The Elm Student Newspaper
An Elm Reporter's Night at the Cove
Volume 80, Issue 25
May 1, 2009
By Natalie Butz
News Editor
"Many of the people who work at the Cove have responded with open hostility when I asked the simplest of questions...I don't need to hear excuses about why it takes you so long...If they focused on doing their jobs in a more efficient manner, instead of making me wait...while they played music, danced around and shouted numbers like utter buffoons, then I wouldn't be so critical."--Mario Carter
After reading such a negative account of the Cove, I decided to go in and get a view from the other size of the pizza warmer by becoming an employee myself.
I logged a total of 10 hours over two days and from what I saw, the main problem at the Cove is not the people working there, as Mr. Carter suggests, but the few customers who make things difficult. Furthermore, no one at the Cove is hostile or trying to sabotage food. They're just trying to get through the night at a job where they're underpaid and often come under fire.
My first night working was last Thursday. One employee called in sick, so there are only two workers, me and the assistant manager Billy Price. But it's slow for a Thursday, so neither of us is really stressed out.
For the first hour or so, we have to share the space with the dining hall staff, who are cleaning up and getting ready to go home. Still, the staff is very cooperative. They turn down the vacuum when I call out numbers and help us restock when we run short of supplies.
The only one who gets any flack is me and that's when a dining hall worker comes over and says to Billy, "I see you got yourself a new worker."
Billy explains to him I'm from The Elm and the guy makes a face and laughs.
"Be nice man, she's not Mario," Billy said but the guy is already walking away.
The night passes pretty uneventfully so I decide to come back and work again Sunday, which everyone assures me is the Cove's busiest night.
I'm late Sunday. I walk in the door and senior Lyndsey Gibson, cove employee, tells me I just missed the first rush and the drunk guys they almost threw out. I just came from a review session so the unclaimed mozzarella sticks and french fries on the pizza warmer are looking pretty good but Steve Kinser, the assistant manager on duty that night, tells me they need to sit there for half-an-hour to an hour just in case someone picks it up.
The first part of the night is really slow so I start asking for stories.
"The funniest was when the drunk kid passed out on the register and broke the monitor," said Gibson. "And there was a kid in the old building who puked all over the table."
"There are two guys who come in here every weekend lit up and it's just one of those things where we're like, 'let's see what happens,'" said Kinser.
Kinser also remembered a time when a funny situation escalated and students became hostile.
"In the old building, the tables were junky. It didn't take much to break them. Somebody thought they could surf on one and they broke the leg off of it. Then they got mad at us because they hurt themselves. We had to call Public Safety to come get them," he said.
Still, Gibson admits that situations like this aren't the norm.
"The customers usually aren't that bad. The worst is when people come in when they're drunk and they expect things to be done when they want them to be. They'll order seven Tipsons at once and wonder why it takes a half an hour to cook them all. But that's not often. It's just the one or two that really grind on your nerves," said Gibson.
Mistakes are made (mostly by me) and a couple of orders do get mixed up during the night but I guess it's to be expected with the number of items people order. Everyone's very polite when they ask me about their orders and things get sorted out.
Freshman Andradene Lowe, cove employee said it's not unusual to have 100 or more orders a night.
On Sunday, we start the night with receipt number 297 and end with number 412.
At about 10:15 p.m., Lyndsey takes her break. As soon as she leaves, a rush comes in a
nd I get a 10-minute taste of what the Cove is like with only three people.
I have to man the fryer even though I've never even touched one before. Steve's directions and other people's orders are being thrown at me one after another. With Steve at the grill and Phuture ringing people up at the register, I also have my regular job of calling out and giving people their orders when they're finished. I'm running back and forth between the freezer, the fryer and the pizza warmer so much that at one point, a girl apologizes when she asks me for honey mustard and says she feels bad.
At 10:30 p.m., Lyndsey starts wiping down tables and I get a chance to ask Steve some questions.
"This was a little slower than we're used to for a Sunday, which I'm happy about," said Kinser.
Kinser has worked as one of the Cove Café's assistant managers for six years. He was originally a student at Washington College, but dropped out to work full time in the dining hall.
Kinser admits that although he's happy with his job, it drains on him sometimes.
"You are constantly considered the lowest scum in the world because you flip burgers. It's not really hard, but when you consider the customers that come in who look down their nose at you just because this is what you want to do, how are you supposed to handle that?" he said.
Although unruly customers are not the norm, this kind of treatment, according to Kinser, is not unusual.
"The flack we get from our customers is pretty much the same flack you get at any job that's like this because anyone in the food industry is considered bottom rung. For me, I don't care. I can do this job for the rest of my life. I have no problem with that. Anyone with higher goals in life, please, run from this job," Kinser said.
Kinser went on to add, "I can only compare this place to other jobs I've had, and this place is probably a little rougher, especially for those who are students first and then Cove employees. It's hard because this is time taken away from them when they could be studying."
Gibson, who has been working at the Cove since her freshman year, agreed with Kinser.
"It's really not that bad of a job. I stay here because I like the people. I think the thing that people don't realize sometimes is that we're students too. Time we have to spend cleaning up after other people is time taken away from us when we could be studying," Gibson said.