Photo courtesy of Amanda Sanders.
If you walked into Cro this week you might have noticed the long line of students stretching all the way to Oasis, all desperately awaiting their mail. The Holleran Center set out granola bars and fruit snacks for students camped outside the mailroom doors, and the popular Instagram account @nescacbarstool published a video of the line that has reached over 10,000 views. Camels recounted tales of waiting for hours between classes and skipping lunch just for a possible chance to get books for class or a tapestry to decorate their new room, but many ultimately not even making it to the doorway of the mailroom before their next class.
This scenario may seem all too familiar. Every year in late August and early September the mailroom is overloaded with packages and severely understaffed. So what makes this year’s line different from
any other year? Aside from the 5% increase in packages from last year, on May 14th Merrill Collins, Director Of Auxiliary Operations sent an email announcing that they would be implementing a new system for package retrieval. This new method would rely on a digital system which uses a computer to log packages and send electronic alerts as both an email and text message to students who have packages waiting for them. Along with the use of the electronic system came a new policy: if you did not retrieve your package after ten days, your package would be sent back to the sender. “No packages have been sent back yet,” said Collins. The mailroom understands how these long lines are impacting student’s ability to get their mail, so packages will not be sent back until the volume of packages decreases. The intent behind sending packages back is not to punish students for not getting mail, but instead to absolve the mailroom of any responsibility for packages after a certain amount of time passes. “This new system saves students time and has produced overall savings for the college,” affirmed Col- lins. In previous years, Conn’s package system depended on manual identification and the use of paper notification slips. Without the exact knowledge of when their packages had arrived at the mailroom, long lines were avoided until one finally checked their mailbox and saw a paper slip. At no point were packages sent back.
The mailroom is currently staffed by a total of 12 individuals. The only full-time employee is Judy Teel, the post office supervisor hired in November of 2018. As a result, this is her first year experiencing the mailroom during the August and September rush, and she’s still adjusting to the new system as well as the increased volume of packages during this period in comparison to the rest of the year. At the beginning of the semester, the mailroom had two part-time employees and hired three additional employees later on. These employees are not students and are mostly formerly retired postal employees. “We are still considering hiring more help,” said Collins. In response to the lack of staff on September 4th, SGA sent out an email that stated that the mailroom was interested in hiring students. They later corrected themselves, saying the email was inaccurate. Currently, the mailroom has two active student employees and has hired six total. This is the second year that the mailroom has had student employees and the need for them appears to change as the volume of packages shifts as well.
While the electronic system is expected to save students time, the one-student-at-a-time process has contributed to those extending lines in Cro. In making the process more efficient, the mailroom has ordered another scanner and expects it to be installed on September 23rd. Collins believes another factor playing a part in creating these lines is the Wednesday common hour when no one has classes. “Our students have similar breaks in their schedules, so that is naturally a busier time for claiming packages.” To remedy the long lines, the mailroom stayed open until 7 pm on September 4th to give students a wider window to receive packages, and additionally created a separate line for people receiving time-sensitive mail, like medication.
Many of the packages the Connecticut College post office receives come from Amazon. The shipping giant’s prime feature, which provides two-day shipping, has made it easy for students to get multiple packages at once, and the mailroom is working on a way to distinguish those packages from others. The school has ordered an Amazon locker at no additional cost to the College. These lockers now reside outside of the bookstore and are a place solely for incoming Amazon packages. “It is completely separate from the mailroom,” said Collins, and will shorten wait times drastically by providing students with 24/7 access to pick-up Amazon packages when they arrived at their intended destination, not in the College’s mailroom for processing.
Employees at the post office are expecting the lines to diminish as the school year goes on. As we all know, to quote @nescacbarstool, “no mail is worth waiting in this line.” •
