Sophomore Nat Blue is thankful for the ability to work in Dining Services the maximum 20 hours per week to help him and his single mother pay for his tuition.
In Noyer's Retreat, business major Blue and his fellow students work in the dish room for diners, allowing them to eat with clean silverware and plates.
When the diners finished their food, they placed their trays on a conveyer belt moving toward the underbelly of the dinning hall.
Opposite of the diners, two teams of students waited, ready to pounce upon the trays as they enter. Blue and the first few students threw napkins and the major food waste in the trash and the washers threw the silverware into a tube, which churned the soapy water inside once submerged.
As plates moved forward, the second team along the belt rinsed all the plates with a hose until the water cleaved the remaining food from the dishes. From there, the dishes were stacked and led to a massive dishwasher across from the conveyor belt.
The floor was slick from the water that gives the plates and the person operating the hose a shower.
Sophomore dishwasher Sara Morand, a chemistry and theater studies major, said students left waste constantly, especially unopened food, which the washers had to throw away.
Sophomore library, media and computer education major Sarah Walston said the dishwashers saw the largest build up of wasted food when the facility prepared to close.
"It looked like a kid had just ordered and then threw it on the conveyor belt to be thrown away," she said.
On this particular day, students ate dinner for breakfast and slimed their plates with the syrup and peanut butter.
Bowls filled with hazy syrup alone, someone's dipping bowl for French toast, entered as an offering to those the diners couldn't see. French toast sticks were the half-eaten survivors of the meal tossed into its final resting place. Next came plates full of biscuits and gravy. Sometimes the dishwashers appeared to receive a large meal all to themselves.
Blue agreed that syrup was nothing compared to the peanut butter smeared across the surface of plates that resisted even the harsh, berating spray from the water nozzle. The hose thundered as water ran through its veins and hot water struck the food waste. The smells were revitalized as if the hose summoned their aromas.
Excess water collected in the trough below, a virtual river corrupted with the run off of the plates.
The pooling particle water rose until the students finally released the torrent of filth into the garbage disposal.
Although breakfast meals were disgusting, Morand said it was nothing compared to a night filled with pasta.
The camaraderie of coworkers was palpable in the room. As the workers along the conveyor belt had to remain stationary for entire shifts, Morand and Blue joked about gremlins who live in the dish disposal. As rinsed dishes collected at the end of the conveyor belt, Walston escorted them onto an additional conveyor belt in front of the dishwasher.
Before they knew it, the crew's night, which was progressing smoothly, jolted to a stop when the washing machine broke down. Students turned away from the conveyor belt to carry dishes piled high to the other side of the room for manual washing.
There, the students and adults began preparing the three stations of cleaning: washing, rinsing and sanitizing.
With three workers washing and two posted at the conveyor belt, a mess rivaling a scene from "I Love Lucy" episode played out. Perfectly timed, the few conveyor belt students were overwhelmed by the onslaught of dishes. It appeared the belt had begun to speed up, Blue and his crew couldn't retrieve all the silverware or waste that headed their way. The few plates that got away were taken from the hose operator who dropped his tool to maintain order among the dishes.
The remaining eight people in the dish room were busy carrying the remaining dishes that were huddled in a line in front of the downed washing machine.
Walston said the chaos of the conveyor belt happened daily.
Blue stressed how they are students themselves. On top of work, he has classes. As the child of a single mom, he began working at the age of 14 and said how his fellow students find that strange.
"I personally learned a lot from doing things myself," he said.
He said his mother owned a gas station, which is where he learned about hard work.
Blue, who is a 21st century scholar, said the scholarship helps, but he still must work to stay in college.
"My mom isn't one of those parents that has the extra money," he said.
He also stressed how the staff never gets angry with the students as they work behind the scenes. They always remain cheerful and relaxed because when the going gets rough, they begin to joke around and lighten the atmosphere. He attributed that to the fact that most of the people who work there enjoy it.
And as Blue and Morand finished working in the dish room, their work for Dining Services hadn't stopped. The two dish washers donned sweaters and were dish washers no more. They proceeded to the freezer and became stockers of shelves of bottled teas and sodas.
"A lot of people don't realize what happens behind the scenes," Morand said. "In fact, I didn't."
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