Welcome to Mailing List Removal Hell!

Hi, my name is Laura and I work in the mailroom of a very large corporation (which will remain un-named). I am in charge of sorting the mail for hundreds of people on a daily basis. Not only do the executives and their assistants get a barrage of catalogs mailed to them, but we also receive catalogs which are automatically addressed to their wives, sons, daughters, nannies, etc.. I used to deliver these catalogs (for the wives, daughters, etc) to the Executive Assistants, but recently found out that these catalogs never even made it past the EAs. They went straight into the recycling bin. I told the EAs that if they have any catalogs which they would like to have removed from the mailing list, please give them to me.

As I write this, I have a stack of about 400 magazines and catalogs that I am trying to get removed.

I have been working as a temp at the same company for the last 4 months, and plan to continue with this blog for as long as I'm here - and then possibly keep it up afterwards (not sure how long that will be since I don't receive that much junk mail at home). 

This is not the first time I've bein in Mailing List Removal Hell. I've worked at many other venture capital / private equity jobs as a receptionist, and typically, the receptionist is the person who handles the mail sorting (depending on the size of the company).   About a third of what people receive goes straight into the recycling bin - or worse yet, the trash.

I would like to do my part to help - if I can - to make it easier for people to remove their names from mailing lists. Therefore, I am creating a list of companies that I am removing from mailing lists, and noting how long it takes to get a name removed.

Sometimes, a company will make it very easy to get a name removed (top honors so far go to J. Jill... it took me under a minute to get a name removed). You would THINK that all companies should take less than a minute, but unfortunately this is not usually the case. Many companies don't bother to put the phone number on the back of the magazine, where it can easily be found.  Or sometimes when they do, it's in what looks like a 4 point font that can barely be read.  Or sometimes you have to dig through a magazine or catalog, only to be put on hold for ten minutes, until you can get ahold of someone who is willing to remove a name (and even then, you wonder if they really did remove it). What's the story, people? Can't we make this a little easier??

My plan is to contact Jerry Brown at some point and get his feedback on this. It seems to me that if we can make a Do Not Call list, and keep it enforced, then we should be able to do the same thing for catalogs, right? Wouldn't all parties be happier? Wouldn't the companies who create the catalogs be happier if they weren't wasting money on printing and postage? Wouldn't the customers be happier if they could easily get a name removed from a mailing list in 60 seconds or less? Wouldn't this planet be better off sparing more trees from unnecessarily being cut down, to create catalogs that never even get READ???

I'm a big believer that we should all do our part to try to make the world a better place, so consider this is as my part to try to help the environment.  I will post updates as I go along, trying to get through this large (and continually growing) pile on my desk.

Laura