In describing a late-20th-century American society sorely lacking in the "non-market values" of social justice, West used the metaphor of a "hotel society" - an attractive, convenient, luxurious environment whose inner workings are hidden from view. To quote Dr. West: "Leave your room, it's dirty. Come back, it's clean. But no one sees who cleans it." In this environment, the cost in human labor required to maintain the luxurious "hotel" lifestyle is concealed, or more often, simply ignored.

Indeed, this metaphor lends itself well to describing the Bates experience. For a princely sum paid once per semester, Bates students enjoy reasonably comfortable accomodations, regular maid service, three square meals a day, sandwiches made fresh before one's eyes, and unlimited seconds on anything and everything. Yet in this Bates Bubble, many students choose to ignore the dedication and long hours put in by the employees of Maintenance and Dining Services at what are often thankless tasks.

From the furious pace and swelteringly hot and humid enviroment of the dish room in Commons, to the housekeepers who show up an hour early on Monday morning (out of their own generosity, rather than for pay) to clean up weekend dorm damage left behind by drunken Batesies. While may students could care less, the extra effort these employees put into keeping the Bates campus running smoothly is remarkable. While many students respect this commitment, many others do not - that conveyor belt in the Big Room may as well go nowhere, and a band of magical fairies may as well be responsible for returning residence lounges, bathrooms, and hallways to their usual charm on Monday morning.

On a campus where issues of diversity and of town-gown relations are in a lackluster state, the ethnic and class differences between the local, blue-collar, largely French Maintenance and Dining Services staffs and the mostly white, suburban, upper-middle-class student population have only contributed to the problem. Common are incidents in which a student behaves inconsiderately towards a Maintenance or Dining Services employee - at best insulting them, at worst driving them to tears.

As if this weren't enough, these dedicated individuals often experience additional frustrations at the hands of their superiors - which we only very occasionally report about in the Student, for fear of exacerbating tensions and making matters worse for all concerned parties. Some more liberal segments of the student population have talked about empowering the rank and file of Maintenance and/or Dining Services employees by leading a drive for unionization; however, for a multitude of reasons, this remains only talk.

Attitudes on this campus would no doubt be different if all students had to hold a demanding job with Maintenance or Dining Services for at least a semester. As any student who has worked in Commons will tell you, even a few hours a week of washing dishes or stocking the serving lines for grade one is no picnic. To make a full-time living in this kind of work demands respect.

The important issues here are not so much about "happy trays" or picking up after oneself, as much as they are about how we, as inhabitants of an ivory-tower environment of privilege, choose to see people different from ourselves. In this respect, Dr. West reminds us, all of us at Bates have much to learn.