Friday, October 22, 2010

Do NOT feed the construction workers?

So there is a lot of construction going on around the campus for the past few months. The powers that be decided to demolish our perfectly fine bombshelter (actually it's just a food court designed like a bombshelter. Tour guides and orientation counselors fool gullible freshmen with apocryphal stories about how it doubled as a bombshelter in WW2) and replace with an environmentally friendly student center. This student center is going to feature a rooftop garden (ooh! very fancy of them), and the same restaurants as before.

Anyway, that's just background. Since there is a lot of construction, there are also a lot of warning signs posted around the chain-link fences covering the area. One of them caught my eye:


Should have added "Don't feed the workers" as well

Several things that bother me about this:

  • No foul language: Really?! Have you ever set foot on a college campus? They reek of foul language.
  • No contacts with students: I can hear the perky tour guides saying in stage whisper: "No touching or provoking or eye contact with construction workers." What is this, a freaking zoo? They are not prisoners, you know. 
  • No music: Looks like someone got rejected from Julliard and took it way too personally...

And finally on a completely unrelated note: I enjoyed the Wayne-a-rooni. Way to go Wayne.

1 comment:

  1. Dude, the "Don't feed the workers" comment is spot-on. Really, I had the same reaction when I saw these signs. How demeaning can you be? Does the management of this company think they've hired a bunch of Quasimodos? No whistling? Why the fuck shouldn't workers be able to whistle on-site? Producing music reminds people that we have our own consciousness, an inner drumbeat with a frequency that is uniquely our own. I think that this company is worried the workers will burst our fragile bourgeoisie bubble by reminding us that the people who work hard to keep our campus beautiful are, in fact, work hard (harder than us, to be sure), and that they see our space in a totally different way.

    I understand the whole professionalism thing, but it's an open space. You don't see regulations against students whistling (I do it all the time). Are students supposed to consider invisibility the proper place of working men and women? And posting the signs publicly is the ultimate insult.

    We should write in to our *ahem* school newspaper!

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