More is going on behind the scenes of TU’s mail room than some may realize.
Everyone gets mail at some point. Maybe you order a cool new gadget on Amazon or your mother sends you a care package for finals week. Regardless of what you’re waiting to receive, the place you’ll have to go is the TU Mail Room.
I have been a work study at the TU mail room in ACAC since the start of this academic school year. And I absolutely love my job. I love the people I get to work with, and I love when I get to see my friends, or even meet new people as they come to pick up their packages. But I think what a lot of students, and even faculty, fail to realize, is how much goes on in this little corner room.
Every morning, under the supervision of the amazing Weldon Hurd, package scanner extraordinaire Leah Leffingwell arrives to campus before most students are even awake and gets the mail room set up for a day of receiving and delivering packages. We receive mail from seven different delivery companies, including UPS, DHL and FedEx. For USPS, the wonderful Kenny Byerly, with the help of the terrific Marcoe Holmes and eclectic newbie Mark Mayer, drive out to the post office every morning and load typically hundreds of packages into carts, which they then unload and wheel into the mailroom where Leah and I are waiting. And then the sorting begins.
We separate boxes from flats, sort departmental and student mail, PMB packages, etc. Then we individually scan in each package, using the appropriate barcode which varies depending on carrier, and we type in the last name of each person – you know, when people bother to put their names on their orders instead of just leaving it blank or as “Valued Customer” It’s not that we don’t want to find your package, but if your name isn’t on it, we can’t possibly know who it goes to.
And another note, your address is not 800 S. Tucker Dr. That is the address OF THE ENTIRE CAMPUS. I promise you, you cannot, nor do you want to be, everywhere on this campus at the same time. I know sometimes running around and being a busy college student feels like you’re in ten places at once, but your permanent address has not moved with you.
If you’ve moved, we have your new on-campus address in the system before you’ve even unpacked, so when you come to get a package, make sure to tell us the most current address you’re residing at.
Please be courteous. If you see anyone in the mailroom scanning, writing and clearly doing something, do not walk up to the window and immediately yell out your room number. This room is not your personal post office. We will be with you as soon as we can. I promise you that every individual employed in the mail room strives to make sure that the items you are searching for get to you as efficiently as humanly possible.
We also treat you with the utmost respect, because that is what every human deserves. We ask that you please do the same. If you can see that there is a long line behind you of people who are in the same busy boat as you and have very little time to accomplish things outside of their education, please make your pick-up process as painless to yourself, us and them as possible. All you need when you come to the mailroom is: 1. Your TU student ID (or some other type of photographic identification), 2. Your most current on-campus address, 3. The number of emails you received specifically from the TU mailroom (one email per package). Not an email from Amazon or UPS saying that your package was delivered, because it very well may be delivered to the city of Tulsa, but anyone who has come by the mailroom before 2 p.m., knows that we could build several castles out of the numerous boxes we process every single day. So please be patient as we make our way through the packages as quickly as we can.
To the students and faculty who continuously let us know how much you appreciate us, the feeling is mutual. Thank you for the cookies from Merritt’s right before you graduate, the handmade Christmas ornaments, the loaves of homemade pumpkin bread that you made in your dorm right before Thanksgiving, and the kind everyday conversations. We are here to help you get what you need. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. through 5 p.m..
