Eight Years
Date: (fall 2004 – now)
I’ve been to almost all the dining halls at Harvard, and I have to say that while the architecture/lighting for some of the houses may be better (ie I love Mather’s setup), while the dishes or view may be better in some, and while the food is better in some (I think that the Eliot/Kirkland kitchen is as good as dining hall cooking can get), I have yet to experience a dining hall staff as nice and as helpful as the staff in my own house, Leverett.
Almost every time that I go to the dining hall, I see our dining hall manager Arthur Robbins briskly walking about, making sure that everything is running smoothly, helping to handle spills and shortages as best and as quickly as he can. Given that he has to manage a fairly large staff and feed several hundred angry, busy, and demanding students, its safe to say that he has a very difficult job to do. Yet, never once have I seen him angry or impatient, neither with the students nor with his staff. He is almost always talking to some student or another, asking them how they’re doing, what they would like to eat, how they are enjoying the food, if there’s something else he can bring out or do to make their meal a little more enjoyable. And, there’s something almost intangible about it — but the way he goes about doing it is, unless he’s an amazing actor — sincere. He is sincerely nice, not merely saying platitudes because that’s what one is supposed to say, he seems genuinely happy that you are there, and genuinely interested in how to help you.
When I visit other dining halls most of the time, the staff is disengaged. They’re not doing anything wrong, they don’t seem too particular about whether or not you’re enjoying yourself. They don’t seem too particular about whether or not they can do anything to help you. And, while they are courteous and helpful if you approach them, there’s a lack of the congeniality that I’ve come to experience from Leverett (and in some particularly bad cases, they seem annoyed or impatient when you make a request and they even seem to pick fights with one another).
Robbins isn’t the only friendly face. His dining hall staff, while not up to Mr. Robbins’ degree of hospitality, are also very nice. They greet us warmly at the checker line, they are nice, and they do go out of their way to make sure that we get everything that we need.
And, I’m not alone in this. There is a chance at every dining hall to provide feedback, and although I haven’t read the feedback from other houses, I know that in our house someone replies to all the feedback cards promptly and considers the suggestions seriously. And from the cards that I’ve seen, it seems like those of us in Leverett House are very happy with the staff and what they do for us [not to mention the Facebook group "Arthur Robbins Brightens My Day"].
I can’t honestly say that I have enjoyed the food that the dining hall has provided me these past four years. To be perfectly blunt, there is a reason that I eat out so often. But, with that said, I will say that I am very grateful for the efforts of our dining hall staff — they provided us with meals, of which I was probably not sufficiently grateful for or appreciative of, and they did so well and with a friendly face.