Love it or hate it, the wesstation and the package center are integral parts of the Wesleyan experience. And it just got a lot easier, although not necessarily more efficient, to receive your packages. As you have probably noticed, wesstation and the package center have consolidated into a spiffy, newly renovated centralized space in the Usdan basement. Wesstation took over the old package center and the package center moved next door to B22, formerly a music practice room.
To find out more about the new consolidation, I sat down with Danielle Salafia, a postal clerk who has worked at Wes for almost 17 years. The following is a shortened version of our interview:
Bubblewater: Tell me about the new package center.
Danielle: We used to be across the hall in B23 which used to be the music room. We switched with them. We got a smaller space… we needed a bigger space but we ended up with a smaller space for the package system. We ended up moving the post office downstairs. So we put more in a smaller space. We really didn’t gain any extra room. We have gotten a lot of complaints from students because when I’m down here running the post office window I can’t be upstairs stuffing mailboxes. When the post office window was upstairs I was able to stuff mailboxes and work the window at the same time. So there is a significant delay in students receiving the mail in their mailboxes.
Danielle Salafia, a postal clerk who has worked at Wes for almost 17 years
Bubblewater: Why did you move?
D: We were told we were moving down here. My opinion, we are better off being on the main floor where everyone is. If students have wesbox problems we can help them right away. Being down here I can leave and go upstairs to help them. It causes a delay in their mail getting put in their boxes.
Silvia Diaz-Roa ’15, a student worker at the package center, thinks otherwise: “It feels like we have more space even though technically it’s less because now we have three package processing computers instead of one and all the package and mail is condensed into one area,” which streamlines the process.
Bubblewater: How much mail do you receive a day?
D: 1000 packages a day between UPS, USPS FedEx and FedEx ground and DHL. And the regular post office, they come with bags and bags full of packages also. And then we get our regular mail that we have to sort down either via departments or the wesboxes upstairs. So they come here, we sort through them, we put them in one bin, and then we sort them in a smaller number in sequence… The amount of mail and packages that come into such a small area is quite overwhelming at times. We trip over our own feet sometimes.
Bubblewater: What do you if there is no wesbox number on the mail?
D: They get put aside, which causes a delay for students getting their packages and physically their mail. Somebody needs to sit down at the computer and look it up. As you can see, we are all pretty busy and stay busy so it could take a couple of days before this gets looked up, depending on how busy we are. Obviously the stuff that is properly addressed gets more precedence over the other stuff.
PSA: You can find your wesbox number at ePortfolio –> Academic Career –> Student Profile.
While I wouldn’t mind if the standard annoyances that end up in my wesbox–Dominos coupons, Ucab events– were a little late, it turns out the wesbox number actually makes a difference for the important stuff, like Amazon Prime packages, textbooks from texts.com or your mother’s loving care package. Despite inconveniences, let’s just be happy we don’t have to share mailboxes.