Several Sodexo employees, from Cavs Corner, gave their input on how the viewed their jobs and the fairness of their workplace. Two of the four employees find Cavs Corner to be a good place to work, while the other half interviewed found ample room for improvement.
Dorothy Shuler, a 5 year Cavs Corner employee, thoroughly enjoys her time spent working here at Cabrini and with Sodexo. According to Shuler, because the students here on campus are around her children’s age, she works with a tinge of motherly instincts.
“They’re all sweethearts,” Shuler, referring to the students, said. “I’ve grown a bond with many of them over the last 5 years. I’ve seen some of them leave. Watched them come and go—that’s the sad part.”
While Shuler finds most of the positive things about her job through the kids she comes in contact with, it isn’t only limited to her interactions with the students. Shuler claims that the pay she receives is more than fair, that upper management supports her, and that she and her coworkers get along well.
One hindrance Shuler does see in Cavs Corner, is that room for improvement is hard to come by as of late. “There is always room for improvement but here we are kind of tight. Everybody is pretty much branded to where they are.”
While Shuler claims there is little room for improvement, Richard Hawkins, Sodexo employee since September 2013, has proved her wrong.
Hawkins was hired as a dishwasher last fall, but has pushed his way to being a cook this semester.
“If you want improvement its there,” Hawkins, who is going back to culinary school this summer, said. “There is a lot of money on the floor. You just have to go and pick it up. If you let someone else pick it up first, they aren’t going to put it in your pocket.”
Hawkins, who commutes six hours a day between his home in Delaware and Cabrini’s cafeteria, says that Cavs Corner’s kitchen is “like a little family” and that he has a very “outgoing and understanding” upper management.
“I enjoy working here—that’s why I come this far,” Hawkins, who is pushing a member of his own family to become a Cavalier, said. “I’ve been on both sides of customer service. I know how much good service is appreciated.”
Although he listed many positives about his job, he admits that at times the menu at Cavs Corner is not the best in some instances. Despite that fact, according to Hawkins, he knows what the students like, and tries his best to make the food better.
Jerry Gwyman, a 13 year Cav’s Corner employee, holds a paradoxical view in comparison to both Shuler and Hawkins.
Gwyman says that things never used to be as bad as they are now. And that is has been “down hill” ever since Sodexo took the place of Wood Food Services several years ago.
“I can’t really focus on anything that makes coming to this job a good time. It’s just work,” Gwyman, who finds no use in sugarcoating anything, said. “We’ve been having problems with management.”
One of the major problems he says that he and his coworkers face with management, is that their hours have been cut, vacation times limited and that management themselves does not value the Sodexo employees.
“We do not get any type of recognition form management. We’re just here. We’re just a tool to them,” Gwyman said.
Lynda Seawright, a 4 year Sodexo, shares Gwyman’s views on how there is much room for improvement in Cavs Corner.
While Seawright attributes what validation she does feel comes from the students she cooks for, she does admit that she “really does not know” if her management at Cavs Corner values what she does.
“I feel good about the kids liking my food. It’s like therapy to me—I love it,” Seawright, the cook of 30 years, said. “I could stay in the kitchen all day. If what I cook makes someone else happy, than that makes me happy.”
Though Seawright presently has certain qualms regarding Cavs Corner’s management, she finds hope in the cafeteria’s new general manager, Tim Karolyi. “He makes you feel like this is not just a cafeteria. He’s got the kids in mind.”
