mail responsibilities may be major or minor depending on the size and type of business for which you work. Large businesses maintain a central mail department, which is responsible not only for sorting, opening, and distributing the incoming mail but also for processing the outgoing mail. Smaller businesses may hire a mail clerk who will be responsible for the company's mail or may assign the task to one of the office workers, such as the secretary. INCOMING MAIL Should you be assigned the responsibility for handling incoming mail, you will need to develop a system for processing it efficiently. Because many office employees depend on the mail to. schedule their work for the day, the mail should be processed as soon as it arrives. The following steps will help, whether you process all the mail for the organization, for several supervisors, or for your supervisor only: (1) sort, (2) open, (3) remove the contents, (4) date and time stamp, (5) prepare mail register, (6) read and annotate, (7) present, (8) route, and (9) distribute. Sorting When the mail arrives, the information on the envelopes should be read carefully and the mail sorted as follows: ? 1. Special service mail?Mailgrams, special delivery letters, certified letters, and registered letters 2. Personal mail or mail marked "Confidential" 3. First-class mail 4. Interoffice mail 5. Second-class mail?newspapers and magazines 6. Third-class mail?catalogs and other printed matter 7. ]