I can’t describe how infuriating it is to see a messy and used tray left on a table in the dining hall.
Although cooks, servers and other workers get a paycheck every two weeks, they are still doing students a service. The excuse of “that’s their job” isn’t completely true. Their job isn’t to walk around tables and find an empty tray left over by someone — that’s what the tray return is for.
People who work the dish section have a grotesque job. It can get very messy back there, and I can only imagine how it is during the breakfast, lunch and dinner rush.
Some workers are assigned to circulate the dining hall and wipe down tables. Imagine it’s five minutes before their shift ends and their boss asks them to double check one last time.
Finding a tray with dirty dishes and napkins only makes their shift run longer than it already has, especially if it’s at the end of late night. Now that worker has to pick up the tray, bring it to the back and stay an extra five minutes because a student didn’t feel like bringing in their tray.
There may have been some instances when someone didn’t realize they had to take their tray to the return. But I’ve also witnessed many visitors and people on field trips follow these simple directions. So please, don’t be lazy.
This stretches beyond dining hall work. One night my suitemates were having a good time on a Wednesday. I decided to take one of my spontaneous naps earlier that day, and ended up waking up at 3 a.m.
I heard one of my suitemates get sick in our bathroom, but I had to pee so bad. I figured she just threw up in the toilet. So I went in with my Clorox clean up ready and was shocked to see that she actually threw up in the sink.
It stayed like that until the morning, and by that time I went to the front desk to fill out a request for maintenance, since the sink was clogged and unusable for me to brush my teeth, or anything else for that matter.
Custodial services informed me that they would not unclog the sink until her mess was cleaned up because it was not their job to. This makes complete sense. They handed me a bucket and told me to let them know when the sink was washed.
Moral of the story is, don’t assume someone’s job description. Just because they are paid to do something doesn’t mean you can take advantage of them. We’re not in kindergarten, we’re grown-up people at a university.
The little things really do matter. If you’re finished with your food, put it in the tray return. It takes no more than a minute. If you get sick, use the toilet — it flushes.
Kayman Whaley is an intern at The State News. Reach her at kwhaley@statenews.com.
