Should you do your own cleaning or pay to have it done?

Great Debates
21

The editorial at issue suggests that students should boycott the dorm cleaning service “to ensure that our peers feel comfortable on campus.” (Ah, the magnanimity!) Why? Because visible “class differences” will exacerbate the distinction between the rich and the poor. My comment went to that point – namely, that if the concern is making the haves and have nots more comfortable with each other, there are better methods of reaching that goal than boycotting a dorm cleaning service.

Frankly, I don’t understand your criticism, so I’ll leave it at that.

22

Kimstu,
I’m with ya. Saw the Crimson editorial as being quite balanced, not inflammatory. Nice to see that.

My point is that college, and , in particular, University settings(being raised by professors, and around that a good long bit) attention needs to be paid to life-lessons. I’m talking a classical, well-rounded mode. I see lessons in picking up after yourself at twenty immensely important. It teaches personal reponsibility , and how to integrate that with your future intellectual pursuits.

Having witnessed the results of some mighty smart folks who have gone through the University system with no idea how to clean up after themselves, and not appreciate those who do, gotta say, let’s learn em young.

23

Background: My family is/was wealthy and I did have my entire college education paid for me including living expenses.

Personally I would argue that free economy is good simply as the harder it works, the harder it is for class systems to develop. The more rising or lowering in the economy is based on personal skill and initiative, the harder it will be for inherited fortune to take a foothold as a permanent force. Trying to stop the changing of hands of money between wealthier and poorer students in college strikes me as a blow to the poorer students who need that money to compete–certainly if they are intelligent, hard working, and lucky they can make that back, but it will become just that much more difficult when they could have had a handy flexible-time job right there on campus.

Certainly as someone who did not have to work as hard to get the same education, I was given the potential to achieve more than someone who could not spend the same amount of time outside of class on self-improvement. But a) that only means anything if the individual actually utilized that time in self-improvement rather than in beer-guzzling, and b) what’s the point in people working hard to achieve bonus money for themselves if they cannot use that money to try and benefit their own family and the people they care about? So overall, to me it just sounds illogical and counter-productive to even suggest that there is anything wrong with allowing students to start businesses which cater to other students.

24

Kimstu, after seeing your passionate responses to both my post and Campion’s, I went back and re-read the original article again since I had read it rather quickly at work to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

But I still stand by what I said. You state that the editorial isn’t advocating some sort of communist dorm life, but then I offer this question. If there are “class differences [that] are a fact of life” then why is this one any more deserving of elimination than any other?

If you start with the premise that the ideal is to have an equal playing field, or commonality of experience in the dorms (not my idea, just work with me here) then what about this cleaning service makes it worthy of being singled out? Dorm rooms are not all created equal, some students bring stereos, TVs, and video games with them, while others just bring their clothes and a lamp. Some dorm rooms keep the mini-fridge stocked with beer and others don’t have a mini-fridge. These differences seem far more obvious in everyday dorm life than someone coming in to clean once a week. So if a ‘level playing field’ is what they want to encourage, then they should look to the US armed forces boot camp. Now there is an enviroment where differences get erradicated – down to what style of underwear you can bring with you.

But since all the myriad of other “differential[s] between the haves and have-nots” are not addressed then it really seems to call into question if there is not something else underlying the editorial author’s comments.

And this passage really seems to smack of resentment;

“There are already plenty of services at Harvard that sharpen the differences between socioeconomic classes. Harvard Student Agency Cleaners, for example, lets some students pick up clean and neatly-folded clothes in crackling plastic bags. The less well-off among us, however, make semi-weekly journeys to the basement with bulging mesh laundry bags and quarters in hand.”

Notice the “less well-off among us” phrasing.

So is this really about equal playing fields? It doesn’t seem like it to me. Notice the editorial writer doesn’t address the good aspects of the dorm cleaning business; lessons in economics, and taking risks (risk management), seizing opportunities, and taking responsibility for providing for yourself financially as the operator of this business obviously is. Neither does it address whether there would be any difference if the dorm cleaning service was operated by an off-campus / non-student owner.

This editorial just smacks of sour grapes on the part of the writer. It strives to draw some conclusions about how this one service will impact student life without discussing any of the other factors that might have the same effect. I still think it is dribble.

-rainy

25

I don’t see what the fuss is about.

I employ a cleaning lady. To pay for it, I don’t have a car. My choice how to spend my money.

As for University students, if they are to avoid learning about financial inequality, then they should avoid drinking or eating together. Expensive holidays would also be a no-no…

26

Completely and totally off-topic, but I thought it was neat and this reminded me of it, so here goes. Colby College, a little liberal arts shop up in Mass., has decided that one way to fight binge drinking is to allow actual adult drinking at dinner. I think this is cool and should be encouraged so that students get direct experience in consuming alchohol which doesn’t require a funnel.

27

Ah, mais zee French have already thought of this, non?
Zee petit children Francais are allowed to 'ave wine wiz zer meals.
Magnifique!

28

rainy: If there are “class differences [that] are a fact of life” then why is this one any more deserving of elimination than any other?
If you start with the premise that the ideal is to have an equal playing field, or commonality of experience in the dorms (not my idea, just work with me here) then what about this cleaning service makes it worthy of being singled out?

The editorial isn’t “singling out” the dorm cleaning service as particularly “deserving of elimination”. It’s just arguing against the introduction of a new, additional indicator of class differences in campus life. (Remember, the “dorm maid” service is being proposed as an innovation.)

In other words, the editorial is simply saying: we already have plenty of class distinctions on campus, and although class distinctions are ubiquitous and inevitable, they tend to weaken our community spirit in some ways, so we recommend against adding more of them.

I continue to be surprised at the number of posters who interpret this argument as “really meaning” that the editorial recommends eliminating all class distinctions, or wants students to “avoid learning about financial inequality”, or is secretly motivated by class “resentment” and “sour grapes”, etc. With this many strawmen, you could hold a scarecrow convention.

Why not argue against what the editorial’s actually saying, as many posters here seem to have no trouble doing, instead of reading into it nefarious “underlying motives” and arguing against those instead?

Now, here’s a question for people who have shown interest in debating what the editorial actually says: Even if we feel it’s not worth sacrificing a business/entrepreneurship opportunity for the sake of a little more social equality in this particular case of the dorm-cleaning business, is there any other type of class distinction where we’d take the opposite view?

For instance, would it be okay for the university to charge a “premium room fee” so that living in the nicer dorm rooms would cost a little more? Could they offer a “luxury meal plan” that offered better meals in the cafeteria to students who paid extra? How about if it were students running these schemes rather than the university itself?

I’m interested in this question because I think it’s very clear that institutions in general do try to boost social cohesiveness among their members by imposing certain shared experiences on them, and limiting opportunities for the wealthier members to buy a better deal. The military, for example, makes all its recruits use identical equipment and clean their own quarters and so forth, even though the wealthier ones could certainly afford to pay for fancier stuff and the services of hired help. Is this a bad thing? Is it effective, or should we just not bother trying to level class distinctions in boot camp?

Of course, a college is very different from the military and isn’t so concerned with fostering such a tight esprit de corps. But is it wrong for a college to take any steps to tone down class distinctions among its students? Why or why not? And if not, where would you draw the line, since you obviously wouldn’t draw it at permitting maid service in dorms?

29

I think it is. The sooner the students accept the notion that life is not fair and there will always be others will have more than you, the better. Are these students too young and delicate to be exposed to natural economic inequality? Will jealousy destroy them? Sure, we could try to make everything seem fair, but what would that really accomplish? What has the student learned from that?

Life is not fair. All everyone has is equal rights– not economic or social equality. Isn’t college supposed to be about preparing you for the real world?

30

I think that a proper university does have a role here. I’d say that the line is between what it does and what it permits. It shouldn’t offer differentiated meal services but it should permit students to go out to dinner or to have food delivered to the dorms. It shouldn’t have differentiated dorm prices (mostly – schools are sometimes kind of stuck with what they’ve got dorm-wise and where costs vary by a lot price might be a better mechanism of allocating scarce resources than by lot) but it should permit students to live off campus or even to allow semi-autonomous organizations (fraternities and sororities) to price their housing product as they see fit. In the current instance it should not itself offer maid service for an extra fee but it should not prohibit others from doing so.

That said, I’ve thought of an additional factor not addressed in the editorial which may be relevent on some campuses. Security. It would be reasonable for the university to require an in-dorm service provider to cooperate with campus security and get its employees certified for all-dorm access as long as its part of an overall security program (if, for example, the school requires food deliveries to be left at the desk instead of allowing the delivery person to go up to the room). A school with particularly rigorous security policies ought not be required to make an exception to it to accomodate this service.

31

How large are Harvard dorm rooms? It took me ten minutes tops to tidy up the half of the dorm room that was mine, when I lived in one. Unless these dorms are the size of small apartments (which wouldn’t surprise me, since it’s Harvard), I don’t even see how a maid would be needed. I know there are some messy people out there but geez, a maid for a dorm room?

32

Lissa: * The sooner the students accept the notion that life is not fair and there will always be others will have more than you, the better. Are these students too young and delicate to be exposed to natural economic inequality? Will jealousy destroy them? Sure, we could try to make everything seem fair, but what would that really accomplish?*

Again, though, this seems to be an argument against colleges trying to eliminate all signs of economic inequality, so as to “make everything seem fair”, which I don’t think anyone anywhere in this debate is actually advocating.

The question is, is it ever a good idea for colleges to restrict some class distinctions on campus, for the sake of better social cohesiveness among students?

manny, I think your proposed dividing line between college-sponsored services (where equality is mandated irrespective of what students can afford) and private commercial activity (where students may purchase whatever they can pay for) is an interesting one. I presume you’d count something like Harvard Student Agencies, which runs the laundry service that the editorial mentioned, as falling on the “private commercial activity” side despite its being housed and partly sponsored by the University? (I wouldn’t know where else to put it, in fact, since the organization seems to exist precisely in order to offer various commercial services to students who want to pay for them. In my day this sort of thing was mostly limited to renting cube fridges for dorm rooms, but AFAICT student agencies have really branched out recently.)

c_e: Unless these dorms are the size of small apartments (which wouldn’t surprise me, since it’s Harvard), I don’t even see how a maid would be needed. I know there are some messy people out there but geez, a maid for a dorm room?

Well, judging from my recent stint as a resident faculty member in a university dorm, it’s not the size of the room that’s an issue. Some dorm inhabitants really do rise (or sink?) to truly spectacular levels of piggitude. I’m thinking of the last week’s beer bottles half-emptied on the carpet, and the wastebaskets of accumulated vomit (trust me, you don’t want to know). And that was an Ivy League school too.

Of course, IME, many of those people don’t seem to be bothered by going through an entire semester without having the room cleaned, either. In fact, I’ll be interested to see how this “Dormaid” business model actually works out: I would think that most of the people who care about having a clean room would find it pretty easy to clean for themselves (after all, the halls and bathrooms are already serviced by the college cleaning staff), while those who don’t wouldn’t spend money on it.

33

I don’t think you’ve ever seen a *truly * messy dorm room. Ive seen rooms where there was literally a one-foot walking space from door down the center. To sleep the person would have had to pick stuff off their bed and dump it on the floor.

Not that my room was like that - I might have tried to be a little messy, but I lived with two anal neat freaks.

34

I believe that in various colleges there are nicer dorm rooms, which you can pay extra for. And then above that are of course personal apartments–probably off campus, but often recommended by the school. Personally I do not view this as a bad thing (as explained further below.) If a student comes up with it and makes a buck, so far as I am concerned, all the power to him (so long as it isn’t something illegal.)

Personally I view the goal of the military as, impounding on the students the ability to cease thinking and just do as he is told–since when you are in war there is no time to debate, and if you think about it you will probably not voluntarily get up to get shot at.
Then, I view the goal of liberal-arts schools as promoting individualism and free and creative thought. The idea being that, in a) a commercial setting, this will allow for a greater quantity of creative ideas and have a better chance for producing future leaders–rather than dedicated grunts, and b) free thinking individuals produce a healthier society as they are less likely to say shoot a Jew just because the new head of his organization commands it.

And I do believe that the teaching methods of say boot camp versus West Point are very different. Which if true, would probably be for these specific reasons.

If any student action is legal, organized, and not physically or mentally abusive to any party–I see no reason to object. If they are adults, I see no reason to treat them as anything other than adults–particularly when the goal is to train them to be productive adults. Having a miniature society that is as complete and tolerant as the real world can only be, so far as I could ever see it, a good training ground for life. Trying to make a crystal tower of perfection strikes me as much less healthy and useful.

35

There are some situations where it bothers me to create difference classes of students.

For example, the University of California system designates a handful of people as “regents scholars.” In order to woo these people on to UC campuses, they get a whole boatload of privledges, like guranteed housing for four years (a big deal- freshmen don’t even get guranteed a full year anymore), special councilers, and the ability to sign up for classes first.

That last part is the part that bugs me. I know people that have delayed graduation (an expensive proposition) or had to change their majors because they could not get in to the classes they needed. Competition for science and language classes that go in a sequence through the year is especially fierce. Why should there be a special overclass of people who get first dibbs on the classes we are all paying for and we would all like to take? Why is there a class of people that gets to jump to the head of the line?

In this particular case, I think the advantage that the poor students are getting ougweighs the social costs. Running your own business and making money are good things to be doing and will advance their life.

I still have to think about the effects of this on a relatively small community. It bugs me to think there is a new generations of rich kids out there learning that we are their servants and ought to be picking up their socks and vomit, no matter how smart, educated and capable we may be. It bothers me that a group of kids is missing out on one of the big reasons to go to a good college- networking- and instead of making friends and potential business connections with the elite they are placing themselves as servents of the elite. It doesn’t bother me enough to want to ban it, but that aspect of things isn’t a good one.

36

No, I don’t think so. I don’t think universitites should try to create an artificial environment for the sake of cohesiveness. The students have to learn to create that on their own, because, after all, the real world doesn’t put such controls in place to try to help everyone to get along. In a way, it would be prolonging the childhood notions of “fairness” which students would do well to put aside.

Good people shine through, whether they be rich or poor. Two genuinely nice people are most likely going to get along even if one has a maid and one doesn’t, and conversely, a nasty, jealous person will have trouble getting along with others whether or not controls are in place.

While a certain amount of envy is natural, it shouldn’t be a barrier towards becomming friends. Students need to learn to overcome differences, be they racial, ethnic, religious, or socio-economic class. It’s part of becoming a mature adult.

37

I am not certain what makes someone able to become a “regents scholar” so I can’t comment.

Why not? Inequity exists in the real world, and this is theoretically a training grounds for the real world and how to succeed in it sometimes despite those inequities.
True, for a small group to be singled out as “bad” I don’t think seems healthy, but if intelligence/hard work or family backing got a person some special priveleges–welcome to the real world my friends. Some will be deserving, others not. Many who don’t get these priveleges will feel cheated, particularly when encountering those who were obviously not deserving and that’s just the way it goes and the way it is always going to turn out in any situation with real live humans. Even in communist societies, I would suspect that some students achieve some sort of special status–it’s just the way of the world. And again, college is a place where people train to deal with the way of the world.

I like my work. Yet, I still charge my employer for doing it. If my employer wants to view me as his servant and as being worth less than himself, that’s his deal. And if it bothered me enough I would either ask for a larger sum to appease my dislike of my employer or quit and find employment with someone who wasn’t a blowhole.
Anyone who thinks they’re getting the best of me by giving me money to provide a service I aqcuiesced to doing is an idiot and that’s just fact. I’m not overly worried about who’s going to come out ahead in the long run.*

  • Note that I mean “coming out ahead” in the sense of being satisfied with ones life, not specifically financial success–though these can be linked =)
38

Hey! Stop stealing my replies! IOW, you are dead on. :stuck_out_tongue:

The other thing that struck me is that these are COLLEGE STUDENTS…they should count themselves lucky that they are able/working toward their own futures, whether they are cleaning their way there or not.

39

Well, it’s really not right that someone should have to pay for an extra semester of college just because they couldn’t register for their required classes because privileged students (and I’d be interested to know how one becomes a “regent scholar” too) were allowed to cut in line. Yeah, losers weepers, but still, college is expensive. Some students shouldn’t be allowed to breeze through in four years while other students, who had to miss out on requirements not because they were too lazy to register but because specially privileged people got there first, have to pay thousands of dollars just to take one more required class, and delay their graduation. It should be first come first serve for everyone. I think someone who had to delay graduation because the school wouldn’t let him register for class has a legitimate complaint.

40

If he pays more than the Student Employment Center, more power to him. I got a job as a housecleaner my sophmore year at Harvard through the SEC and they took $2.00 per hour off what the clients were paying for the service, which wasn’t much, I can tell you. (This was for people in the community, though, not students.) When I got referred to another gig when one of my clients was moving away, I just didn’t bother to tell the SEC about it. Instant $2.00 raise.

In any case the University itself already employs students to do dorm cleaning, or at least it did 15 years ago. I know when I had a room with a bathroom, someone would come around about once a month to clean it. I think they just wanted to make sure that the private bathrooms didn’t get too toxic. (Yes, I did clean my bathroom more often than once a month.)

I also bussed tables at the Faculty Club for a few months and babysat for professor’s children. Does a job become less menial if you’re doing it for professors, rather than students?