Tastefulness: The Truth Beyond the Cooking Walls

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Tastefulness: The
Truth Beyond the
Cooking Walls
The Commons
BLOOMSBURG UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
May 15, 2013
Authored by: Marcus Lockley
Lockley1
Marcus Lockley
Dr. House
5/10/13
English 101
Tastefulness: The Truth beyond the Cooking
Walls
Welcome
Welcome, my name is Marcus Lockley.
I will be giving you a tour around the wonderful
Bloomsburg University’s
Commons. Because I am a
student worker and an
employee of Aramark, the
company that owns the
Google
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Commons, I will be able to give you a tour from
a customer’s point of view and from an
employee’s point of view. In each section of the
tour, I will start with the customer’s point of
view and what they think they see which will be
followed by the employee’s point of view. I will
tell you about the employee’s point of view and
how the employees help with the functioning of
the Commons.
Using these two viewpoints, I will help
you, my guest; fully understand how The
Commons works, from the employee’s point of
view, but what you would see as a customer of
the Commons. Both point of views are totally
different, that is why I chose to talk about them
in two different ways, but use them in the same
section of my essay. I think that it will make it a
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lot easier to understand and interpret everything
that I plan on talking to you about during my
tour. No one wants to be on a tour and become
lost in all of the words that the tour guide is
spitting at you. I want this tour to be visual and
interpreted, anyone can look during the tour, but
not everyone can understand and interpret what
they are looking at. During the tour if you have
any questions or concerns please feel free to
ask. So thank you and enjoy your tour of the
Commons.
Introduction
After a major exam or midterm, maybe
even a stressful assignment, the only thing that
is on your mind is FOOD! As a college student,
feeling hungry is worse than cramming for an
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exam on a nice 75 degree day with the sun
shining bright and having all of your friends
outside while you sit inside and study. So,
thinking about the urge to gorge on anything
that runs past your face, you think, where’s a
good place to eat on campus? At Bloomsburg
University, there is an abundance of food filled
stores and restaurants both on and off campus.
The famous burger place that everyone knows
of, is McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s,
Dunkin Donuts, Olive Garden, Long Horn, and
Quaker Steak and Lube, but, on campus, places
like Roongo’s, Java City, Starbucks, Subway,
and the Commons provide places where you can
eat on campus. Roongo’s offers a quick
sandwich or burger, a breakfast bar and freshly
brewed coffee. If you students want a freshly
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brewed coffee, latte, Frappuccino, or just a hot
tea you can go to Java City. But if you want to
pig out and unbuckle your belt, you can indulge
in the endless amount of food at the buffet on
campus, the Commons.
The Commons is a buffet that is open
seven day out of the week. Monday through
Friday there are three separate shifts that start
from seven in the morning and ends at 10 at
night. Breakfast is served from 7:00am to
9:30am, lunch is served from 10:30am to
2:00pm, and dinner is served from 4:00pm to
8:00pm. Saturday and Sunday hours of
operation change a little. Brunch is served from
10:00am to 2:00pm and dinner is served from
4:30pm to 7:00 pm. Each shift is separated by
two hours in between, so that everything is
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ready for the next shift. There is a time variance
between the weekday and the weekend because
a lot of students do not come to the Commons.
“I have notice that for some reason the
Commons is not a popular place on the
weekend. The weekend menu, usually consist of
waffle makers for waffles. During the weekend
the home, dessert, sizzle, and world station for
waffles are the only stations opened during the
weekend.”
The Commons has a variety of foods
that range from apples to oranges to steaks and
chicken, they even have days where they have
food from different parts of the world, but what
we see on the side where the food is served is
only just part of how the Commons and
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Aramark, the company that operates the
Commons. The students who eat in the
commons daily, may never ask how this place
feeds over a thousand students, staff, and
professors? This is just one of many other
questions that I will be answering through my
research about the Commons, the place that is
underrated, but definitely appreciated.
“When I say the Commons is underrated,
but I definitely appreciated, I mean exactly what
I say. When walking through the Commons you
often hear a lot of complaining about the food.
For some reason students complain about the
food that is being served, but always seem a tray
full of food when they sit down at the table. I’ve
asked a few students why they do not appreciate
the food at the Commons and most of the
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answers were very similar. The answers were
very simple and the answered like this ‘it is the
most bang for your book. Just the thought of
having a buffet with the cost of a meal swipe
and not being able to use flex is a very good
deal.’ Flex is extra money on your account that
you can use for meal of your mean exceeds a
meal cost. A meal is worth four dollars and
seventy-five cents, for example, of you were to
go to other place on campus and buy a combo
meal it will exceed four dollars and seventy-five
cents. That is where flex comes into play; your
flex will cover the exceeding bill of your order.
As the semester withers down students run out
of flex so they proceed to the Commons. That is
why I think that students do appreciate the
Commons. It might not be in the best way that
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managers will like to hear, but students do
appreciate this place.”
A Tour of the Outside
The first thing that catches your eye
before you take in the array of beautiful flavors
that shoot up your nose and makes you explore
the wonders with in the room. As you get to the
register you’re greeted by a happy lady by the
name of Barb, which is illustrated by her name
tag. Barb swipes your student id, debit or credit
card, or cash to pay for your meal.
Walking in, most students get a tray in
which they fill with all types of food and after
they get there food they explore around the
Commons and they go to the different food
stations. There are several stations in which
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students have the option of choosing from.
Those station s include, sizzle, home, deli,
world, bakery, pasta, and last, but not least the
dessert station. Because the employees who
works there are not at the same station every
day, it was rather difficult to see who had what
specific station.
Most of the time the sizzle is run by a
guy by the name of Robin and a lady by the
name of Christine, the grille station has fresh
waffle and French fries right out of the fryer
with the options of grilled cheese and chicken,
fried chicken patties, burgers, and even veggie
burgers. Something new that was added to the
grille station recently was fresh salmon, chicken
or beef kabobs, and different types of steaks. At
the home station, there is a new menu option
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every day so that students stay on their toes. The
food items range from meat loaf, corn, and
mashed potatoes to chicken cordon blue and
string beans.
“I notice that the students are satisfied
with the food that is being served, but there are
some days when students are pretty
disappointed when there nothing there that they
want to indulge in.”
The deli station has an array of meats
like smoked and regular turkey, ham, capicola
ham, egg salad, chicken salad, and tuna. To go
with your sandwich they have rye, white, wheat,
12 grain, and whole grain breads that you can
enjoy with the various meats at which you
choose. You could also get a fresh salad made
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and tossed right in front of your face. What does
one think about when they see the word world?
Well, the food that is served there is from
different parts of the world. Chinese food like lo
mien or General Tso chicken to Italian food like
clam alfreado. Raw crab, salmon, tuna, and
vegetable sushi can be taken from the world
station.
“I thought that it was very ironic that
little Asian lady by the name of sue. I am not
sure if it is to make it seem like as though she
has the ability to cook food from her culture or
just because she could cook and they just
happened to put her at this specific station”
Rolls, breads, muffin tops and my
favorite cheesy bread are served at the bakery
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station and usually an older lady by the name of
Rosanna bakes and serves at the bakery station.
Everyone enjoys a good pasta dish and you can
definitely depend on that when you go to the
pasta station. Chicken alfreado, a creamy pasta
dish served with sautéed onions chicken and
long thick noodles with white and creamy sauce.
That is not the only dish that Maria serves at the
pasta station, there are copious dishes that she
makes all by herself and she puts passion and
love into all the pasta dishes.
“Watching Maria cook a pasta dish you
know that when you stick your fork into your
plate that is a going to be a dish that you will
never forget and you will always want more.”
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Lastly, desserts, there is no other way to
end a good meal then to end it with a good
dessert. It is always a tuff decision when one has
to choose between soft and hard serve ice
cream, cupcakes or actual cake, and Jell-O or
yogurt. Well the dessert station has all of these
desserts, some ice cream flavors like vanilla,
strawberry, chocolate, blueberry, mango,
banana, mint chocolate chip to name the normal
flavors. Some of the more exquisite flavors were
coconut, birthday cake, peach and rum. Red
velvet, vanilla cake with cream cheese icing,
chocolate cake with peanut or chocolate icing,
German chocolate, and so many more cakes are
available for all customers to go crazy for.
Speaking of crazy, students go wild for the
Commons cookies the cookies are chocolate
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chip and baked to a soft and gooey perfection.
Students wait 10 minutes and probably longer
just to have two or more cookies.
Tables
Tables are more than an object at the
Commons, it is more of a meeting ground for
friends, family, and all people to sit and
converse about any and everything. As you look
on your tray and you feel satisfied with what is
on there, the next thing to do is find a table to sit
at to enjoy your meal. The table, at which you
will sit, will correspond to how many people are
at your table. If you come to the Commons with
a group of about 10 to 15 people you would
want to sit at big table, it would be the same if
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you had a small group of people you would
want a smaller table.
Most of the time people sit and eat and
talk for over an hour about all types of things.
Over hearing conversations, people talk about
grades and professors, to boyfriend and
girlfriend problems. With conversations about
grades and professors, sometimes there is anger
and frustration and sometimes it can be
happiness. Most of the time, the frustration
comes from receiving a bad grade on a test that
the person had studied for over a week. Noticing
a happy conversation about grades is fairly easy.
You can almost hear the conversation three
tables away, the conversation goes a little like
this, “I studied almost four days for this
anatomy test and guess what I got on my exam
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When it comes to the professor anger is usually
when the professor is an “ass hole or I cannot
stand this professor because he or she is just so
fucking boring.” The boyfriend, girlfriend
conversations at the tables are usually about
how someone cheated over the weekend with
alcoholic beverages were involved. In between
conversation you also just have very general,
random, friendly conversations. The
conversation can range from talking about how
nice the weather is to a vacation that someone
took with their family. One conversation that
intrigued me the most was about a guy who
came back from the army and is now able to go
to school. He talked about how he saw horrific
events take place in Iraq and how he is glad to
be home and enrolled in school. He also talked
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about how he had to recover to the real world
and how it was hard to transcend to the
“normal’ world.
As I have said before the tables at the
Commons mean more to people than just a seat
and a place to sit your tray on. The tables are
more of a bon fire for people to talk amongst
themselves. It is almost like a stage to talk to
about any and everything that comes to mind. If
you want talk take a person on a date and tell
them how much you want to be with them,
simple go to the Commons and eat at the table
maybe something magical might happen. You
may also need to get something off of your
chest so you and a friend talk about the situation
over lunch at the table. Maybe it’s just big group
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of friends who want to catch with each other,
the table is the best place to do so.
Everyone knows that tables are supposed
to be to eat on, but what would it be like if you
could not sit at the table and converse
Google
with people you care for? The table is
another way you can talk to your friends as if
you were talking to your family at home over
the dining table. It is the center for all people
who sit, eat, and talk.
What does an employee see when they
look at the tables in the Commons? As an
employee, I see the tables as a big circle or
square that I have to clean when people are done
eating there. Most of the times the tables start to
be cleaned an hour to an hour and a half before
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the shift is over. It is
cleaned at this time
because there are not
too many people who
eat this time and we start to close. The second
reason is because it is easier to have someone
start the tables before other people who have to
clean there station have to stay later because the
tables did not get cleaned.
“There are over 300 tables that have to
be cleaned by the end of the shift. That is a lot to
do for one person, so employees hurry to clean
there station so that they can work together to
clean the tables. From my experience working
at the Commons, it is so much better to have
someone start on the tables. Most of the
employees agree on this matter because it helps
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everyone get off of work at the same time. When
one starts on the tables, we all have to stay at
least a half hour after we are supposed to clock
out. I think cleaning the tables are the most
tedious task to do at the Commons. Imagine
having to clean over 300 tables and having to
get the dirty dishes or trays that some people
leave on the tables even when they are not
supposes to. It becomes very redundant after
your 50th table.”
Behind the Stations
Some of the customers who come into
the Commons may ask how does the Commons
work exactly? What is it like to be an employee
and where the uniform that is required? How
much tenacity and dedication does it take to be
Google
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an employee of Aramark that works for the
Commons? Well, this part of the tour will give
you an idea about what goes on behind the
station that you see. During this time, I will also
talk about the employees and what it takes to
work behind the stations.
Employees who serve food have the
option of wearing a black shirt and black jeans
or a maroon colored shirt that displays the
Aramark logo. There is a grave distinction
between full time employees and part time
student workers, when it comes to wearing
clothing .As you may notice when you walk
through the doors of the Commons, most of the
student workers where the black shirt with the
dark colored jeans and typically most full time
employees where the maroon colored shirt with
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the black pants.
All employees
must wear slip
resistant shoes
to decrease or
suppress any
injuries that will be a direct result of slipping,
from not wearing nonslip shoes. Even though
there is distinction between workers, all whom
work get along and they get along very well.
“The distinction between workers is only
evident because of the longevity and years that
the older employees have on other student
employees. It still surprised me that even though
there was distinction they all got along very
well.”
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There are nine stations and two beverage
machines that have to be cleaned, maintained,
and be presentable for you as a customer. Food
must be cooked, so you need cooks to cook the
food. In order to have clean dishes for
customers to eat from, there must be dish
washers to clean all trays, dishes, utensils, pots,
and pans. There are employees that clean the
general area and the kitchen so that the
Commons is a clean place to eat and cook at. It
takes a lot to maintain a presentable place to eat
for customers when so many people come in at
one time. The employees play a pivotal role in
the structure and functioning of the Commons
and somehow, every single day, employees
make it possible for any and all customer to be
satisfied when you leave the Commons.
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Sue is a little Asian lady who usually
cooks and serves food at the world station. “I
found it ironic that there was an Asian employee
serving food at the world station.” Students
enjoy here deep accent and she is always happy
to serve and satisfy here customers. Her
responsibility after closing time is to clean the
grille that she cooks on, wipe off the counter
and refill the counter with water.
“Water is used to keep the food warm
there is a compartment that you can fill with
water and it increases the temperature of the
water so that steam can rise and the pans over
top of the water get hot and helps the food stays
hot and ready to be served.”
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Sanitizer and specialized soap must be
used in order to wash all counter area. The soap
must be applied on everything you wash down,
after that you can wipe down everything with
the sanitizer. Aramark, the company who owns
the Commons makes this a rule in the worker’s
manual that employees must follow during clean
up time.
“It is important that all counters and
anything that is being cleaned get washed with
the soap and the rewashed by the sanitizer.
Aramark makes this a very big deal; there is a
color difference between the soap bucket and
the sanitizer bucket. The soap bucket is green
while the sanitizer bucket is red.”
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Robin and Christine work at the sizzle
station, better known as the grille station. Every
student who goes up and gets food from Robin
has a little conversation, he always asks, “how is
your day going” and “enjoy your food I put my
heart and soul into this.”(Robin or Christine)
Christine usually doesn’t talk because
she is always cooking and making and dealing
with the fryer. Both Christine and Robin both
take turns with serving and cooking food.
During regular hours Robin and Christine have
a lot to do, they have to serve food and cook on
the grille and fryer. They have to make sure that
the condiments, that go with your burger or
whatever you are getting stays fresh and is
stocked for customers to enjoy. When it is time
to close their agenda is to clean out the fryer,
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wash the grille, put the condiments away, wipe
off the counters and the glass surrounding the
counter, and refill the warmer with clean water.
To clean the fryer you have to press the button
that cleans the grease, and drain the grease into
the bucket. After the grease is drained you have
to clean out all the left over crumbs that fell at
the bottom of the fryer and wipe the fryer out.
When the fryer is cleaned, a button that brings
the clean grease back into the fryer is pushed
and the fryer is now ready to be used the next
day. This process is a lot for one person to
handle so that is why there are two employees
that work behind the grille station.
“I don’t think anyone knows more about
this station than Robin and Christine. While
observing these two employees I notice that they
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have built a great reproes for them-selves. You
can tell when you see them that they know what
they are doing. During rush hour they are
always calm, patient, and show emotions of
defeat. While working at this station they
supported me when I needed it the most. As new
employee working at this station can fluster you
a lot.”(Field Notes). When you have employees
to back you up at all times it can make you feel
as though you can serve the President himself,
without one drip of sweat from nervousness fall
from your face. This is the most difficult station
to clean out of all of the stations inside of the
Commons. It is the most difficult because there
is so much to do other than clean off the grille.
Just the process of putting food away can take
you a half hour alone. That is the main reason
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why there are always to people that work at this
particular station.”
Everyone loves pasta; you can never
pass down the savory sauce over top of perfectly
cooked noodles. The lady behind the pasta
station makes the best pasta on campus, her
name is Ada and she has a lot of attitude, but
she means no harm by it. She is responsible for
pasta dishes and salads that come from the pasta
station. She cooks her pasta in sautéed pan that
is cooked over top of individual electric
hotplates. Ada must upkeep and maintain a
clean station while she serves food. After
closing she must clean her entire station with the
soap and sanitizer. Before she starts to clean she
must put any leftover food away by putting
them in a plastic container and marking the
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container off with a pre-marked sticker for
whatever day she puts that food away. All food
that is put away by the employees must be
marked by whatever day that they put that food
away. Ada cleans off each electrical hotplate
with special spray that’s used for stainless steel.
She then proceeds to wash off the counters in
front of her and mirrors come right after. Most
people love and enjoy pasta, but I don’t think
one single person can turned down home
cooking.
“Watching Ada clean her station I notice
that it takes a fairly short time to clean her
station. I think this is because she doesn’t have
to worry about the water holders that warm up
food. I found that most students find her intense,
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but she is very nice lady who enjoys her job and
loves serving her students.”
The home station is where you can enjoy
some type of food that reminds you of your
favorite home cooked meal. Because the home
station is very popular station in the Commons,
It takes a lot to run this station and to maintain a
clean and presentable station when it is a
constant line filled with hungry people. Patients
are key when working at this station, because a
lot of people come through this station and can
become very demanding.
“Observing this station I saw that
students who come up to the home station
become demanding and perplexed at the option
presented. You can almost see the frustration of
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the employee that is working at this station
when an unpleasant customer wants food.”
There are a many different people who
work at this station so names of the employees
who work here will not be named.
“Many of the employees rotate at this
station because it is very popular. The managers
rotate employees because it helps with the
redundancy of station. I notice that employees
become bored when they work at a particular
station for a long period of time.”
Before an employee starts to clean his or
her station a cook comes and “pulls” the food
from the station and the warmers. The warmers
are big refrigerators, but instead of keeping food
cool the warmers keep the food warm. The food
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has to stay warm so that it doesn’t recruit germs
when the food gets cooled. After the food is
pulled from the station the employee at this
station can start the process of cleaning his or
her station. To begin the employee drains the
water from the water warmer “the water warmer
is a four compartment water holder that warms
up water so that steam arises and continuously
keeps the food warm” into a drain that is right
underneath the water warmer. After the water
drains the employee then cleans inside of the
water warmer. The water warmer usually has an
abundance of crumbs and food that mistakenly
falls inside of it in which the employee has to
clean. When the water warmer is cleaned then
employee can then proceed to refill the warmer
with water. The warmer is usually filled about a
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half way up and ready to be used for the next
day.
What is the best way to end a very good
meal? I personally go for dessert and when I eat
with friends at the Commons they usually go for
dessert after dinner too. What you and other
customers do not know is, the dessert station is
the most difficult station to work at in the
Commons. Reputation is a big when it comes to
the dessert station. For example, cookies are
among the most popular and the demand for
perfection and gooeyness of the cookies are
very high. Before those cookies are put into the
oven people must make the cookie dough. The
Commons hires professional bakers to make
desserts that are fresh and made daily for all
customers. Every single cake, pie, cookie, tart,
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cheesecake, cookie dough, any and every
dessert is made down stairs with passion, love,
and perfection. The finished desserts and cookie
dough are then brought up stairs to the dessert
station. After those desserts are brought upstairs,
they are then set up and presented to all
customers to enjoy at no limitation. Any dessert
that cannot fit on the counter then goes into the
refrigerator to be used later in the day.
Cleaning up this station is very long
process. To begin, all the desserts are either
thrown away or they are wrapped up and ready
for use for the next day. This determined by
how much of a pie or cake is left over for
example; if 25% of the cake is left it will be
thrown away. After all the dessert are either
thrown away or saved, the employee then wraps
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up all of the toppings for the ice cream and it is
time to “wipe down”. It is time to start washing
down all counters surrounding the dessert
station, wash down the counters behind the
dessert station, and wipe out the cookie baker.
After that is all done, the next thing to do is
clean all glass and window areas of the dessert
station. The last thing to do is to take a cart full
of dirty dishes to the cart room and your day at
the dessert station is complete.
“I have worked at this station and think
after the sizzle station the dessert station is one
the hardest places to clean and to serve.
Because there is so much variety at this station,
the demand for something specific is very high.
It is fairly difficult at times when customers
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want something specific and you can’t quite
give them what they want.”
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How can you eat at the Commons
without cooks cooking your food? It takes a lot
to server hundreds of students over an eight
hour period. During rush hour the demand of
food is so high, because there is a high volume
of students who come at these hours the cooks
after to be ready to serve. In the kitchen there is
a chaotic uniformed mess. I put it this way
because if you don’t know how everything is
supposed to go, you would think it is a chaotic
mess. In reality it is just a bunch of cooks during
what they love most and that is to cook. It
Google
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almost looks
like a colony
of ants who
know their
exact
purpose and job.
“I wasn’t really aloud to say too much
about this particular topic due to the privacy
right of Aramark. From what I did observe, the
students who get food inside of the Commons
are not the only people that the cooks, cook for.
The Commons is the base for all catering events
around campus. Anytime there is a catering
event the Commons cooks for it. So the
customers who walk through the doors of the
Commons are not the only people that the
cooks, cook for. They have to cook for catering
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as well as anyone who walks through the door.
The cooks must focus on so many things and I
do not believe they get enough credit for what
they do. Without them we would never have
fresh food in the Commons. There are an
abundance of cooks who work for the Commons.
It is a different chef for every shift, breakfast,
lunch, and dinner. They all work together to
give us the best product that they can possible
make and that is FOOD!”
Let’s not forget about the people who
clean our dishes, pots, pans, and utensils. Most
people call dish washers busters, but I see them
as important piece to the puzzle of the
Commons. Walking into the dish room you
notice that it is very hot and humid. It is a very
uncomfortable environment because dishes have
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to be cleaned at a very hot temperature to
suppress all germs, stains, and dirt. The dish
room consist of, a huge dish washer about ten
feet high, nine feet long, and about six feet
wide. There are about four to six employees
who work in the dish room at any giving shift.
They work very hard, especially during rush
hour times. Employees stand in some sort of
assembly line as the conveyer belt filled with
tray and dirty dishes that have to go into the
washer. In the assembly line, two or three
people grab trays and throw any food on the
plates, trays, pots, and pans into the trashcan.
Then someone loads all dirty items inside of the
monster dish washer. The dish washer can wash
a limitless amount of dishes; it takes about three
minutes for one dish to go through the dish
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washer. Cleaned dish come out of the dish
washer and out on a cart to be taken out of the
dish washer and place somewhere that it can be
used. This process goes on all day so it can
become stressful.
“Rush hour can make the employees in
the dish room very stressed. If you ever pay
attention you can hear the anger and aggression
in the dish room. Slamming dishes and some
very vulgar language gives it away. Some the
language includes, ‘what the fuck, all these
goddamn dishes, I can’t deal with this shit. We
have catering to do after this? Are you serious I
won’t be able to get out of the place on time at
all’”
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I can only imagine how stressful it could
become to wash so many dirty items for eight
hours straight. That is exactly why I think that
these employees play a gigantic role at the
Commons. Without them customers will have
dirty dishes and there wouldn’t be any clean
dishes to eat from. I do not believe that anyone
wants to eat off a dirty plate.
I wanted to talk about the managers
because without them there wouldn’t be any
structures. I was not a loud to talk about them in
my paper at all due to privacy issues too. Even
though I can say anything about them, as an
employee I believe that the managers do a
superb job with the structure and the
management of the Commons. They play a very
Lockley45
important role with the advancement and growth
of the Commons.
The End
This is the end of the tour for you guys
today. Before I let you guys go, I want you to
know that the end is the last sign that you see
when you leave the Commons.
“Some students leave with some type of
sweet creation or a piece of fruit. An ice cream
cone is the most popular item to leave the
Commons with the students. Bananas and
apples are among the most popular fruit to
leave the Commons; some students try to leave
with two or three at a time.”
It takes a lot to run this buffet; there are
over 70 people who help with the structure and
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the functioning of the Commons. When people
actually find out how much it takes to run this
place I think they will fully appreciate what they
have. Those people come into work every single
day with the intentions to satisfy everyone that
walks through the doors of the Commons. The
employees work tenaciously, passionately, and
willingly to have the best food eatery on
campus. Saying thank you to these wonderful
people just won’t be enough. Employee
appreciation day covers just some way to say
thank you to these hardworking people. Even
though some people think, employees are
supposed to just come and do their jobs and be
sad and miserable while doing so, the
employees make the best of it. They do their
jobs with so much happiness, excitement, and
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welcoming. Most people don’t know that they
work to provide for themselves, family, bills,
and the expense of life in general. Some the
employees didn’t have the opportunity to go on
to college. Some employees had responsibilities
that prohibited their chance of going to college.
It is very interesting to hear the stories of the
employees who work full time. For example,
Robin had two kids before he went off to fight
in the Vietnam War. After the war he could not
go back to school because of his children. That
story touch it a different way, it showed me that
even though I have no responsibilities now does
not me I won’t have any later. Robin is just one
of all the people I work with that helped me
look at life in a different light. Having the
opportunity to work with the employees of the
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Commons is a blessing and I wish other could
have the chance to hear the stories of the people
that serve you food every day.
We have reached the end; I have given
you a tour of, Tastefulness: The Truth beyond
the Cooking Walls. As incoming freshmen this
is a place that you will enjoy whatever you eat
and become more than satisfied with the
services provided to you. Again, my name
Marcus Lockley and I am a student worker of
the Commons. Thank you for your time and
hopefully I have given you all of the
information that you wanted to know and more
about the Commons.
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