The Unappreciated Behind-the-Scenes

More than the number of professors and administrators at any given university is the number of “supporting” staff. These individuals are responsible for maintaining the condition of the university and fulfilling the needs of students so that they feel at home. Although some of these service positions are filled by students on financial aid, an overwhelming majority of individuals who hold these positions make servicing the college not a job, but in fact a career.

Until last week, when I entered a dining hall, picked up my mail, or walked on a sidewalk from which the snow had been removed, I gave little thought to the individuals I saw who were not students. Yet last week, when a professor described the impact that a piece of legislation passed by congress had on the university, I began to see these individuals in a different light.

The piece of legislation, the Tax Reform Act of 1986, sent my university, as well as other institutions of higher education, companies, and organizations into a state of serious considerations. The reform act required that all employees of a university, regardless of their status as a faculty member or as a staff member, needed to have pension plans that were similar in quality. Before the implementation of this law, many institutions offered their professors and administrators amazing pension packages, while leaving their janitorial staff, secretaries, and campus safety officers with a very, very, very small token of the university’s appreciation for their work in the form of a pension package. At my university problems arose when the university would be unable to afford encompassing all staff under the pension plan of its faculty. On the other hand, the faculty, especially those nearing an age of retirement, would be devastated by the shrinkage of their package to meet the requirements of the staff package. After a year of deliberation and pressing of time by the government, the employees of the university resolved their differences by compromising on a middle ground between the staff and the faculty’s pension package. Although with disappointment on one hand and victory on another, the university maintained this equality among its worker’s pensions to this day.

Given the approximately $50,000 price tag of my institution, I found it astounding that even at the present moment the university would be impossible financially to award better pension plans to the employees, raising all of them to the previous standard for professors and administrators. However, this discussion engaged me to become more conscious of just how many “supporting” staff workers exist on my university’s small campus.

Not until this week, when I was given a campus job, a student position in the mail room, did I understand just how important and easily overlooked the jobs of these individuals are. Too often students take for granted what is given to them, without showing their appreciation or at least their acknowledgment of the job done by others. In this sense, I feel that our consumer-oriented culture has desensitized us to appreciating those around us.

Last week, as I waited in line to receive the hamburger and fries that I ordered at the dining hall, the man behind the counter called out an order. The boy who received it had incidentally taken someone else’s order rather than his own. Rather than acknowledging his own mistake, he verbally degraded the individuals complaining that the man could not even get his order right. This experience made me feel terrible for the man behind the counter. Seeing him every day of the week in the morning, in the afternoon, and after the dinner rush serving behind the counter, I was heartbroken at how unappreciative and cruel the students were to his rare mistakes.

I know at my university there is an evident problem in which individuals, especially students look down upon these “supporting” staff works. I write this blog entry to stimulate in the minds of others how integral these individuals are to our college, our everyday experiences and that they deserve not just an increased pension, but most of all they deserve our respect.