The Mail Room
Friday, January 22, 2010 at 8:00AMPeople say you’re only as strong as you’re weakest link. To me, that’s like saying the glass is half empty. You are only as strong as your STRONGEST link, people, and today, we’re highlighting the strongest link in our team: Rodney Williams, Senior Mail Clerk in Special Operations.
Rodney officially “works” in the mail center – his desk is there, his computer is there – emails pile up there, but every time I’ve seen him, he is far from the mail room. His job description is hard to summarize, and “a day in the life” is different from one to the next. Responsible for the inbound and outbound volumes of mail for four floors of our building, Rodney’s job is not to be taken lightly.
It would be easy to imagine his job in a universally-designed, well marked spacious office environment. However, we work in the Flatiron Building in New York City.
While it gives us all a great sense of history and culture to walk down the hallowed halls each day, it makes for an adventure when trying to assemble and ship any of the number of mailings we are responsible for. Our hallways our narrow, and maneuvering them alone, nevermind with a cart filled with incoming and outgoing packages, is quite tricky.
So in short, it is Rodney’s responsibility to not only deliver and confirm delivery of said books – in specific amounts to specific departments at specific times, but to make sure what we want sent out actually gets there, and how! Rodney arrives each day at half past 6. His first assignment: sorting through the piles of mail that the USPS has sent over to us earlier that morning. This task takes anywhere from an hour to two. After that – the real work begins. As a seasoned employee, he handles all of the batch mailings and international packages on top of the regular mail that is sent out. Whenever he is able, he sifts through his emails, runs packages up to different floors, and mainly fills his day providing the right answers to our many questions. He finishes around 5:30 – to leave for a messenger service gig that he starts at 6pm. This job, he says, can last well into the night (and sometimes even the wee hours of the morning!). Rodney’s work doesn’t end at 5:30 on Friday – typically, or 98% of the time, Rodney checks in on the weekends, to tie up loose ends, work through larger issues that may have come up during the week, provide support to our office services team, and prepare for Monday. Because in the mail world, Monday always comes with a vengeance.
This week, our hats go off to Rodney, for making this place run a lot more smoothly.
Reader Comments (2)
Hats off to Rodney! That's an important job and one that's rarely thought of. Thank you Rodney for delivering everything so we have great books to read!
Rodney is the man...wouldn't know what I'd do without him...likely never get one piece of publicity placed anywhere, ever, THAT'S how important he is!!!