The campus mailroom may be an enigma to students struggling to open their boxes or frantically searching for a specific package. The women who operate the mail room, however, deal with almost 6,000 mailboxes a day, including Mane Card requests and opening mailboxes themselves.

Postal clerk Jan Hurst said both students and faculty frequently need procedures and regulations read back to them, such as including the box number on the return or delivery address.

“We have 5,704 student boxes, 74 department boxes and 163 faculty boxes,” Hurst said. “When we receive a package or letter where someone has listed their address as 1 Harrison Plaza, we have to return it. The reason everyone has a box number is because that box is unique to them.”

Like Hurst, student workers Stephanie Mullins, Annemarie Stanfield and Jessica Warren frequently have to assist students and faculty with order and mailbox issues, teaching along the way.

“Every day we have to give directions on how to address a letter,” Mullins said. “I would say we have to repeat regulations like needing a Mane Card or sending letters about 25 times a day. As far as opening mailboxes, we try not to just do it for them. We try to teach them.”

The beginning and end of the semester show dramatic differences as far as needs of assistance go, said postal clerk Linda White.

“At the beginning of the semester we have to open about 20 to 30 mailboxes a day,” White said. “Toward the end of the semester it goes down to about five times a week.”

While coupons and letters are abundant, packages are carried in by the cartful each day, Hurst said. International students are the primary package receivers, with the second being student workers, she said.

“We get probably 60 to 70 packages a day,” White said.

Those packages aren’t always what you would expect, Hurst said.

“We’ve gotten frogs before for the Biology Department,” Hurst said. “They come in clear containers so you can see all of the holes in them.”

Student packages and interesting letters always make for a story, Mullins said.

“I remember a girl one time wanted to mail a letter and her panties fell out of the envelope,” Mullins said. “We’ve had packages leak and dealt with unusual odors. We’ve also had people request their luggage. We learned they meant packages.”