Source: My UM

We all know how receiving a beautiful postcard from afar when we least expect it, or a holiday card from a friend that adds to the joy, or a letter of encouragement when we are going through a rough patch, can brighten our day. Currently there are no post offices and no postmen on the campus. It is thanks to the thoughtful service provided by the Mail Dispatch Centre (MDC) under the Campus Services Section (CS) that every UM member is able to receive their mail promptly. In a way, the MDC is like UM’s own private post office. Let’s take a look at how it works.

UM’s Private Post Office

The MDC is located on the ground floor of the University Mall (S8-G010). Although small in size, the MDC is responsible for providing the bulk of mail services for UM members. ‘What we did on the old campus was that we put the mail on the (CS)’s counter in the Silver Jubilee Building, and the various departments would collect the mail by themselves,” says Tobe, who has been working in the CS for many years, responsible for mail services. “The new campus is much bigger and it’s not as convenient to have the different departments collect the mail by themselves, so we launched a new delivery service.’ Ensuring prompt and error-free delivery of newspapers, magazines, documents, and letters to UM members on a campus 20 times larger than the old one, is a test of Tobe and her colleagues’ ability.

Best Partners in Mail Delivery

Lo Son Tak and Lou Kuong In, both of whom have been working at UM for more than 30 years, are best partners in mail delivery. They enjoy the kind of mutual understanding and rapport that is only found in people who have worked with each other for a long time.  Monday through Friday, a driver colleague will drive the two, along with bags of documents, to different buildings along a fixed delivery route.

Lou is approaching retirement age, and a bigger campus means increased workload. But being an optimist by nature, he doesn’t seem to mind at all. ‘With a bigger campus, it is only natural that there would be some change in the work procedure,’ he says. ‘It’s true that our everyday work now involves more walking, but I think of it as an opportunity to exercise more to keep me fit and healthy.’ The day of our interview was the first working day after a public holiday, and we saw Lo carefully checking and sorting the mail to be delivered. ‘We need to be extra careful after each public holiday because of the large quantities of documents and newspapers that accumulated over the holiday,’ Lo says.

Who’s Piggy?

Each residential college has its own system for delivering the mail received from the CS. Mail for residents of the Postgraduate Houses is distributed by the Student Resources and Services Section (SRS). SRS colleagues and House Tutors would check the addresses and recipients’ names for accuracy before depositing the mail into the mailbox. ‘Some postcards, apparently from the recipients’ lovers, only show an affectionate nickname, such as Piggy, or My Love, which would cause us some difficulty in identifying the recipients, but it was also cute,’ says Lucus Ho from the SRS.

List of Undeliverable Mail

Mail with wrong addresses or recipients’ names will be returned to the CS. To make sure nobody misses their mail, the MDC keeps a record of returned mail, which includes the recipients’ names, how the mail was handled, etc. ‘We often receive mail addressed to someone who is neither a staff member nor a student at UM, and in these cases we need to check the record of all the old letters we handled, and sometimes it turned out the addressee is a colleague’s family member,’ says Tobe. Every two weeks the CS will upload a list of undeliverable mail to its website. If UM members identify their mail in the list, they can go to the MDC (S8-G010) to collect the mail.

Currently the mail services provided by the MDC are mostly of an administrative nature, and some services, such as collection and mailing of personal registered mail and parcels, are not available. ‘Parcels involve postage and checking of the content, which concerns privacy, so only a real post office can provide this service,’ says Tobe. ‘There will be a post office on the new campus in the future to provide more convenience to UM members.’

 

Every Mail Has a Story

Niki Chen　FAH

Once, Nicky saw a post about hot pots by one of her friends in Shantou on WeChat’s Moments. She left a message saying that beef meatballs in Shantou are really tasty; could the friend please mail some to her? ‘I only said it in jest, but guess what! She really mailed some to me,’ Nicky exclaims.

Lesley Lee  FSS

The most touching postcard message Lesley has received was from Naomi, whom she met during her exchange trip in the United States. ‘I hope you have a Valentine’s Day where you feel blessed even without any blessing,’ the postcard read. ‘We were both going through a rough patch in our love lives, and so we understood each other’s pain and tried to be there for each other,’ says Lesley. ‘And we have remained good friends ever since.’