Since the beginning of time (or at least since 1994 when Amazon first opened their doors) we’ve had an uptick of mail at the end of our fiscal year here at WOU. Whether its spending down grant budgets or preparing for commencement activities, the University buckles down hard. During last year’s Spring Term, Mail Services took in, processed and delivered over 10,000 packages to employees and residents and sent out around 18,000 pieces of mail. This month marks my 18th End of Year here at WOU Mail Services, and over that time I’ve learned a thing or two that can make our processes easier. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already seen my email to campus with all of these listed, but this provides a more thorough (dare I say annoyingly exhaustive?) explanation of WHY I’m asking you to do these things. 

Hopefully you enjoy!

How to do Mail Things

1. Provide an index number for all shipments.

But why? (you might say) No one has ever asked me for one before when I sent mail!

Most of you are aware that I have almost all of the index numbers for mailing and shipping memorized; a handful of them haven’t changed since the creation of Banner. However, my students do NOT have them memorized because they have not been entering the same numbers into the system for the last 20 years. I have around 1500 active codes saved into my postage machine, and we’re lousy guessers, so please just help us out and put your index number on your mail. I don’t want the liability of assuming that I know which index you want to use and then discovering at the end of the month I was wrong and you’re mad at me!

• To save time, and prevent potential hand-cramps, stacks of envelopes can be grouped together (by rubber band or box) and labeled with a single sticky note if so desired.

• Please also note that an index number (format: BAO929) is not an account number (20101). We cannot charge account numbers, only index numbers.

(Side commentary: Yes, I remember when Banner was first widely implemented. Not well, but I do remember it. I also started school here before VNumbers existed, when the Library was located in the APSC building and remember when the Mailroom was assigned it’s first computer. ((sigh))

2. All shipments should have a complete address and include a return address

First, let’s address (LOL) the “complete address” issue.

A complete address includes the name of the recipient or receiving entity, an address line, city, state and zip code. “Why do I need to include a recipient name on the shipment?” you might be asking. “Won’t the Post Office accept a letter without a designated recipient?” The answer is a firm probably. Is this a good idea? NO. Here’s a hypothetical situation to explain why this is a bad idea.

Say you are sending a check to “Buffy Summers” and you figure that having her name on the check is good enough, so you address the envelope like this:

1630 Revello Drive
Sunnydale, CA 90123

You put it in the mail and as far as you know, everything is hunky dory until you get a call from Buffy a month later asking where her check is. Turns out that Buffy isn’t the only resident of 1630 Revello Drive (because this is Season 6 of BTVS) so Tara, Dawn, and Willow are also bunking with her. Therein lies the problem…

Now, we know that Willow has been struggling with her magic addiction for a while, and she’s gotten a little unreliable lately and it looks like she opened up that letter that you sent to Buffy; which she had every legal right to do so. After all, it was addressed to the entire house.

Now the check is missing, Buffy is angry at Willow because she thinks she might of tried to steal the check and Tara is trying to be patient with Willow, but she’s just about had it and now Dawn is upstairs in her room screaming at everyone to leave her alone…. and it all could have been avoided if you’d just put Buffy’s name on the envelope.

Granted, this usually doesn’t happen and if Willow wanted to actually steal the check there still would have been the pesky problem of it not being in her legal name, but she knows some pretty shady characters right now so….. who knows?

The morale of the story is that you can save yourself a little bit of a headache by putting the recipient’s full information on there. Also, it just looks more professional and complete.

Now we move on to the “Return Address” issue.

Will the Post Office take your letter/package if it doesn’t have a return address on it? Probably. Will it look less than professional? Absolutely. Also, here’s some problems that I’ve run into when sending or receiving mail that doesn’t have a return address.

• • If for whatever reason the shipment is refused or undeliverable, without a return address delivery will eventually be permanently paused by the Post Office and it will be stored indefinitely. To really drive the point home, here’s a video of what happens to undeliverable mail without a return address.

• • The recipient of the mail will be more likely to open it in a timely manner if they know who it’s from because they know what to expect and know that it is likely important. I have no scholarly research to cite on this but I’ve talked to people about it.

And by people I mean me.
I’m people.

• • The last reason might seem trivial, but it really isn’t- putting a return address on your mail just looks more professional when you have the institution’s name on it 🙂

In case I didn’t offer enough unnecessary commentary, you can see more specific tips and instructions on address formatting on my  website here.

Separate out all international mail

First: Letters

All international letters that weigh less than 3 ounces cost the same amount of postage (as of 5/4/2023 at least), so you don’t have to separate out between different countries- you just have to separate other countries from domestic mail (US territories and military bases are still considered domestic mail). You will also need to make sure that the destination country is on the envelope- this is how the automated system is able to sort, so if the country isn’t on the envelope it will likely be returned to us.

Second: Not letters

Anything that is not a letter or postcard is placed here. The only similarity they share to letters is that you still need to write out the recipient country; everything else is WAY more complicated and WAY more expensive, but fortunately for you I have 12 years of experience with complicated and expensive (note to self: call your husband after work and ask him if I can put a joke about him here.)! Just trust that I know what I’m doing, but if you *really* want to read more, check out my exhaustively researched (but poorly formatted) International Mail or Customs Information pages (also, just remember, I’m one person running this department and trying to keep up on the website. I’m not terribly good at the website thing so…)

All boxes should be fully packed by the sender

I don’t sell boxes or packing stuff, but I have a bunch of recycled/donated detritus that people are welcome to use. However, we’re not going to pack your shipment for you. For your shipment’s safety and your privacy we ask that all boxes be fully packed and prepared before being brought to the mailroom to be sent out. We have tape that you can use while you’re here as well.

Along those lines, I do take recycled packing supplies if you have an abundance you’d like to offload- it’s very handy for me to be able to give (nothing gets sold) them to people if they need them; especially as many students start sending things home ahead of them for the end of the school year. Contact me if you have any you’d like to donate to a worthy cause!

Almost done! Last but not least…..

Your mailing address is NOT your building address!!!!!!! 

Around 2019, the City/Post Office/EMS assigned individual physical addresses to each building. Please note that these are physical addresses only. All mail needs to still be addressed to WOU’s official (and USPS database authorized) address:

[Your Name/Department]
Western Oregon University
345 Monmouth Ave N
Monmouth, OR 97361

There are some very enterprising people out there on campus who have been kind enough to attempt to lighten the load on us in Mail Services by providing their direct (physical) building address to shippers- unfortunately this will slow down delivery of your goods exponentially, and depending upon the courier could get your shipment returned to sender (the deliver people that I work with on a regular basis kind of know what our stuff looks like so they’ll bring it to me to check if it’s ours before returning it to the sender most of the time.)

USPS maintains a database that is they use to confirm validity of addresses called the Address Management System (or AMS). The AMS Database keeps tabs on which places receive mail, which are just “mail drops”, which are bulk stops- which are actual post offices…. I could really nerd out now, but if you’ve made it this far in my rantings I think you’ve been through enough.