Lafayette College\u2019s post office was held up processing deliveries to begin the fall semester, causing multiple students to experience delays in receiving textbooks, class materials and other supplies.<\/p>\n
The mailroom processed more than 4,600 packages in a single week at the beginning of the semester, according to Dave Huber, the manager of Mail and Print Services.<\/p>\n
\u201cScanning and sorting that volume takes several days, including evening and weekend shifts, and the team was able to catch up over the weekend,\u201d Huber wrote in an email. He added that the surge in deliveries was \u201cconsistent with prior years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aubrey Schneider \u201829 said multiple packages she ordered arrived on Aug. 24, but she did not receive emails notifying her packages were ready for pickup until Aug. 27 and 28.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Schneider said she went to the post office and asked whether employees could find a specific package prior to it being processed. She said her delivery contained books she needed for class.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said that unfortunately they couldn\u2019t,\u201d she said. \u201cI totally get it. I mean, if it hasn\u2019t been organized, but I was going a little bit crazy being like, \u2018I know it\u2019s back there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Students in history professor Allison Schmidt\u2019s class also experienced delays in acquiring required texts. Schmidt expressed understanding for the mailroom \u201cjust trying to do their jobs\u201d in an email. She added that the backup was \u201cdistressing\u201d to students but part of \u201ca broader trend of professors requiring students to have physical books, probably in response to exhaustion from distracting technology in the classroom<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know that Temple University is having similar issues with mailroom backup, so it\u2019s not just here,\u201d Schmidt wrote.<\/p>\n Megan Hayes \u201829 said she experienced similar delays to Schneider. Her Amazon packages arrived at the post office before she moved in on Aug. 22, but she could not retrieve them until roughly a week later.<\/p>\n \u201cMy sheets had just gotten here like two days ago, which was really frustrating,\u201d Hayes said, calling the delay \u201cdefinitely annoying.\u201d She added that she has shipped \u201csome stuff\u201d to an off-campus address where a friend lives.<\/p>\n Other students approached by The Lafayette described delays as minor or insignificant.<\/p>\n \u201cBased on past semesters, volume and turnaround are expected to be back to normal within the next week,\u201d Huber wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lincoln Tripp \u201830 was able to pick up his Amazon package, which arrived at the mailroom on Wednesday, by Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the beginning of the year I assumed it would be kind of bad,\u201d Tripp said. \u201cBut it hasn\u2019t been too bad at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Huber encouraged students to retrieve packages promptly after receiving a notification from the mailroom, writing that \u201ctimely pickup keeps locker turnover and overall processing moving faster.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lafayette College\u2019s post office was held up processing deliveries to begin the fall semester, causing multiple students to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-278834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}