Working with Facilities has been one of the most frustrating things I have ever experienced in college. When I mean the Facilities workers, I do not mean the people who clean our dorms – they are all stellar, and have an extremely hard job to do, which many of my peers do not make easy. Instead, I mean the people who respond to work orders.
During October, the hot water on the men’s side of Davidson-Wilson (DW) stopped working. Now, this should not be unexpected in a dorm full of people who like to take hot showers, so I thought the issue would be solved by waking up earlier to catch the hot water. However, no matter how early I woke up, there was no hot water. This baffled me. How could there be no hot water when no one had used it all up yet?
Then I began asking around. One of my friends, who lives in Adams, said that there was always hot water in their shower. This got me thinking about if the hot water was really being used up, or if the hot water heater was broken. So, I submitted a work order.
After a day they said it was fixed, so I went on with my life. But the water was still cold. So, I submitted another one, and the pattern went around again. They said it was fixed. It seemed to be fixed for a couple days. Then it was cold showers again. You can see where this goes.
After three times of this dance, they told me to stop submitting work orders for this, because it was not broken.
That pissed me off. It was clear that the hot water was broken, and it was also clear that they were ignoring me. Eventually, after emailing one of the higher ups, I got the water fixed.
I feel like it should not be this hard to get a simple problem like hot water not working fixed in a dorm building. I also feel like facilities should not be telling students that problems that clearly are not fixed, are fixed. We live in the dorms, we experience them everyday; if we see a problem, they should take it seriously.
This is not the first time this year that Facilities has been blatantly hostile to me. They claim that the sink, which clogs nearly every day, is fixed. They claim there is not any mold in DW, which there clearly is. Their refusal to address work orders on mold which leads to massive outbreaks, which they claim are unconnected and unforeseen, yet could be fixed if they caught it early.
It is either a case of the college truly not caring about any work orders in the dorms, or they are focusing their attention on the “nice” dorms on Morgan Field. Either way, they should get their act together and start fixing the problems people submit in their work orders before things get terrible.
