all packages went unsorted for days after their initial delivery. Even when packages were processed, mailroom staff and volunteers sometimes had difficulty locating items.
On multiple occasions, Vice President of Finance and Administration Richard Madonna could be seen working the counter. Multiple people familiar with the College Post Office said they have never seen a senior college administrator working in the mailroom.
Suzie Austin-Lesick, the only current mailroom employee to have worked in that office for more than four months, says that the mailroom “should never get this out of hand.” She said she could not recall a time during her five years at the College when mailroom staff could not process a package within a day of its delivery.
Austin-Lesick blames the increase in volume on the popularity of services like Amazon Prime, a paid subscription service that offers two-day shipping for many purchases. “Students want things instantly, so Amazon has really picked up their game.”
Director of Auxiliary Operations Merrill Collins, who oversees the Post Office, says the numbers “suggest an increase in packages this semester over other years.”
But further contributing to the Post Office’s backlog is an outdated processing system that relies on the manual identification of package recipients and the creation of paper notification slips.
Packages without box numbers on their shipping labels add minutes to processing time. A staff member must walk to an office computer and find a recipient’s box number by manually reading a shipping label and typing the recipient’s name into the CamelWeb campus directory.
They must then “code” both the package and a carrier-specific paper slip. This requires hand-writing a matching identifier on both items. Finally, mailroom staff distribute paper slips to individual mailboxes while organizing packages throughout the room.
The ritual is tedious and requires an understanding of the coding and package organization systems. Austin-Lesick says that with only a handful of staff members to do this job, human error could result in slowdowns or even misplaced items. “When there’s too much stuff going on, when you’re multitasking…you make mistakes.”
The College has yet to invest in any mailroom automation technology. Austin-Lesick says she has heard the idea mentioned before, but that people “weren’t as open to change.” Collins, who assumed the role of Auxiliary Operations director at the end of last semester, says she is not familiar with specific past efforts to implement new technology.
Many other colleges and universities use some form of the technology. At least eight out of the eleven NESCAC member schools send electronic delivery notifications to students living on campus.
Automation services can scan barcodes to identify the recipient from a package’s label. Kristin Ruth, a sales director at SqBx, a Phoenix-based company that sells package-scanning software, says scanning technology can “accommodate different barcode systems” used by carriers such as UPS, FedEx, and USPS. She says that organizations can link tracking information to institutional directories, making possible email or text notifications.
Collins says her office is now researching possible solutions, acknowledging that the Post Office’s current operation is “difficult with no automated system.” She has met with officials from other colleges and universities, including some from Rhode Island School of Design which she says has gone digital and eliminated mailboxes. Collins says she intends to implement a tracking and notification system. “The trend now is to get rid of boxes…that’s our question mark.”
Efforts by a frustrated student body and Student Government Association resulted in some students helping out at the mailroom counter. Collins confirmed that those students would be paid for their time.
By the end of September, the Post Office expanded its hours and hired more professional staff. Collins noted that student workers are now formal employees, saying they “give us more flexibility.”
But recent moves to increase hours and staffing come as the processing needs of an early-semester rush have largely vanished. In a late-September email to students, staff, and faculty, Collins noted that daily package counts have shrunk close to 200 packages. That’s just 20% of peak days during the first weeks of the semester.
Austin-Lesick says it’s unlikely for package counts to reach the late-August peaks again this academic year. “We don’t see the textbooks, the other stuff coming in anymore. Maybe we’ll get a lot on Halloween. You’d be surprised.” •
