For Troy Jackson and Johna Pompano, Snickers are a daily struggle.
Jackson and Pompano are the cashiers at dinner at the Law School dining hall, and they waste plenty of time each night recalculating undergraduates’ orders to get under the $7.95 transfer limit. It’s a problem because the impulse items — chips, muffins, candy and the like — don’t have price tags and even though this slows down check-out, the dining hall manager said Thursday he has no plans on putting up more price tags.
“It frustrates us on both ends,” Pompano said.
Don’t get her started about the frozen yogurts and salads, which are priced by weight.
Particularly since the renovated dining hall opened in 2001, the Law School has been a favorite for undergraduates to transfer for a meal — so much so that law students were getting crowded out at lunch. Now, undergraduates can only transfer at dinner, when most law students have gone home.
The dining hall is run by David La Croix, who works for the Law School, not Yale Dining Services. The food is undeniably better there, and that may be driving demand.
But another factor is what could be called meal plan arbitrage.
Unlimited meal plan holders, who pay an extra $100 per term, can swipe into a college dining hall as many times as they want during each meal period, and once at the Law School. Many people have been swiping at the Law School to buy drinks, like Snapple, or snacks for later, and then swiping in a college dining hall for dinner.
This way they can buy up to $7.95 of drinks or snacks each meal, or $39.75 a week — recouping the extra $100 in less than three weeks. Don’t tell Dining Services.
But I digress.
Whether or not undergrads are legitimately eating dinner there, they do try to buy their $7.95 worth. The refrigerator cases and entree areas are well-marked with prices. But some of the snack items aren’t labeled at all.
La Croix said he doesn’t want to add additional labels because he wants the prices to be inobtrusive. He also thinks undergrads are complaining because they don’t notice that most things are labeled.
“I think they need to be more observant,” La Croix said.
La Croix acknowledged having received e-mails from undergrads about the prices, but he hasn’t replied.
“I don’t really want to have an e-mail exchange about this,” La Croix said.
La Croix said his first priority is serving the law students and labels haven’t been an issue for them.
But my readers deserve more. So here’s an act of people power: muffins are $1.50, candy is $0.65, and chips are $0.85.
Two updates:
Two weeks ago I tried to get the light in WLH 208 fixed. It was on a motion detector that appeared not to work and the light would go off about every five minutes during lectures. The problem continued until this week, when it appears the light has stayed on during lectures. Facilities appears to have fixed the problem, but if it returns, I’ll have the details next week.
Last week, I reported on a Trumbull College senior who had trouble getting up in the morning. I suggested, based on what sleep experts had told me, that he get eight hours of sleep a night and he should have no problem waking up. As we were going to press last week, a report was released concluding that people who sleep eight or more hours a night have a greater risk of dying early than those who sleep fewer than eight hours.
While I’m certainly not in a position to dispute that finding, it is helpful to remember a few points. First, the research cannot make a causal conclusion; that is, it does not say people die because they sleep too long. A completely unrelated factor could be causing both. Second, the study used patients’ self-reporting how much they slept, a notoriously unreliable data collection method. Finally, the study did not dispute that it is easier for the average person to wake up after around eight hours of sleep. So there.