Lockers cleared...

An Mac Tíre

Is it just my own email failing miserably again (that happens to me a lot with my DCU email) or did nobody else get emailed about the lockers being cleared? I went to get my stuff from mine today having figured I probably left stuff in there only to see they'd been cleared since about a month ago! Now I know on this page it says the 1st of July, but it also says adequate notice will be given, and seeing as I got no email, I reckon I wasn't exactly "adequately notified"!
http://www.dcu.ie/info/lockers.shtml

Anybody get an email about this or is the signs on the lockers themselves (which actually don't have 1st of July on them, rather 26th June) supposed to be adequate notice for those of us who aren't in DCU much after May?

Kavrocks

I don't remember an email about it. Adequate notice isn't clearly defined so it could be argued a sign on the lockers is adequate notice.

An Mac Tíre

Kavrocks wrote: »

I don't remember an email about it. Adequate notice isn't clearly defined so it could be argued a sign on the lockers is adequate notice.

I suppose it could be but I thought the point of a notice is that you notice it:P Bits of paper on a locker some miles away in a college on summer break is not the best way to inform people really. I got lucky, I forgot that I had indeed actually cleared it out a while ago.
On my way out just 30 minutes ago I saw a guy from estates in X with a bolt cutters, a basket full of snipped locks, and a shopping trolley overflowing with bagged items from people's lockers!

Might email estates there saying they should probably email out a reminder about it in future. Lots of wasted €10 on students' parts on locks, never mind the potentially valuable stuff in the lockers.

I can only hope he had those bags numbered with what stuff was in what locker so some of the unfortunate people can get their things back and that it's not being binned. Having had the shock that thats what happened to my stuff, I feel for ye lads who had lockers in X and didn't empty them! Reckon I saw a few lab coats, shoes including football boots, and a hell of a lot of folders of notes in those bags.

robby^5

An Mac Tíre wrote: »

I suppose it could be but I thought the point of a notice is that you notice it:P Bits of paper on a locker some miles away in a college on summer break is not the best way to inform people really.

There's a deadline in place all year round of July 1st, ignorance of that deadline isn't an excuse really. They said nothing about emailing you to let you know when they're clearing them out. I would think that a notice on the locker is enough so that people who actually still use the lockers until July 1st are made aware that the deadline is approaching and that anybody who isn't around to see the notices is assumed to have abandoned whatever they have left in their locker.

An Mac Tíre wrote: »

Might email estates there saying they should probably email out a reminder about it in future. Lots of wasted €10 on students' parts on locks, never mind the potentially valuable stuff in the lockers.

Anything truly valuable left in a locker past the clearance deadline just highlights the irresponsibility of the owner.

An Mac Tíre wrote: »

I can only hope he had those bags numbered with what stuff was in what locker so some of the unfortunate people can get their things back and that it's not being binned.

I think it'd be a lot to ask for DCU to store the contents of those lockers over the summer. How do they determine what is rubbish and what is not? A pair of football boots could be old and not wanted any more, same for folders of notes which a student might not need any more. It'd make what is essentially a menial task of preparing the lockers for the next year much more arduous for the cleaners.

An Mac Tíre

Wee bit on the harsh side don't you think robby^5 ?
An email would take a minute to write and could remind somebody who perhaps has a lot on their mind (say for example, exams) not to forget their stuff before returning home to parts local, national, or abroad as they won't be able to get it back.

Not to mention it could be automated to be sent every year.
And surely an email asking folks to clear their locker and take their locks would reduce the workload of such a repetitive task?

I would say that locking something in a locker to which you have the only keys is not exactly abandonment either but you're right that after a certain point the lockers have to be cleared and cleaned for use next semester.

Fair enough storing huge amounts of stuff like that would be a pain, but I was speculating as to why they bagged each locker's contents individually and I came to that as a conclusion.

Not looking for an excuse, looking for a bit of a warning before stuff gets tossed. An email would save some hassle as I'm sure they'll get more queries about where stuff went than if they had taken a moment to ask people to sort it themselves with a more catch-all approach.

All in all debating it here won't do a darn thing though so don't take me seriously if you don't want to. You can be guaranteed that I don't! :P

robby^5

An Mac Tíre wrote: »

An email would take a minute to write and could remind somebody who perhaps has a lot on their mind (say for example, exams) not to forget their stuff before returning home to parts local, national, or abroad as they won't be able to get it back.

A mass email should take more than a minute to write to avoid mistakes which would require correction and duplicate emails. Sending out reminder emails isn't the modus operandi of estates. They rarely send out emails and whenever they do it's for something important like needing a car owner to come forward, fire alarms, road closures, safety on campus etc.

Sending out a reminder email would dilute the importance of the notifications they generally send us. For example I don't think an email from estates should ever start with "Apologies to the people that this does not concern" because any email from estates should concern all students.

An Mac Tíre wrote: »

And surely an email asking folks to clear their locker and take their locks would reduce the workload of such a repetitive task?

I wouldn't call it repetitive since they only do it once a year and it obviously isn't much hassle to them since they never do send out a reminder email. I would imagine they don't do this because it would probably cause them more hassle with people requesting extensions or temporary storage if they are abroad/at home and cant get to the university.

An Mac Tíre wrote: »

Not looking for an excuse, looking for a bit of a warning before stuff gets tossed. An email would save some hassle as I'm sure they'll get more queries about where stuff went than if they had taken a moment to ask people to sort it themselves with a more catch-all approach.

As above they'd be hassled either way so I think they take the most straightforward approach and toss everything as per the agreement the student enters into when they rent a locker. I would imagine that after more than a month that the majority of students will have reclaimed the contents of their lockers or just don't care about what's in them.

In the end they still have to go through each locker to clean them and perform maintenance so it would save them a minuscule amount of effort.