What is the real problem here? Is this just another case of PC gone astray.
Harvard dorm cleaning flap gets messy
Why is it wrong to have a dorm room cleaning service?
You clean your own dorm room or pay for others to do it for you!
spingears: What is the real problem here?
Well, the Harvard student newspaper’s editorial seems to consider that the problem is the exacerbation of class divisions between rich and poor students, by encouraging poor students to perform menial services for rich ones in exchange for money.
This is by no means a new issue: non-wealthy students have always had campus jobs in student cafeterias or snack bars or gym laundries, essentially cleaning up after their wealthier peers.* Maybe the argument here is that it’s more polarizing because the cleaners are working directly for their wealthier peers and presumably having to tidy away their dirty underwear and make their beds and other things that seem more “servant-class” stuff than just wiping down a snack bar table. (I also foresee some nasty issues with accusations of theft, but I doubt that’s the point being argued here.)
Apparently, a student started this business with student workers and customers to make a little money. (Or a lot of money, actually: your link says that the founder " plans to expand the service to other parts of the country and is aiming for $200,000 in annual sales in a year’s time".) The editorial writer thinks that the camaraderie and social cohesiveness of the student body is more important than the business opportunity or the service it provides, so it advocates boycotting the dorm cleaning business.
Point, counterpoint. I don’t really care much one way or the other but I can’t see that anybody’s actually doing anything wrong here, on either side.
*Oh, the stories I could tell about my own shifts in the campus snack bar! The ketchup graffiti was always what pissed me off the most. 
I have to say, though, that it didn’t affect my sense of class status in the slightest, except to make me feel loftily superior to the people I was cleaning up after because I could never be such a disgusting piggy slob as they were.
I’d be envious I didn’t think of it first. Maybe that’s the Crimson editor’s problem. Heh. Or maybe they won’t advertise in the paper, and cheesed someone off?
I gave this issue some thought after reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed. She worked for awhile as a maid with one of the national franchises, and she found the work to be fairly exploitative. She spent a fair amount of her final chapter railing against people who won’t clean their own houses.
However, I think she took too narrow a view. Perhaps the employment pratices of some housecleaning services are objectionable. However, there is another business model: people start their own cleaning services so they can work for themselves. It’s a chance to own a small business with flexible hours with very little capital outlay. What’s wrong with supporting that? When I could afford it, we’ve hired a cleaner, and everyone we’ve hired has been someone doing their own thing and greatly enjoying that autonomy.
I wonder if that’s what is going on here. This may not much at all to do with exploitation and class politics. It’s one group of students who want (and can pay for) a service, and another groups of students who are willing to provide that service for for the money. Sounds like entrepreneurship to me. Any poor student who is offended by the idea of cleaning up after a wealthier dorm mate presumably has the option of seeking a different job.
Preferably (for the Crimson editor) not in services industries where a status/class differential is implied between patron and worker, of course.
I grew up with maids, and my brother and I were required to put our dirty laundry in the proper hampers, our toys back in their places, and various types of ‘picking up after ourselves’ and the maids did everything else - vacuuming the floors, dusting, washing walls and windows [and noncarpeted floors], washing down the kitchen counters, emptying the dishwasher and cleaning the oven/fridge, and cleaning the bathrooms, and once a week doing the laundry. In the years when I coud afford a maid service I kept picked up after myself, and did my own laundry and dishwasher emptying… and the maids did the dusting, vacuuming, washing surfaces and the bathroom. I emptied my own garbage and provided the cleaning supplies. I used to get a maid in every friday morning for about 4 years right after I screwed up my back…
I would KILL for the money to have a maid now=\ I hate cleaning house!
Kimstu:
CrankyAsAnOldMan
You both feel pretty much as I do. It is nobodys business whether I want a DIY job or have it done for hire.
The PC crowd want to disenfranchise an entrepeneur in the name of equality for all.
At the same time they take away the opportunity for a low income student to feel self sustaining and having some self worth.
Ah what wonderous thoughts must pass through the minds of student editors and the well to do.
This isn’t an issue of class divisions, it is an example of smart thinkers! I was poor college kid and let me tell you, the work study jobs, part-time jobs or any other idea I had to make extra cash in the end only made me smarter and now…well let’s just say I am much better off in many ways than the kids I knew who would potentially hire me to do their work. In general and with the right attitude, work should be seen as a learning process and a character building process. I think in the end it all comes to “perception is reality.”
On the other hand, I know maids that make A LOT of money for their services…a lot, even working for someone else. Most major 4+ star hotels pay their maids more per hour than the admin people at the hotel…plus they make money per room and tips. Don’t be fooled, if you are smart and know the business, you are not an uneducated person destined to a profession, you just have to know where to make the money.
You don’t know that this is a PC crowd. The editors at the Crimson might very well be Mac users (or, more likely, Linux types).
I’m oddly divided in thinking about this. First, since this is in a university setting, with young people in formative years, I think it a good lesson to learn how to pick up after oneself, and not have the option of just paying for it. Especially at Harvard, where many kids are likely to have never had to do that.
On the other ten fingers, if there is an opportunity for those who need the money, in order to attend Harvard, why deny them that? In this case , seems best to limit it to student workers, so it’s a peer thing, and not a Lower Caste structure.
I do admire the school paper for addressing the issue, though: nice to see the rehashing of ever-predominant problems.
Since the maids are coming tomorrow…
I guess you know where I stand.
For what it’s worth the entrepreneur should tell the editors of the newspaper to screw off. We’ve got a kid here who is showing initiative and ability and drive and some newsie wannabe is beating him up for it.
Slow news day.
Is it only the “have nots” that would take these jobs?
I would have cleaned dorm rooms in college for extra money. I didn’t qualify for work study, but working off campus meant, well, going off campus. Many of us didn’t bring cars to school (yes, we had cars back in the dark ages when I went to college–not Model T’s either) but we would have liked to earn some extra spending money. It would have been great to have a job where you could walk to work or at least not have to travel far.
Even if it is mostly “have nots,” I can’t see how it’s hurting them to have the opportunity. They don’t have to take it. I guess someone could argue that it makes it more apparent who has money and who doesn’t, but don’t most people figure that out anyway?
Here, by the way, is the original editorial that inspired the article linked in the OP. It’s not so clear that the people doing the dorm-room cleaning would actually be student workers, just that the business is run by a student and the services are offered to students.
spingears: The PC crowd want to disenfranchise an entrepeneur in the name of equality for all.
At the same time they take away the opportunity for a low income student to feel self sustaining and having some self worth.
Sorry, but I think this is just classic “victimization” whining. Nobody’s trying to" disenfranchise" entrepreneurship or “take away opportunity” for low-income students to get jobs (there are plenty of other campus jobs available at Harvard, after all). This editorial writer is simply arguing that the negative non-financial consequences of this particular business would outweigh its financial benefits as far as the student body is concerned.
Argue this point on its merits all you like, as other posters here have been doing, but there’s no need to resort to sentimental sob-stuff about how those awful “PC” people are just trying to “take away opportunity”. The question of whether the negative social impact of a particular business might outweigh its economic benefits is a perfectly valid and respectable one. It’s a sad day if people can’t debate it without sniveling about the horridness of each other’s motives.
The writer of the editorial in question made a rational and dignified argument, free of classist victim-whining about “lazy rich kids who don’t know how to pick up after themselves” or “greedy little wheeler-dealers who just want to make a buck on the backs of their classmates”. If we want to make this campus issue into one of our message-board debates, I think it would behoove us to carry on the debate in the same respectful and dignified spirit.
Well, except for a small minority of freshmen, college is attended by adults (18 and older) so let’s not pretend these are 10 year olds we are talking about.
The letter in the Crimson was just dribble. College life is the sharpening of adult minds to enter into a competitive world, not some romper room setting where everybody has got to have the same number of crayons in their box. Differences in ability, desire and values are reality, and arguably a beautiful thing. I’ll never understand why so many want to quash that and dilute everyone down to some level of boring sameness. If we were all the same there wouldn’t have been a DaVinci, or Mozart, or Jefferson.
By the time you’re in college you’d better have a pretty darn clear idea of how to live in the real world, or you’re in for one hell of a surprise.
-rainy
rainy: College life is the sharpening of adult minds to enter into a competitive world, not some romper room setting where everybody has got to have the same number of crayons in their box. Differences in ability, desire and values are reality, and arguably a beautiful thing. I’ll never understand why so many want to quash that and dilute everyone down to some level of boring sameness.
Isn’t that a rather extreme characterization of the Crimson editorial (not a letter, AFAIK)? I mean, I didn’t see any suggestion there that it would be better to have all students at one level of “boring sameness”, or that there’s anything wrong with “differences in ability, desire and values”. The editorial freely acknowledges that you can’t “quash” differences in socio-economic status either: as it notes, “class differences are a fact of life—yes, there are both rich and poor people at Harvard”.
Its argument was simply that one particular class difference–i.e., where richer students get their dorm rooms cleaned for money while poorer students have to clean up after themselves–is unnecessarily divisive and shouldn’t be encouraged.
I’m not sure I agree with that position, and I can certainly see how many people would strongly disagree with it, but I’m a little startled at the number of debaters here who seem to feel that they have to drastically mischaracterize the editorial’s argument with hyperbolic strawmen in order to oppose it effectively.
Good grief, people, this editorial is not advocating some kind of communistically leveled Harvard campus life where everybody shares everything absolutely equally. It’s just saying that some kinds of class privilege are excessive and bad for the cohesiveness of the student community, so they shouldn’t be encouraged.
(Me, I continue to think that a much more serious problem with this “dorm maiding” scheme will be the inevitable mislaid or pilfered items and accusations of theft, but nobody seems to agree with me.)
Thanks for the link to the Crimson article Kimstu. It does clarify the objections to the maid service. However, I still don’t believe that the service is a bad idea.
Basically, the Crimson editorial claimed that it would be divisive to the student body since rooming in dorms is a shared experience and maid service would make it more obvious that some people had money others didn’t. That seems really weak to me.
First of all, living in a dorm may provide some “shared experiences” but does cleaning a dorm room? I don’t recall any bonding or sharing of experiences over cleaning. Bonding occured during late night study sessions, pizza parties, TV watching, etc. Cleaning was just drudgery that had to get done periodically. You lose more of that “shared experience” when you allow students to live off campus (I don’t know if Harvard does this, my alma mater did) than I imagine you would if you allowed someone to have a cleaning service. Also, most students are stuck into whatever dorms they get freshman year, but after that you get to pick and chose where you go. So by sophmore year and onwards, you’re already kind of segregating yourselves into groups.
Secondly, I doubt anyone is fooled into thinking that everyone comes from a similar background just because they all have to clean their own rooms. It’s plenty obvious by your clothing, car, vacations, etc. who has money and who doesn’t. I doubt any more separations will occur between those who clean by themselves and those who hire a service than would otherwise occur through other differentiating factors. If someone has enough money to throw around that they can have dorm cleaning service, their fellow students would have known anyway.
Frankly, most of my college dorm buddies would have laughed themselves silly if someone had dorm cleaning service. It would seem like a waste of perfectly good beer money!
My current housekeeper used to work for one of those maid services, but now has her own business. I pay her about $20 an hour-- and she doesn’t even have to clean my toilet. (I just can’t make someone clean my toilet, no matter how much I pay them-- it just doesn’t seem right to me.)
Back in the 50s when my grandmother was suddenly widowed with four children to feed, she scrubbed floors for a living-- and is very proud of it. She was paid very little, but she managed to keep a roof over her kids’ heads and food in their bellies, without having to rely on charity. Yeah, she was probably exploited by those for whom she cleaned, but she looked at it as merely doing what she had to do to survive, and that there’s no shame in honest work.
I think it has more to do with the employer’s attitude toward the worker than anything. Some people (and I’ve known a few of them) have a genuine disdian for the working class. I’ve never fully understood it, but some people seem to get some sort of boost out of treating others in a degrading manner-- as if their nastiness elevates them in some way.
If the concern at Harvard is with eliminating the earmarks of a privileged class (not just the dorm cleaning service, but the laundry service mentioned in the editorial), why not make everyone wear a uniform? Traditionally, the easiest way to tell the “haves” from the “have nots” is clothing. A uniform would help eliminate class distinctions faster than a ban on cleaning services.
My opinion? Use a cleaning service if you want to. Given how small dorm rooms are, if you need a cleaning service to get yours clean, it’s likely that without one, you’d be living in a toxic wasteland. And nobody wants that.
I don’t even think one can assume that it’s only the “have nots” who would use the service. Is there no one at Harvard who is both financially stretched and who has a job with variable hours and a higher wage than the service would cost? Seems to me that if the cleaning service is, say, $30 bucks for an hour’s cleaning and a working person could make $50 with an extra peak hour at a bartending job that’s a good trade. The editorial writer errs by thinking that the outsourcing of personal tasks like cleaning and (as she stated) laundry is something which is still exclusively for the rich. Increasingly, it’s becoming an option for the not-rich but not-poor whose time is even shorter than their money.
The Volokh Conspiracy had a great title on their article about this silliness:
HARRISON BERGERON - YOUR ROOM IS TOO CLEAN!
If they want to eliminate class and privlidge indications at Harvard, perhaps they should close the place and send the students out to Cowpie Community College.
Campion: If the concern at Harvard is with eliminating the earmarks of a privileged class […] A uniform would help eliminate class distinctions faster than a ban on cleaning services.
Oh my goodness, not another of you! People, are we even reading the same editorial here? How many times do I have to point out that the author is not advocating the elimination of all class distinctions among Harvard students?
Your counter-arguments would be a lot more convincing if you didn’t grossly distort your opponent’s arguments to make your point. Check out the rational, sensible criticisms offered by, e.g., Tenzin and Maddy and manhattan to see what I mean.
Brother Cadfael: If they want to eliminate class and privlidge indications at Harvard
Aaaaarrrrrrrggghhhh!!! All right, that does it. I am sneaking into all of your dorm rooms with a bag of week-old garbage and a bucket of mud, and I hope your “dorm maid” triples her fee.