I'd like to express the range of feelings I have about Dartmouth Dining Services on a normal day, from the height of cynical fury to my inevitable return to resolved appeasement. Enter equivocating polemicist, page right:
Don't start reading today's Mirror yet you're all part of the system. DDS is totalitarian dystopia. Each term, we subscribe to a meal plan and pay ahead of time. We can't not pay for it, even if we're off-campus with a full kitchen that could save us hundreds of dollars. DDS, according to rumor, runs on a deficit permanently. What do we call this? Socialism. Fetid, God-killing Socialism. Why do you think the "Russian" is on the menu?
I was recently in line at the Pavilion, simply because my other lunch options would have taken over 30 minutes. When the Pavilioneers weighed the meat that was going to go on my plate, I felt that my brisket had been inappropriately politicized. Was this an example of robotic capitalism? Or was it the mandated egalitarianism of a communist institution, making each "customer" equal preventing Western overindulgence? Either way, it felt like the dystopian dispensation of "MEAL X" onto my future-plate.
DDS's vertical monopoly, from my Hop breakfast to my nightcap of sprinkled fro-yo (rainbow sprinkles are vehicles of decadent capitalism), governs all of my gastronomical vicissitudes. A historical model: I eat food at the Pullman cafeteria, buy groceries at the Pullman Topside, learn at the Pullman College, and schlep to the Pullman Hillel.
As a pre-paid business, DDS has several absurd advantages. To put it bluntly, service is meaningless there is no reason for servers to provide me with anything but the swiftness and demeanor of an arthritic tortoise. There are constant shortages, long lines, wrong menu items and worst of all one adult Remix employee actually made fun of me as I ordered. You know what would have happened to her in a capitalist model? Her day-job would have been "Remixed" to unemployment.
Real money would incentivize real work. But since DBA is conveniently pre-paid, there is no impetus for quality few students even consider it a real form of currency. Competing restaurants must use a currency alien to Dartmouth students: the real U.S. dollar. In fact, DDS has created a system where they benefit even if you underspend. Unless you match or exceed your dining plan, you have given DDS money for nothing at all. And, if you overspend, you were better off using your dollar at businesses where money incentivizes service and quality. I would credit the Rollover Option, but it still ensures that DDS will always receive the money even off-campus students are forced to pay at the start of each term. Your real-world dollar is inexorably transferred to an inflated DDS economy.
The lines at Food Court at 12:20 p.m. are so embarrassingly long that the crowd reminds me of something shown to American schoolchildren in the '50s to show how Stalinism failed. Midday Foco is a mimesis of Huxley's Gammas and Deltas swarming over soma except whereas soma was a mental anodyne, students are elbowing each other to maintain their spot in line to eat the gamey gravy on their Chicken Monday.
Only when I've stood in line enough to become excessively acerbic do I reflect more objectively upon DDS. Ours is actually an exemplary model of food service among peer colleges, and it is consistently ranked in the top 10. Without any true incentive to serve good food affably, many of the staff do it regardless. And let's all agree: Jeff Quigley, you are an unsung hero and we thank you for your contagious positivity. Visitors to Dartmouth confirm how lucky we have it. The quality is excellent and the options and portions are pretty generous. The hours are reasonable, and the food is served quickly (when the line isn't long) and (usually) with a smile. After four years, I still feel like I have options in my consumption. So, despite my earlier ire, perhaps we live under a relatively benevolent despot. Here I am, back at square one.
To look at it positively, DDS still has so much room to degenerate. How much would DDS have to cut (hours, options, employees, quality) before it became a merely average college dining service, and deserved a truly angry columnist? The question is unappetizing; I'll stick to Russian subs.
