The other night, I treated myself to a chai tea latte at Bruin
Café.
I swiped my order and retreated to the tea counter to be served.
The wait was extraordinary, so I prepared myself. I wasn’t
too annoyed, knowing that in the near future I would have my
caffeine.
A cafe employee approached me after a few minutes and asked for
my order.
While she mixed my drink, I asked her how she was doing and
later thanked her for my tea.
She abruptly turned to me, and I thought I had said something to
upset her.
“You don’t know how many hours I go without someone
asking me how I am or how my day is going,” she said.
Here was this sweet woman who is always bustling around the
cafe, telling me that the thousands of students who come to the
cafe every day are sometimes outright rude.
We say “thank you” when we are swiped in. If
we’re feeling generous, we’ll ask how the person is
doing ““ not really to hear the answer, but for the sake of
social niceties.
But we don’t mean it.
We don’t really care how the employees at the cafe or
other dining establishments feel.
The people who prepare UCLA’s food are ignored by the
students they prepare it for each day.
The situation at Bruin Café got worse.
As I giggled awkwardly, unsure of how to “make it
better,” a guy behind me callously yelled, “I want my
muffin. Is it that hard to walk to the fucking cabinet and get my
muffin?”
She left to get his muffin.
And I felt horrible, not just because he behaved so badly, but
also because I could have easily been him. So many times I have
waited impatiently to receive my food.
I have complained in the dining halls that they aren’t
taking the trays off the conveyor belt fast enough and I’m
forced to take a whole two minutes to wait for an open slot.
Getting swiped in to the dining halls, droves of people rush in,
talking on their cell phones or loudly to friends.
People nonchalantly hand over their cards and saunter away
without even looking at the worker.
We treat them like robots. Sure, the employees of UCLA are hired
to deal with us ““ but not to wait on us like droids.
I’m sure they have days when they don’t want to get
out of bed and commute two hours to work with kids who don’t
acknowledge them as human beings. But they do.
“There are a lot of people working hard for us. It makes
such a difference when one person makes the effort to smile,”
said Brian Pugach, a Bruin Café student employee.
Those who still don’t feel guilty enough to admit their
sins of rudeness may be wondering, “What am I supposed to do?
I can’t make these people less depressed.”
Amanda Boeldt, a first-year chemical engineering student, works
at the North Campus eatery.
“I wear a name tag, but when someone says, “˜Thank
you, Amanda,’ it really makes me happy. It’s nice when
someone makes an effort to identify you,” Boeldt said.
However, it is not as if all students are constantly rude and
the UCLA employees feel victimized.
“The majority of students treat us very well and are very
respectful. But there may be one or two people who don’t like
to wait. But when we are busy, everyone has to wait,” said
Santiago Tomas, a cafe senior service clerk.
Not one campus employee has ever yelled at me and claimed a bad
day. They do their jobs and work hard, and that should be
appreciated.
UCLA employees are not to be pitied or ignored ““ rather we
should respect them as people who make our lives here better.
Like chai tea lattes and people-watching? E-mail Bissell
at
abissel@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.