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Guest column
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Vision of united community must extend to employees**
A Duke housekeeper of more than twenty-five years talks with students after a Housekeeper-Student Brown Bag Lunch last week: "Tonight I am beginning a second job," she informs us. As we ask more questions, she reveals that this in not a part time job, but rather, a second full time job! In order to pay the bills continually piling up, she will have only five hours following her housekeeping shift at 4:00 PM, in which to eat, sleep, and get to her new factory job. Once there, she will labor from 9:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m., giving her only two hours to get back to Duke for another full day's work. This leaves her no more than three hours of sleep a night, while working seventeen hours in a twenty four-hour period!
A housekeeper on West works with Duke students to organize a tutoring and social group for young children in her neighborhood. Learn A lot From Others, brings more than 30 youths together with Duke student mentors. Three years and running, this housekeeper's work proves to be paying off.
These biographies are just two of thousands--brief glimpses into the lives of Duke employees. Issues of struggle, hope and determination resonate from the accounts, leaving the listener in awe, wondering "Why didn't I know this before?"
Why haven't we heard these stories before? Consider this: The food service worker swipes your card through the reader and you reply, "Thank you." As you return to your room from class, you exchange glances with the housekeeper sweeping the floor. Walking onto the bus, you greet the bus driver with a smile before taking a seat. All of these are everyday experiences of a Duke student. And, while these responses are considerate, they remain professional exchanges, almost like business transactions, that go no further or deeper than the surface.
And so, every day we greet the same faces, but what do we really know about these workers? Are we to limit our interaction with employees to that of the services that they do for us? Is their role in the Duke community that of the servant? Some students say, "That's what we pay them for, isn't it? To do their job, right?" Employees may be here to work, but that does not mean they are not people, too. They are not emotionless robots who earn nothing more than a check on Friday. They deserve respect.
Without the employees we encounter every day, the University would not function! Often, we speak only of students, faculty and alumni when referring to the Duke community. When do we include employees? The infamous label of Duke as a "plantation" will not disappear as long as "they" come to work and "they" return home at night. Without the employees at Duke, we would have no food, we would have no ride to East, no soap in the dispensers and no landscaped lawn on which to relax. Essentially, there would be no Duke as we know it! The employees are not expendable, since without a committed work force, there is no Duke. Let us start acknowledging the integral part employees play in our community. It is not about "me" and "them." We are one!
Last week, a student commented on the condition of his dorm bathroom. When asked, "Have you ever spoken to your housekeeper before?," he replied that he did not even know who his housekeeper was. How can we expect a service to be done for our benefit if we don't even know who is doing it? If we don't respect our dorm workers enough to say hello, why should we be given any such service?
During events like Community Service Week, we are all given a chance to reflect on our community and how each of us can do our part to facilitate communication and interaction. While groups which work to promote interaction between students and employees do exist, they can only do so much. Everyone must take an individual role in the process of acknowledging employees as part of the growing Duke community.
Employees have lives; they have thoughts, families and commitments both outside and within the constructs of their jobs. Find out more about the food worker in the C.I. or the maintenance person on East or your housekeeper on North. This interaction will most probably begin with an exchange of names, but eventually, you will hear stories similar to those recounted earlier. This interaction will lead Duke away from the plantation mentality that defines people as "me" and "them." Knowing our employees as friends opens up the possibilities of a community of "us."
Erik Ludwig is a Trinity sophomore and co-coordinator for the Student Employee Relations Coalition.
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