Where's Waldo? or the Fall Certificates?

Where's Waldo? Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? I Spy? 

WHERE ARE THE CERTIFICATES?

An introductory note from the director:

Our committee hails from coast to coast and states between. In this virtual environment, we can work from anywhere, and always have. So, when the registrar, Zachary Hamilton, recently relocated to the midwest, took on the task of printing, stuffing, and mailing certificates last fall we didn't expect any challenges. Nor did we expect to be chasing down lost certificates in mid-January. Yet, here we are. 

Truly, you just can't make this stuff up!

Thanks Zachary, for finding and sharing the "rest of the story."

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We have grown concerned over the past few weeks about the certificates for SLIG Virtual 2021. We expected them to take a minute to arrive. Who wouldn't when they were sent amid the holidays? But the further we ventured into January, the more concerned we became. 

Location! Location! Location!: The mailing of certificates took place from Missouri. And not just anywhere in Missouri, a very very very small town Missouri. The population of the closest town to our Registrar (Zachary) was 226 people in the 2020 census, and the entire county hosts roughly 7,500 people. 

While there is a lot to be said about small-town life, apparently the smooth operation of the United States Postal Service is not one of them...

Timing is Everything: Certificates for Virtual went out in three batches. Two of the batches (containing the bulk of courses) were sent the week following Thanksgiving and the following week in early December. The last batch of certificates went out closer to Christmas due to a flaw in the printing: a psychedelic warped corner that made a better kaleidoscope than a professional certificate. 

All of these were taken to Zachary's close-by small town USPS branch with no knowledge of what was to come.

Investigation Begins: After weeks of waiting and wondering, and plenty of concerned emails and messages, Zachary went searching.

A truly small town: A call to the local USPS office that accepted the certificates found that – bad news piece number one – the certificates had not left when expected. The small-town branch apparently operates on old and sometimes malfunctioning equipment; large envelopes are often difficult for the machines. 

This results in such items being stockpiled and then taken (often a week or two later) to the larger post office in the nearby city of Springfield, Missouri. 

Not like the registrar wouldn't have been happy to drive the certificates to Springfield himself (~50 min drive) had he been informed!

Big City for the Holidays: So it appears that the certificates were bundled and taken to the "big city" about 2 weeks after they had been originally dropped off, and right in the heaviest part of the Christmas shipping season. The last batch was not delivered until early January. 

Did they go out? Sadly, the story doesn't end there.

Stuck in a Storage Room: As can sometimes happen around the end of the year (look up the horror stories online), the certificates were placed aside for "later shipping" in a storage room. And there they sat, and sat, and sat. 

Until Detective Zachary spent his breaks at SLIG working with the postal service to track them down. Days went by as the USPS searched and searched. 

Alas, as we were wrapping up SLIG, the news came in: the elusive certificates were nicely stacked and forgotten on the back of a shelf in a storage room.

On the Road Again: And now, another holiday over, the certificates should be making their way to students homes. 

Hopefully we never again have to play "Where's Waldo?" with your important mail!