Student employees at UCLA’s Housing Mail Center sort and distribute everything Bruins receive, from musical instruments to couches to electric scooters.

Arianna Benton, a third-year English student, said she has been a mailroom clerk since fall 2023. Benton and the other “blue polo” workers spend their morning shifts auditing metal racks of packages left from previous days and meeting mail carriers as they arrive with around 1,500 new deliveries every day.

“Grab a package, scan the barcode – got to make sure you’re doing the right one – type in the name, make sure it matches with your number and enter it in,” Benton said. “Print the label, in the bin – rinse and repeat.”

UCLA’s mailroom, which serves residents of the Hill, has been in Delta Terrace since it was built at a cost of $2.3 million in 2013. The mailroom is set to move to a larger space as part of a planned campus housing capacity expansion, Assistant Director of Housing Services Melissa Faybik said at a recent town hall meeting.

Peter Dominguez, the mail center manager for housing and operations, said his staff consists almost entirely of student employees who take on everything from entry-level roles to supervisory positions. Members of his staff also document large-scale deliveries and pickups for dining halls and dorm buildings, and they help residents recover improperly labeled or missing items, he said.

With over 14,000 students living on campus, according to UCLA Housing, complications can vary – and each delivery comes with its own set of circumstances. Sadie Larios, a mail center student supervisor, said she searches for so-called “problem packages” from her computer, which sits on a counter piled with lists and spreadsheets.

“Everything that gets highlighted is something I need to look for,” said Larios, a third-year English student. “This (package) was supposedly missing, but it’s my job to go through the packages, and I actually was the one who found this package.”

Larios started her job as a “blue polo” at the mail center the summer before her freshman year. She said her habit of asking “a million questions” led to her promotion in a workplace where it’s important to always know what’s going on.

Benjamin Lim, a second-year political science student who was hired last quarter, said he originally found the sheer volume of mail to be daunting but became comfortable with the process as he learned on the job. Elijah Gordon, a first-year sociology student, also said he had to balance the variety of deliveries with the needs of people ordering them.

“The most common question is, ‘I got an email from my carrier but haven’t gotten an email from you guys – is my package here?’” Gordon said. “The answer to that is, ‘No,’ because if you have not received an email from the mailroom, then your package is not here.”

First-year economics student Anthony Wu said he picked up his first high-quality guitar from the mail center after three years of learning to play on a beginner instrument, adding that the mailroom increased his ability to access what he needed.

“I don’t even know where I would buy a guitar in person,” Wu said. “It’s really hard as a first-year – probably take public transportation for an hour to get somewhere that sells a guitar.”

Dominguez said watching students receive long-awaited deliveries is one of his favorite parts of the job, especially when he is able to help international students find care packages and letters from their families back home. Student employees also said working at the mail center helped change their habits and perspectives on online delivery.

“It’s a given that everyone is sending their stuff here – they’re coming from out-of-state or international students,” said third-year psychology student Chizi Oranu, who’s been a mailroom clerk for over a year. “But I feel like working in the mailroom, it shows how much overconsumption is plaguing our society.”

Second-year anthropology student Punthea Seng, who started working in the mail center last quarter, also said she found the amount of small objects arriving in large plastic packages to be “grotesque,” especially when the same products were available to buy within walking distance of campus. Seng said more Bruins should instead visit local stores.

No matter how mail center employees viewed different aspects of the job, almost everyone emphasized the importance of the people they worked alongside. Gordon, Lim and Benton recounted running jokes and interactions with co-workers, such as pushing through the move-in rush of air purifiers and fridges or having to correct tens of boxes accidentally given the exact same tracking number.

Working at the mail center comes down to one’s ability to pay attention to thousands of deliveries, pickups and personalized messages, Larios said.She added that the amount of work required means that employees arrive over five hours before the center opens for pick-up. Larios added that she hopes residents will realize the mail center’s staff are students with midterms and papers in addition to their work responsibilities. Gordon also said he hoped other students and classmates would recognize the amount of people and organization that went into finding and logging packages and ensuring everyone’s deliveries were processed on time.

“Every day we come into work, we greet each other and we unpack packages onto the racks,” he said. “It’s a smooth job that takes us day-by-day, and we go forward every day.”

Contributing reports by Patrick Woodham, Daily Bruin contributor.