We Wanted To Share A Bit About The Package Room And The System The Volunteers Have Worked Out To Sort Deliveries

First it should go without saying, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to the volunteer team! These are 18 residents and Unit Owners who for several years have taken their own time to sort and organize packages without any compensation from the Association. They operate kind of like a Commission and have even made recommendations to the Board in the past about rules and procedures.

How do they do it? Well, they have a pretty smart process. It starts with a couple volunteers who routinely stop by the room at various times each morning to survey the space and see if any overnight deliveries come in. Following that, and throughout the day, several members check their EXACQ surveillance app, which includes a view of the room. (Click here for more about that: https://www.ptcondo.com/remote-camera-access/) Also, several volunteers watch for UPS, AMAZON and other delivery vehicles out their windows.

I spoke to Board Vice President Monique Fouant who kind of acts as the Board liaison for the volunteers. She said, “If we see something we group message each other and whoever is available comes down.” They then sort packages based on those that will fit on the shelves, in the bins or in the area designated for larger deliveries in front. They are marked with the unit number and date. Monique also mentioned that some delivery drivers have started sorting and placing packages themselves. She described it as a mixed blessing. “That can be a problem because they don’t mark the packages….Just today I found a package [marked for a unit on the 50th floor that was supposed to be for a unit on the 5th floor].” So each day, they are watching casually for anything that appears sorted but not marked.

They also watch for perishables and prescription deliveries which may need to go in the cooling-fridge. “If we get flowers, someone will let the front desk know – those are usually a surprise for the resident so they just tell them there is a delivery for  them,” Monique said.

She said that sometimes labels are wrong, or someone reads a unit number wrong and puts the wrong number on the package. Recently they found a package for someone on a completely different shelf than it should have been. “We do an audit every Sunday – we look at every package and double check the address and unit number, and make sure they’re in the right spot.” She said the acting group leader, Unit Owner James Jardine will send a message to everyone after the audit. A couple times recently, they found no errors. I spoke to Jim as well, who said, “This past Sunday we found two mistakes….When there is a mistake we will put a note in your mailbox.”

During the Sunday audit, they also survey for oversized and overdue deliveries. Management receives a list of packages that have overstayed the 30 day storage limit or oversized packages or perishables that have been there for longer than 3 days. Despite the 3 day limit, Jim told us, “Because we audit every Sunday some people get 7 days.” Once the office – usually Vanessa – receives the list our team reaches out to residents to communicate what the options are for those packages.

Monique said Jim has been great at communicating with their group. “Sometimes he will even put tips in his messages, like ‘look out for white boxes’!” Apparently a lot of times these white boxes contain prescription medicine that needs to be in the fridge.

Something Jim asked us to tell everyone – “We don’t process returns!” For anyone who puts a return on the table in the package room, the Association and volunteers do not do anything with these and there is no guarantee that the carrier will pick them up. Residents need to arrange pick of returns separately or drop them off at the appropriate location.

We do get reports of missing deliveries from time to time. Management will enlist the volunteers when they are able to help with these. We of course review surveillance and most times that does help us determine what happened. Sadly, a few times over the years we have had residents take packages that were not theirs. Most recently, last fall: https://www.ptcondo.com/package-room-thief-caught-and-arrested/

All in all the process works great. We receive mostly compliments from residents and Owners about the efforts of our volunteers, so we again express the Association’s thanks for the work they do.