Guest column: Housing and Dining staff deserve respect

By Anna Roberts     4/10/08 7:00pm

Looking back at my freshman year, I have two regrets: Not being very involved in Rice University or my college and not getting to know the staff that I interacted with each day. Today, some of the most rewarding daily interactions I have are with the housing and servery staff of Sid Richardson College.When I had a horrible case of the flu, Custodian Julia Hernandez, who works on the fifth floor, came in to check on me. Food Production Associates Gabriel Aguilar, Mary Tibbs and everyone else at the Sid Rich servery always ask about my day at every lunch and dinner and worry about me when I am not there for meals. Chef Gabe will make me a grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich whenever I crave it. When I got my first job and finished my first gigantic paper, Mary celebrated with me. And those specific examples are not exceptions to the rule: The staff members of Rice - from my college coordinator to the Community Involvement Center staff to Housing and Dining - enrich my life as much anyone else here.

Unfortunately, not everyone at Rice, students, faculty and administrators included make the effort to befriend the staff responsible for making our lives as comfortable as possible. And even worse, some students show blatant disrespect for the staff's hard work. Living on campus, I have seen students leave horrible messes of spilt alcohol, vomit and trash with no attempt to clean up after themselves. After reading President David Leebron's message reminding Rice about the culture of respect in our community, I felt the need to go further and remind my fellow students of reasons to respect the staff everywhere on campus.

After my first Beer-Bike weekend, I went to class on Monday a few minutes earlier than usual and met up with my history professor, Edward Cox. While I was talking with him, I learned of some disgusting Beer-Bike antics.

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When the H&D staff of the Humanities Building went to clean up the incidental messes from the weekend, they found a purposeful, disgusting pile of mud and feces in the men's room on the third floor. Mud was on the walls, caked in the shower, on the toilets and left in the sink. Mud tracks were in the carpeted hallways and the tiled landing on third floor. Not only did this unnecessary gigantic mess divert the staff from its regular duties, but it inconvenienced other staff, faculty and students because the restroom had to be closed for three hours. Why didn't these muddy students use the water hose at the bike race to rinse themselves off? Why didn't they use their own showers? Why did they purposefully wreck property and show disrespect to the staff?

I think the answer best comes from Eric Silberman's 2007 column about students leaving Baker 13 messes across campus for H&D to clean: "Truthfully, I think there is only one possible explanation left: These people do not want to clean up after themselves. They think it is disgusting. They think it is beneath them. Someone else will clean it up. And, if it is beneath some people to clean, and other people do the cleaning, then the implicit feeling is that the cleaning staff is beneath the students."

Maybe I'm oversimplifying the issue. I am sure people are going to try to tell me that this is not a big deal. But I think it is. This type of behavior is indicative of the sense of entitlement some Rice students feel. What I love about Rice and what ultimately made me come here was how students deemphasize signs of class and wealth among themselves. Unlike at other universities of Rice's intellectual caliber, no one can tell just by looking at students who is on scholarship, who is solidly middle class, whose parent is an alum or whose family income is in the highest tax bracket.

Let's extend that sense of equality to the people who work so hard to make our lives cleaner. If you spill something in the servery, ask for a napkin to clean it up the best you can, just as you would do in your own house. Wipe your shoes before you go into a building. Don't treat the bathrooms like trash dumps. H&D works hard enough for us; let's make it a little easier on them.

Anna Roberts is a Sid Richardson College sophomore.

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