Tales from the CafKeeper: A cafeteria worker's sob story (and plea)

by Pam Wall

The good, the bad, the ugly

Fact: Everyone knows at least one cafeteria worker. You do, whether you know it or not. 

Fact: Caf workers have feelings to. We may subject ourselves voluntarily to the job, but the stuff we have to put up with still strikes a nerve.

Fact: What you do in the caf affects every worker. And when the affects are adverse, we begin to have a problem. 

As a representative of University Housing and Food Service, and more specifically the green baseball hat and black polo crew of all campus cafeterias, I am going to tell you what many a caf worker will not: it is in part your fault when our jobs suck, but more importantly, you can help to make our lives better. It’s easy. If you take an extra ten seconds per meal you’ll save us what could amount to hours of work. Really. 

Now, to illustrate my point I am going to focus on the ickiest job in the caf— dishroom worker. What some students don’t realize and others don’t care about is that after you finish your dinner, we get to deal with your trash, your leftovers and any other little mess you’ve made. 

After you put your tray on the conveyer/subveyor (depending on the cafeteria) the trays arrive in front of the sorter. They get the honor of tossing out the trash left on the tray, sorting the silverware into its washing caddy, putting the glasses and mugs in their respective holders, and passing the plates, bowls and such onto the scrubber. 

Beyond mystery meat

The scrubber—or washer or garbage disposal person—gets to dump all the food down the disposal and wash the plate before putting it in the dish washer machine. The plates are hand loaded onto the conveyor belt of the dish machine and then pulled out at the other end and sorted into their carts so that we can bring you clean dishes to eat off. This is usually done with three people, and sometimes only one. 

It may sound pretty simple, but when you multiply this by 150 trays per hour that changes things. And when the trays are unique, it gets even harder. Let me just tell you, we get some weird conditions in the dishroom: full pieces of cake shoved into glasses, soup poured into hollowed out grapefruit halves, little Lincoln Log-like cabins made of chicken bones, etc. And maybe it seems humorous to outsiders, but to the caf staff it’s just another thing to deal with. It takes a long time to sort and clean all that stuff. And it’s not quite enjoyable. 

So, how can the customers make your lives easier?  Here are the dos and don’ts of eating in the caf (at least dishroom-wise):

Don’t go out of your way to make extra mess: do not put food in the glasses, for instance Jujubes (see exhibits A and B) or napkins and ketchup (see exhibit C); do not draw pretty pictures on your trays or dishes with salt and pepper (see exhibits D and E); do not smear your food on your tray (see exhibit F).

Don’t stack your plates on top on your silverware and trash: It only makes the sorting process longer, which means fewer trays get processed in the time span which means fewer plates cleaned; this means fewer plates for you to eat off.

Don’t get food you aren’t going to eat.  We throw out over a hundred gallons of food per day.  There was a period when all food waste that would usually be put either in the trash or down the garbage disposal was dumped in one of thirty-five gallon buckets—we filled them all and them some. And the majority of this is untouched—entire bowls of soup and cereal, whole pieces of meat and salads hardly picked at.  

Do try to keep your tray nice.  Separate your dishes from your silverware and your glasses for quick sorting, and throw out your trash (if possible) before sending us your tray (see exhibit G).

Do take what you can eat: Listen to what your mom always said and clean your plate.

 Do be courteous.  The badges don’t take away our feelings—caf workers are people, too. We really appreciate the people who do the extra little things to simplify our lives and work better for it. 

      We serve your meals, we clean your dishes and we cook your food; the least you can do is help us do that job well. And you know at least one caf worker, trust me, so your friends will thank you for the help.

 

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