Sodexo workers deserve respect

Every Tuesday and Thursday at 12:15 p.m., lunch lines lead out of the Ordal Dining Hall and down the stairs. Chick-fil-A is overcome with students filling the stanchioned-off lines.

 By the time classes start again at 1:00 p.m. and there is finally room to breathe in the Commons, the chefs and dining hall staff have only four hours to prepare for the 5 o’clock supper stampede.

The next time you have to wait in line for food, I challenge you to take a moment to consider how the dining hall workers feel at that exact moment.

While you are feeling the seconds slowly tick by while standing in the dinner line, they are refilling food stations, checking on condiments, washing dishes and preparing the next meal. 

Chefs serve the students in front of them while fulfilling catering orders all across campus. 

Staff clean the dining hall after every meal time; they unload trucks and restock the pantries and freezers. 

Chefs plan the meals five weeks in advance using menu options from the Sodexo corporation and still try to incorporate foods like gyros or butter chicken that most students did not have the opportunity to enjoy growing up. 

All summer in the Morrison Commons, the staff still worked in the kitchen, despite the heat and construction. 

 Every day for months, staff prepared hot meals in an already-boiling environment, only to transport the entire meal to a different location for students to eat. 

When school resumed, staff created multiple food stations across campus so students could still enjoy a variety of meal options. 

Under usual circumstances, the dining hall feeds 500-700 people depending on the meal; at the start of this school year, they had no way of tracking how many people were going through the serving lines. 

Do you realize how hard it is to make a meal when you can’t accurately gauge how many people will be eating?

The dining hall is one of the only offices on campus whose goal is to, literally, serve the student body. The staff are hardworking – they are flexible. 

Most importantly, Commons workers always try their best. No person is immune to making mistakes, but every day, without fail, the chefs and dining hall staff show up. 

Therefore, next time you find yourself growing impatient with the long dining lines or underwhelming menu options —  instead of giving into your frustrations — maybe direct your energy towards expressing gratitude for those serving you.