Front Desk Evolution

Published September 17, 2007

By Lauren Foley

Picture a structural embodiment of your freshman year. Surely this place would be a little sloppy (perhaps falling down), there would be chipped ceiling tiles, no hot water, and probably a whole bunch of crazy assholes milling around. It would be a place where desks gave way to Beirut tables and hallways suddenly transformed into spontaneous dance party zones. This, or me, was Jeanne Mance. Similar to a New York City doorman, working at the front desk of Jeanne Mance was almost like putting me behind a one-way mirror in which I had a front row seat to anything and everything that happened to occur in the lobby.

Over the course of my three years at UVM, I have worked at three dorms, cashing in on federally awarded funds.

Over time, I realized that this front row seat was the best seat in the house. The best thing about it was that no one really noticed or cared that I was eavesdropping at every possible opportunity. In fact, I heard people talk candidly and enthusiastically about their cute little cannabis plant décor, lovingly placed in the window for any pedestrian to admire. I watched an RA chase after two students in just his boxers, and I listened to many students phone in randomly made up student ID numbers in hopes of obtaining a hot pie from Leonardo’s on a cold snowy night, free of charge. Beer cans would sit on hallway windowsills for weeks, obviously being ignored by the cleaning staff, who were too busy with excessive explosive diarrhea clean-up to pay any attention to mere cans. With the endless charm of a Motel 6, JM had the personalities of its residents and more.

If Jeanne Mance was Motel 8, University Heights South was the Sheraton. Sophomore year, the front desk of University Heights South was usually quiet. The somber tone of the building gave the overall impression that its residents had gotten their shit together and were now model college students, closed up in their rooms, hunched over their $161-Biochemistry textbooks. This was all fine, except for one thing: U Heights was a sham and they all knew it. If Sophomore year is good for one thing it is perfecting the art of deception. Much like the urban legend of the student that flunked out of college and didn’t tell his parents for a year, U Heights had the ability to put up a great front, while its residents felt free to dick around. Sunday mornings, when I came into work, it wasn’t unusual for me to see a student or two sprawled out on the couch in the lobby, wearing questionable amounts of clothing. Nor was it unusual for me to hear about fireworks being shot out of windows, kegs being rolled down the carpeted hallway, or how much peanut butter was smeared on the walls of the unisex bathroom off the lobby. None of this was evident to an outsider. U Heights residents were responsible for restocking their own toilet paper, though this did not make them responsible adults.

Now in my first weeks at CWP, I am still getting a feel for its personality. So far, it has failed to mirror any particular chain hotels. Instead, it is more like a hostel. Students sleep here but do not nest. There are no heart-to-hearts in the hallway, or tearful phone calls home to Mommy. Many students choose to spend their time elsewhere, most likely escaping campus life for their friends’ dumpy downtown apartments. Shifts at the front desk here are calm. In fact, my dorm life, in general, is very calm. There is no fossilized pizza under my bed, no empty handles in my recycling bin, and no excessive vomit clean-up charges down at the front desk (yet).

Like an old married couple, my residence halls and I have evolved. We’ve grown up together, laughed together, gotten drunk together. My maturity level, though not always high, was always respected within my residence hall. I was content and I fit in. In all of the places I have lived on campus, there is no doubt that I belonged.

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