At the beginning of fall semester, I sat at glued to my computer, anxiously hitting the refresh button on my email. I was waiting for a response to one of the many emails I had sent out asking for an on-campus job. I was crossing my fingers for a job at the library, which I pictured not so much as a job but more of a paid study period.
Unfortunately, the library was not able to hire me, but a day after that reject email came, I got good news—The Rat was eager to hire new people and I could start as early as Wednesday! While it wasn’t my first choice, I thought The Rat might be a good fit seeing as I had spent most of high school bussing tables at a local restaurant. Plus, nine dollars an hour sounded like a wonderful salary for someone who had spent her summer at an unpaid internship.
Unfortunately, my schedule did not permit me to work at The Rat again this spring, but after a semester of working as a dining aide, I have found a few pros and cons that students should consider when they search for a job on campus. While dining may not be your first choice, seven of the twelve on campus jobs are in the various dining halls. If you are on the fence about whether or not to contact one of the managers, especially the manager in Lyons, this pro/con list will hopefully help you make your final decision.
PRO: The Food Card
Free food is such a rare treat in college, which is why the food card tops the list of pros for working at The Rat. For every shift you work at The Rat, you receive one card worth eight dollars to spend on food in the dining hall. Most students will use this during their break, but it can also be used after your shift (at The Rat, students got a twenty minute break if they worked a three or four hour shift). This food card is helpful if you, like me, buy three cups of tea or coffee a day and find that your caffeine habit is taking a toll on your meal plan. It is also especially great for students who are no longer on the meal plan and could use a free lunch three times a week. If you’re a person who tends to run low on your meal plan money, The Rat is the right place for you.
CON: No Time to do Homework
Between classes and extracurricular activities, my schedule was already pretty full without my job last semester. It would have been nice to have a job where I could spend the majority of my time doing work; but unfortunately, The Rat was not that job. Most of the time, this was not a big deal and I was able to get all my work done and a decent amount of sleep. However, during midterm season, I found myself staring woefully at the clock as I worked, thinking of all the time I could have been spending on studying or writing papers. If you are overloading this semester or are taking a particularly demanding course load, then being a dining aide might be a bit too stressful.
PRO: The People
One of the best things about working at The Rat was the people I worked with—both the students and the adults who work full time. Students from all grades and majors work at The Rat, and I met many really nice kids who I may have never known otherwise. The adults took their job seriously, but not too seriously, and we always got to play music when we worked in the kitchen. The women who worked at the cash registers always asked about my day and seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me better. Overall, The Rat had a very friendly staff.
CON: The Clean-Up
When I wasn’t working the register or in the kitchen making the frozen sandwiches, I had to work on the floor, or the food area, of The Rat. While working on the floor meant making coffee and making sure the yogurt bar was fully stocked, it also entailed one of the worst parts of working for BC dining—cleaning up after people. This included wiping up spilled coffee on the counters, gathering all of the empty sugar packets that had been left near the creamers, clearing all of the cereal trays of many, many crumbs, wiping fingerprints off of the bakery case, and trying my best to wipe off as many soup stains as possible from the soup pots in between rushes. Luckily, I had had a lot of experience cleaning up messes from my days as a bus girl and a waitress, but if you’re not a fan of stains and crumbs, you might want to look elsewhere for a job.
PRO/CON: The Hours
The hours at The Rat are both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, if you are often busy at night, you’ll never have to work past 4:00 PM, leaving your nights completely free. However, if you only can work at night, you may be out of luck. You do not have to work weekends, but if you can only work on the weekends, the kitchen is open from 8 AM until 2 PM on Sundays to make the refrigerated sandwiches and salads, so that is an option, but if you only work Sundays, you can only work up to 6 hours a week.
It is important to weigh the pros and cons of any job before you decide to apply. If you are in need of an on-campus job, this list will hopefully help you decide whether you’re willing and able to work at one of the available dining hall positions on campus, especially at The Rat.
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