For Rudi G. Patitucci ’04, the rewards were also pecuniary.

“I got a $100 tip from this guy whose daughter I helped move in,” Patitucci says. “She was on the fourth floor of Thayer and had 22 packages.”

At about 1 p.m., a man and woman walk into the mail room with 1630 copies of the booklet “Film Studies at Harvard 2002.”

Aretha Franklin begins singing “Rescue Me” on the radio as McClary jokes to his coworkers, “You all ready to come in at eight in the morning tomorrow?”

As the theme from Flashdance wafts through the mailroom, McClary says he’ll probably start thinking about retirement in a year—though he adds, “I’m the kind of person who needs to work.”

He heads into the mailroom, where Romeo is still sorting the packages. A DKNY shoebox tightly wrapped in tape and a box in teddy bear and candy cane wrapping sit on the right wall of shelves.

A small basket of flowers (“Oh, I better call her. Sometimes they wilt down here!” exclaims Romeo as he heads to the phone) and a carton of fresh pears from Oregon rest among the packages on the left wall of shelves.

Romeo moves deftly around a large box of Big Indian Natural Mountain Spring Water.

“That student orders his own beverages. Sometimes he orders juices, too. I really don’t know why he does that.”

Of the four workers, Romeo is the most philosophical about his job.

“Have you ever seen the movie The Postman with Kevin Costner? It gives you a sense of how mail connects society. Without it, you’d just have individual towns and people.” Romeo pauses as he places a FedEx package on the shelf and smiles wistfully. “It’s a good story.”

—Staff writer Amit R. Paley can be reached at paley@fas.harvard.edu.