Workers at Barnhart Dining have become discontent with rules and regulations that have tightened this term in an effort from dining services to improve customer service standards at the venue.
Changes in staff requirements implemented at the dining hall this year are stricter than those in 2022. They include a requirement to write down the times staff leave and come back from breaks, a focus on always facing towards the dining area while on the kitchen line and stricter enforcement for staff to pay for their shift meals using a meal card, which allows workers to pay for meals at a discounted rate of $0.60 per meal point for up to five points.
The dining hall is also placing a larger focus on portioning the amount of food that students get, leading to ingredients like pasta, meat and vegetables being pre-portioned in small bags that are stored on the cook line during shifts.
One of the motivating factors for changing the policies this term is making sure meals get out to diners fast.
“I think the biggest [issue] is our ability to serve people quickly,” Tom Driscoll, the director of dining services, said. “The biggest issue we had is not enough staff, so we spent the summer working really hard to recruit and hire more staff.”
Though the effort to bring in more workers has led to an increase in staff, many returning or longtime workers have expressed a desire to quit due to changes with rules. “It’s more strict, yeah, but I also feel like a lot of strictness comes from rules that aren’t really that important,” Terry Liu, a former Barnhart student worker who left because of the changes, said. “It kinda feels like the people that I’m working with, they’re kinda just slowly fading away and they’re doing their own thing, so I feel like I should do that too.”
Workers who are still employed at the hall have also noticed a change in attitude. “People seem to be a little bit more tense in general, especially around those rules,” another student worker, who wished to remain anonymous over concerns about job security, said. “It seems to me like, especially this year, staff seem to be really in over their heads. They seem really stressed out all the time.”
Despite the general stress surrounding the work itself, many student staff members still felt that their coworker relationships were a positive aspect of working at the dining hall. “I personally like the environment we run at Barnhart,” the anonymous student worker said. “I think the playful nature of some of our interactions, and the joking and the storytelling, I think that really helps build a sort of community and a family there.”
Some staff members have suggested that better communication between student workers and lead staff could be a solution. “I really enjoy the camaraderie with all the students,” a lead staff member, who chose to remain anonymous, said. “I always try to make it more of a personable experience, rather than ‘Oh, I’m your leader today, here’s what we’re going to do.’ I think that form of communication is not there. I think a five-minute finding out where someone’s at mentally is important.”
Driscoll expressed an openness to hearing out the complaints of student workers. “I would hope that if there are concerns that students don’t feel like are getting addressed with their direct supervisor that they could come to me,” he said. “Ultimately, our goal is to have people enjoy the work, to be able to retain the staff and to be able to provide students with good jobs right here on campus.”
[Editor’s note: This story was updated to clarify why a source was granted anonymity]
