If there’s one guarantee upon entering the Uni kitchens after the day has begun, it’s that you will find a mess in the kitchen.
Although the messes have been a reported issue in emails in the past, and notes have been left in the kitchen by staff to “clean up this mess,” according to Dr. Majerus, “The biggest issue is when people leave dishes in and around the sink and don’t do their dishes.”
But “It hasn’t been too bad this year.”
She explained how often people will leave a mess and then come to clean it a few periods later. In the worst cases, faculty have had to find the people that made the mess and have them clean or have students volunteer to clean. She said it’s “like living in a house with teenagers”.
The best solution is to clean up after yourself and, as Dr. Majerus explained, use “positive peer pressure” to call people out when you see them make a mess.
Some might think that it’s a custodian’s job to clean up after their juvenile messes, but their jobs in the kitchen consist of wiping things down, and essentially killing natural build-up of germs.
Sitha, a custodian that works at Uni High, clarifies that although the kitchen messes don’t directly interfere with his job, he has heard that it has concerned staff.
There’s a mess “Usually every class period” during Agora days, Penny Renie, freshman, speaks.
She explained how sometimes the instructors of the cooking class (Baking in South East Asian Cultures) had to stay into the next period cleaning up messes, because there would always be some left over. However, on a regular schedule (non-Agora), the messes don’t seem to get in the way of everyday life. As long as we take responsibility for our messes, and remember that having a kitchen at school is a privilege, it shouldn’t be imposing on daily life.