Tight quarters, miserable weather and safety concerns have made mail duties unbearable, according to a Bakersfield College mailroom employee.

Grace Gastelum, a delivery clerk, said that temperatures during the summer reached sweltering peaks in the mailroom, which was moved earlier this year into a loading dock area behind the bookstore. The staff relied on fans and a humidifier to battle the heat due to lack of air conditioning, she said.

“This is not an office,” said Gastelum. “It was a dock converted into a warehouse.”

Although many employees did not want to be interviewed, a major issue mentioned was the health concerns of employees.

The mailroom is located in an area which leads into shipping and receiving. There is an adjoining dock with a rollup door that is often left open because of frequent deliveries. These deliveries usually end up in shipping and receiving and have to be walked through the mailroom to get there.

Mailroom employees do not handle any of the unloading but say they have to breathe the fumes coming from the trucks while the drivers unload and walk through their department into shipping and receiving.

While a heating and air unit does exist in the mailroom, very little air is produced.

Before the mailroom moved from the Student Services building to the bookstore, teachers voiced the concern about the loss of personal mailboxes. In the past, teachers collected their own mail. Now each piece is sorted and distributed to campus departments.

Employees in the mailroom said they have made numerous complaints regarding the conditions of the new location but have only been handed fans during the summer and portable heaters this fall to ease their misery.

Bookstore Director Robert Day said the safety of the students was the reason why the mailroom was moved from the Student Services building.

“There was a concern with all the traffic on campus,” Day said. “We had big trucks, mail trucks, UPS trucks, FedEx trucks (on campus).”

Day said he is aware of the staff complaints and said these issues have been brought up to the architect who designed the mailroom.

Bill Rush, BC director of facilities planning and construction management, said the mailroom was part of the bookstore project. Issues that have arisen from the renovation are being looked at now, he said.

“We currently have a mechanical engineer making a determination on the air unit,” said Rush.

Neither administrator could give a definite timeline on when the air unit would be fixed.