March 10, 2005

• People from an Ivy League school getting things handed to them without lifting a finger?? Truly shocking. At least for once a Harvard MBA is inflicting his dumb-ass ideas on his own kind.
• i'm sure the questions on every harvard students mind are 'what does dormaid look like?', 'does she give happy endings?', 'does she inhale?' prediction: someday a dormaid will be hired to the president's staff.
• Damn, drjimmy11 beat me to it. Teaching as a phd student at a school I couldn't afford to go to as an undergrad, I get my fair share of spoiled rich kids. I want to bash in the windshields of all their SUVs. On a more parctical note, why are the dorms allowing strangers into the buildings? back in my day the RA's would hassle anyone who didn't live on the floor.
• That third link is pretty jaw dropping. Makes me feel much better about my own slobbish lifestyle.
• I think most dorms already have some level of cleaning service - for the common areas and often times for bathrooms too (even when they are private bathrooms inside suites). As for the various tiny rooms I once occupied on campus, I long for the quickness and ease with which they could be made tidy. I wouldn't like to be a student worker paid to clean up a classmate's room, even if the pay was tempting.
• On further reflection, i cant imagine the truly rich kids would actually stay in a dorm when they could have their own apartment. But I didnt go to an Ivy League school so I dont know...
• If one can afford the service I don't see the problem. What? You shouldn't buy stuff because someone else may not be able to afford it? Ridiculous. At the end of the day the students at Harvard who are less well off will have one thing most people in this country will never have - a Harvard education. Somehow I think the inability to hire some cleaning service while they were in college won't ruin their futures.
• Speaking of SUV's, what is The Harvard Crimson's position on student parking? Do they urge a boycott of all parking lots? I mean, after all, it must be hell for the poor kids driving Chevy Novas to have to park next to rich kids and their Escalades and what not.
• Thought I'd address a few things: On further reflection, i cant imagine the truly rich kids would actually stay in a dorm when they could have their own apartment. They do. The "dorms" or rather "Houses" are the center of undergraduate social life. A huge majority of students live on-campus. People who lived off-campus always seemed to be on the margins. Speaking of SUV's, what is The Harvard Crimson's position on student parking? Do they urge a boycott of all parking lots? Harvard is in an urban area. There are no student parking lots to speak of. Anyone (the few) who owned a car kept it in some garage somewhere or parked it on the street but there is no need to have one on campus. Finally, as a former student I dont object to this at all. The Harvard I knew actually had very few class distinctions based on money. It was generally hard to tell who was super-rich and who was poor. Everyone wore the same clothes. Everyone lived in the same rooms and ate the same food. Sure, some people had nicer *gasp* stereos but nobody really cared. The important thing was who was doing well in their academic life. Also, I remember as a freshman that, when the mom of one of my roommates came by she was aghast and wanted to try to get a maid to come in - not just for him but for all four of us. So, in that case, I as a non-wealthy student could have gotten a cleaner room. Its a tiny issue. i dont know why the Crimson is making such a big deal of it. It almost feels like they have to invent outrage in order to have something to fill their editorial section.
• They actually already have a cleaning service for most colleges at Cambridge university - daily garbage pickup and weekly vaccuum and sheet change at the college I stayed at. The cleaner, known as a bedder, was a really nice guy, but I actually found the whole thing very instrusive. I think I would have rather have cleaned my own room than be at the mercy on someone else's schedule. Also, the majority of mess in a bedroom is usually clothes and books and paper (at least for a student) - that isn't something someone else can clean (as opposed to kitchen or bathroom mess). Either, like the bedders at the college I stayed at, you have to clean up yourself before they come to vaccuum, or they will tidy stuff up and you won't be able to find anythin. That would be horrible. So, I think this just isn't a very good idea, unless they are talking about the cleaning of common areas, kitchens and bathrooms (which is already provided in most residence living). That said, as someone who is also TAs at an expensive school (though one I probably could have afforded to go to, because my family is poor enough I would have had full financial aid - most expensive universities are cheaper than suposedly cheap US schools these days), the kids here are not all rich. As far as I can tell, they are in the majority middle class, not upper, and if they have any elevated expections, they are academic rather than monetary/life style. They also seem to be much less materialistic than the students at my decidedly lower and middle class Canadian university, where fashion, cell phones and conspicuous consumption at the campus mall seemed to rule the day.
• To second what jb said at the end, I found that the law of conspicous consumption gets reversed at the very top. I knew several kids from really "old money" who wore tattered clothes. One girl for example, a friend of mine, had only a cheap portable stereo which had been repeatedly bandaged with masking tape to keep it from falling apart. Her father was CEO of a large, well-known corporation.
• Harvard Student Agency Cleaners...lets some students pick up clean and neatly-folded clothes in crackling plastic bags...less well-off among us...journeys to the basement with bulging mesh laundry bags and quarters in hand What the #@$%?! So now it's low class, or should that be lower caste, to clean your own clothing, or clean up your own mess?! Hiring someone to clean dorm rooms is...an obvious display of wealth that would establish a perceived...barrier between students of different economic means The problem here is not the cleaning service. That's putting the cart before the horse. People should be able to spend their money on any legal service they desire. The problem here is attitude. What's disgusting is the attitude (at least at the Crimson) that inherently accepts that those with money are somehow better. Bite my ass you snobby twits.
• Its a tiny issue. i dont know why the Crimson is making such a big deal of it. It almost feels like they have to invent outrage in order to have something to fill their editorial section. You say you went to Harvard. Clearly you have never read the Crimson before. I kid! But seriously, this is what college newspapers do: they take a non-issue and blow it up to laughable proportions. I went to Harvard. I had no money. I mean none. I mean that you might be appalled how little four years wound up costing me (I am eternally grateful for need-based aid). And yes, there was conspicuous consumption. Some kids had big TVs. Expensive clothes. Cocaine. But I don't think anyone treated them any differently because of it, or even gave a rip. As it should be. This is a complete non-issue. Nal is entirely right: the Crimson needs to get its goddamn priorities straight.
• I worked dorm security at my (state, not private, cheap tuition, many different classes of people) university. There were some hellish, hellish scary dorm rooms - not just papers or unmade beds but dirty dishes and dirty clothes. Had nothing to do with rich or poor, male or female - some kids were just royal slobs, and sometimes their roommates would want it to be cleaner but didn't want to have to clean up their slobby roomie's mess themselves, yet the slobby roomie wouldn't do it herself. I knew kids that would buy new clothes when they ran out of clean ones, then haul the dirty ones home at Thanksgiving and Xmas for Mom to launder - they had never, ever done their own laundry before. I remember talking with the cleaners that would do the ensuite bathrooms after each term that told some serious horror stories. I saw some myself (my ex-bf's four-person room got so gross they were threatened with being kicked out; a friend had to share with three other girls that regularly left pizza boxes and KFC bones in their kitchenette area for days, weeks at a time; the RAs loved to tell summer cleaning stories like the stench from a room left in a disgusting, not-cleaned-in-8-months state that turned out to be, once cleaned of the mold and roaches, a dead rat trapped behind the fridge). If an option had been to chip in all around for a cleaning service, I think quite a few would have done so - or their parents would have bought it for them. I don't think it has anything to do with money, and a lot more to do with laziness/spoiled kids that came to college never having to clean up after themselves before in their lives. Conspicuous consumption is more about buying and flashing around luxury items than using a cleaning service, in my eyes.
• An ex of mine (who, I admit, was a tad spendthrift) was of the theory that 90% of friction between live-in couples and roommates was caused by cleaning the apartment. Thus, $X (reasonable amount) a month was worth preserving the peace. I have met other proponents of this theory, and would be willing to try it myself, if our apartment clutter was organized in such a way that made enough sense to a stranger. I don't think that Harvard snobbery really has to factor into this.
• I would just like to take the opportunity to note that the dirty dishes in my kitchen are from tonight. I promise to do them tomorrow morning, first thing. (Melinika's stories were making me squirm.)
• It's amazing the amount of garbage you can fit in a dorm room. I don't know if this is actually a class consciousness thing or not. Really, the maid service isn't neccesary for a clean room, it's just a shortcut. It would creep me out to have people come into my room and clean, because of all my stuff. Maybe other people don't think that way though. It doesn't seem like this needs to be a class issue, though you could make it into one with very little problem.
• The best way to keep a clean room is to have more exam periods. If memory serves, rooms throughout rez were at their cleanest and tidiest in the few days before and during the exam period, until the day that people wrote their last exam.After which, predictably, the mess returned. It worked while I was in school, and it worked recently when my wife had an exam coming up.
• isn't the most useful and not-explained-beforehand part of college learning to do stuff for yourself, like budgeting your time, clothes washing, cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, etc.? it's a time to grow up and learn how to take responsibility for yourself, and if you fuck up at least you've got a safety net of some sort-- your family and the counseling services at the college to lean on. what i think is sad is that this service will enable a certain group of grads to complete part of college- getting a degree-- without finishing the "learn how to be a functional adult and do things that suck but that adults must do" section. imagine not knowing how to do basic things like "mop" or "organize a pile of papers" or "do a load of laundry," cause mom did it from 0-18 years and dormaid did it for 18-22. now you're on your own for the first time and don't know how to wash a dish. that's sort of pathetic.
• MonkeyFilter: Makes me feel much better about my own slobbish lifestyle. MonkeyFilter: The problem here is attitude. MonkeyFilter: Bite my ass you snobby twits. Thank you, and good night.
• Unfair Harvard.