From The Spectrum, a student publication at the University of Buffalo (emphasis added):
Despite leaving her dorm 30 minutes before her lecture to get breakfast at 8:30 a.m., freshman biomedical sciences major Dina Dahhan had to settle for a partly frozen Smucker’s Uncrustables sandwich from the vending machine.
That’s because the long lines at various eateries in the Atrium would have made her late for class.
Dahhan isn’t the only student who has been forced to make unorthodox meal choices this past week. The national labor shortage has made it difficult for Campus Dining and Shops to meet student demand, resulting in the temporary closure of Atrium eateries, Hubies and The Bowl. The long wait times and limited hours are making it difficult for students to use their meal plans — despite the price increase on all student meal plans over the summer. ...
CDS attributes the congestion to the national labor shortage, but also to a backlog from the Social Security Administration, which processes paperwork required for international students to work in the U.S. International students make up a large part of CDS’s workforce, so once the paperwork is pushed through, CDS hopes more food services will be available. ...
This falls under the all actions have consequences label. We forget and are surprised by consequences we never thought of. Legbone connected to the thigh bone kind of thing. OOPS! Who'd have guessed?
ReplyDelete@8:21am And, yet, no one seems to care.
ReplyDeleteThis might just be the dumbest headline yet. There is legitimate world hunger all over the world, but some college students can't get their tacos or cheeseburgers in the campus cafeteria because of Social Security. What an absolute joke. Oh, the humanity.
ReplyDeleteI agree the headline is hyperbolic, but it's a fine example of how systems have inputs and outputs and fall apart, and how SSA's covid backlogs are playing a part of it. Having paid for student's meal plans, I'd agree the fact people cannot access their paid for meals isn't trivial even if it isn't world shattering important. Many plans are use it or lose it. And while the mess has a lot of inputs, different systems that aren't working well together is a key one, the fact staff who could work cannot work because SSA isn't processing their papers is a contributing factor to the mess. And if collage students are having issues mastering phone apps to get food, you gotta wonder about those apps as well.
ReplyDelete@4:46 PM
ReplyDeleteWhen you have no kitchen and/or no means of transportation (and grocery delivery/uber wasn't even a thing when I was last in school about 10 years ago and is costly), the ability to purchase food nearby (i.e. on campus) is a real need for many students.
So I would like to speak up as someone who depended to some extent on food available on the college campus I graduated from. My dorm roommate and I had no car until my last year of college so the main food we had available to us was bought via our meal plans in the campus cafeteria or various eating establishments on campus, what I could stock up on from various grocery stores at the beginning of each semester with a rental car that I had for 1-2 days as a result of driving to campus from the airport 2 hours away, and the occasional 2-mile (approx) roundtrip trek by foot to the closet two grocery stores which took up quite a bit of time and we were limited as to how many heavy items we could carry back in our reusable shopping bags depending on heat, snow, etc. We could only afford to get pizza delivered to our dorm maybe once or twice a year and not the healthiest option anyway.
At the first college I attended, I was 90% dependent on the school cafeteria and on-campus eating establishments since my dorm room had no kitchen so we could only make ramen, easy mac, stuff out of a can, etc. using a hot pot or microwave (though I couldn't eat the ramen due to being vegetarian). Also, only one of our friend group had a car that sometimes ran, so trips to the grocery store were few and far between.
Furthermore, the food I ate on-campus at the cafeteria and on-campus eating establishments at both colleges was not all "tacos and cheeseburgers". I've been an almost lifelong vegetarian so much of it was sub sandwiches (with veggies and cheese), veggie burgers, fruit smoothies, a unique okra dish that kept popping up on the cafeteria menu (just an example), pastas, etc. Salad bar too but that was self serve so less dependent on student cafeteria workers except to stock the fruits, veggies, etc.
What’s wrong with “uncrustables”?
ReplyDelete@4:29 There is nothing wrong witch uncrustables. They are delicious and filling! Smuckers brand are the best.
ReplyDeleteAnd how in the @#$% dies this have ANYTHING to do with SSA? Student benefits normally terminate at age 18, month/year of graduation or age 19 plus two months if still in high school.
ReplyDelete