Our submitter, P, is a sophomore at a certain university in upstate New York (the one that typically ties with Penn for the Ivy League university most people forget is actually in the Ivy League).
Students are moving out of the dorms this week, P says, so facilities management locked the building’s garbage chute to prevent it from overflowing. “Instead, residents are supposed to take the trash to a dumpster that’s a couple of feet away from the building — we even have an elevator!”
But what if your sense of entitlement is like, too heavy to make it to that elevator? Hello, note war!
related: At Oberlin, that $48,000 a year doesn’t include toilet paper.
extra credit: What not to wear in Ithaca [Ivygate]
134 responses so far ↓
#1
Nicole
While the act of leaving that second note was in itself PA, I have never read a classier or more reasonable reaction to a dickwad note. Go her!
May 18, 2010 at 7:40 pm rating: 93
#2
Canthz_B
Team locked garbage chute.
Use your fully functioning (and not all that old) legs you lazy snob.
May 18, 2010 at 8:15 pm rating: 52
#3
jfruh
I went to this school of which you speak, about 15 years ago now, and none of our dorms had these fancy “garbage chutes.” We also didn’t pay $51K per annum, though, so I guess it’s money well spent!
May 18, 2010 at 8:15 pm rating: 7
#4
scooby
I went to this school as well and also never got to experience these garbage chutes. Garbage chute or no garbage chute, I loved every single moment of it!
May 18, 2010 at 8:23 pm rating: 5
#5
Quite Contrary
Anyone want to take a bet if he/she really paid the $51K for school? That sounds like it might involve actual work. I’m not convinced this person is capable of working.
PS Maybe Mom or Dad will take out the garbage for you! Just a thought!
May 18, 2010 at 8:30 pm rating: 42
#6
Xenobiologista
Ugh. I graduated from a small liberal arts college a few years ago. It’s barely in the top 50 if that any more (not checking) but you still found this sense of entitlement among a number of students. One summer when I worked for the grounds maintenance department, this guy was bragging about how one night he got drunk and threw a newspaper vending machine off a bridge. The school made him pay for a replacement, so after that he would claim the new one was “his” vending machine. It’s not, you moron.
As note #2 points out, the janitors are getting only a tiny sliver of that $51k. So much for the assumption that being educated makes you a better person…or smarter, for that matter. Colleges should have Accounting for their basic math requirement instead of Calculus. The average person isn’t going to use calculus anyway.
May 18, 2010 at 8:40 pm rating: 16
#7
Rebecca
Why does everyone assume this person isn’t pay his or her own way? I’m not saying the person isn’t a jerk, but I got through college on school loans, which it took nearly 20 years for me personally to pay off. Is that so very rare?
May 18, 2010 at 8:51 pm rating: 9
#8
farcical aquatic ceremony
oooh! I hope they switch from service line to self-serve in the cafeteria so that he throws an “I pay $51,000 a year for this, I’m not going to FEED MYSELF!!”-tantrum and proceeds to starve to death!
May 18, 2010 at 8:53 pm rating: 60
#9
Escape Goat
51,000-mutha-fuckin’ dollars?
Where my slaves at?
May 18, 2010 at 9:11 pm rating: 28
#10
Patrick1980SC
Let’s address the real issue here. I can forgive childish entitlement but not the misspelling of acquaintance. Team Anal Copy Editor.
May 18, 2010 at 9:46 pm rating: 24
#11
Ali
I’m just glad that there are sane people there to call out this douche. I really doubt that she gives a damn (otherwise, she wouldn’t have been bitch enough to write the note in the first place). But, in my special, perfect world she is now dying of embarrassment.
May 18, 2010 at 10:10 pm rating: 14
#12
Jen
If note writer #1 did anything other than have rich parents in order to earn the $51 000 required per year to go to this school, I will fly to New York and EAT their garbage.
May 18, 2010 at 10:17 pm rating: 29
#13
loren
no one gives a shit what school you assholes went to.
May 18, 2010 at 10:29 pm rating: 14
#14
Engineer
Why don’t they just connect the garbage chute to the dumpster? Seems like a better-designed garbage chute would solve everyone’s problems.
May 18, 2010 at 10:36 pm rating: 19
#15
B
My husband is working maintenance at a college right now and it’s amazing how lazy and immature most of the students are. I mean, he and I are the same age as the seniors there and we know better than to clean out our trash can in the bathtub and leave 3 inches of debris and graywater in there. And the girls who leave their bloody used freaking tampons on the side of the tub when they get out?? WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?! He gets at least two of those every week. GROSS.
May 18, 2010 at 10:40 pm rating: 14
#16
Reaganomics
We need another Vietnam, thin out their ranks a bit. Apologies to Bart Simpson (and actual Vietnam vets).
May 18, 2010 at 11:03 pm rating: 9
#17
becky
Shit, for $51K/year, you’d think they’d teach you how to spell “acquaintance” – I mean, there are two letters wrong in there.
May 18, 2010 at 11:10 pm rating: 3
#18
kira
People under the age of 70 still use cursive?
May 18, 2010 at 11:41 pm rating: 8
#19
miss ithaca
I attend this school! I promise, most people there are not this bratty. Not all buildings have garbage chutes, either… mine does not. This person is lucky enough to be living in one of the newer buildings.
May 18, 2010 at 11:49 pm rating: 2
#20
dixiechick
Hell, my favorite college professor used to go dumpster-diving every year after the kids left–she’s not just robbing the facilities people! Take your nice trash OUT, sweetie!
May 18, 2010 at 11:53 pm rating: 6
#21
dixiechick
I am also finding a fondness in myself for #2′s cursive on college-ruled notebook paper vs #1′s printed-with-smileys-on-colored-paper note. (Sunshine colored, anyone?) Old-fashioned liberal-arts values! Team College-Ruled!
May 19, 2010 at 12:02 am rating: 18
#22
C
It’s amazing the way some people think they can treat others, especially what goes on in the minds of certain really priveleged kids. I overheard a chick in my college’s cafeteria the other day talking about how she changes her flights from coach class to business class every time her father books her travel. Then when he gets the bill he goes “did you change this again?!” and she says (innocent/sarcastic inflection) “oh, they DID that?” and then walks away.
I wanted to turn around and say, “wow, if you were my kid, you’d be backhanded into a coma by now.”
May 19, 2010 at 12:04 am rating: 31
#23
Nack
I like the “I pay” part. More like , MY PARENTS PAY part. Shows why they think it’s not their job to take out their own garbage…or Mumsy and Dadsy neglected to inform them that they should take more pride in what they would pay that kind of money for…
May 19, 2010 at 12:26 am rating: 4
#24
Canthz_B
I don’t think this guy really meant what he said.
He just wasn’t himself that morning…the person that does his drinking for him went way overboard the night before, and poor Little Lord Fauntleroy had a hangover.
May 19, 2010 at 1:18 am rating: 14
#25
Kelly
Heh. At the university where I work, that student would receive a charge on their final bill for the extra work Facilities had to do. I hope that OTHER New York university does the same.
May 19, 2010 at 5:34 am rating: 7
#26
ashmeadow
I believe this same university also has a very high rate of suicide. I know there’s a joke to be made here, but I pay a lot for my internet so someone else can do it for me.
May 19, 2010 at 5:48 am rating: 22
#27
Splint Chesthair
Why the note in the first place? It would be easy enough to just toss the trash in the hallway and forget about it. Why call attention to it? I’m team “Better to beg forgiveness” all the way.
Of course, I’m also the kind of guy who enjoys figuring security deposits as “sunk costs” and getting my moneys worth. I’m not talking damage, just stuff like, I really don’t want to move those old couches, or clean the oven, or deal with whatever died in the attic.
May 19, 2010 at 6:23 am rating: 6
#28
A
sounds like some of the a-hole students i used to be around when i worked at a college. the kid that wrote the first note is going to face a very cruel reality upon graduation. mommy and daddy can’t fix everything.
i’m glad the person in note #2 called them out.
May 19, 2010 at 7:24 am rating: 6
#29
Sam S
People, get a grip.
No, maintenence people aren’t here to be students’ personal “slaves”. But that doesn’t mean that students (the CUSTOMERS) don’t have a right to complain.
In every job I’ve ever had – there are “rush” times. This only means you have to work a little harder and smarter. I think it is idiotic that they shut down the chutes because they can’t meet the demand. Why can’t they just double their efforts to keep the chutes clear, especially when they are FULLY AWARE that it is going to happen when the students move out?
Students can be real spoiled and a pain in the ass – but to be fair, many times a school forgets that they are PAYING CUSTOMERS and that the students are doing THEM a favor by going to the school, not the other way around.
And for the record, I’ve been out of college for almost 20 years now.
May 19, 2010 at 7:44 am rating: 10
#30
Reaganomics
Hi Sam S, or notewriter #1 as you were known previously. Ya big baby. Mommy and daddy coming to visit soon to carry that awful garbage out for you? Maybe burp you and wipe your bum too? That’s good, you go on being a privileged little puke, the rest of us find it quite entertaining.
May 19, 2010 at 8:23 am rating: 5
#31
Shannon
Clearly she lives in a tall building, hence the garbage chutes. Do you know how hard it is to walk down flights of stairs in Manolo’s? Nevermind carrying bags of garbage. Even the thought of it exhausts me, have some sympathy for the poor girl.
May 19, 2010 at 8:51 am rating: 20
#32
Veloxiraptor
Team lazy.
Getting into a dorm elevator is enough of a battle at this time of year WITHOUT the additional trash-dumping traffic.
May 19, 2010 at 9:10 am rating: 5
#33
Edwina the Defrocked Nun
sigh – although I don’t think she leaves notes about it, my 5th-year college-age kid (with no degree in sight) has the same sort of entitled behavior. And we are not rich nor did we raise her to act that way. It worries me greatly. Though I realize something is wrong, and I may have contributed to it in some way, I have no idea what to do now. The other kid doesn’t have the same issues. (That’s what she said.)
May 19, 2010 at 9:15 am rating: 8
#34
Canthz_B
Is this where we use the phrase “self-important little twit”?
May 19, 2010 at 9:19 am rating: 6
#35
Yebs
No way – Brown is the school that no one ever remembers is an Ivy. You might as well go to NYU at that point.
May 19, 2010 at 9:55 am rating: 0
#36
Melissa B
woah 51 thou?!
…. i work hard all year to pay my 4000 $ school bills…
May 19, 2010 at 11:30 am rating: 3
#37
Knowit
Just so you know that school has a very good aid program so if any student cannot pay the school kicks in most of the aid instead of going to the government or private loans.
That said I would expect that a student that is getting aid wouldn’t say crap like that. Sounds like a spoiled brat to me.
May 19, 2010 at 2:57 pm rating: 1
#38
Bizootie
What do you expect from West Campus.
May 19, 2010 at 3:19 pm rating: 0
#39
WittlessForThePersecution
I’m with team “I would be so ashamed to call someone like you a friend or aquaintance,aquaintence ,acqaint…….. ” oh fuck it I’m with team just clean your shit up already.
May 19, 2010 at 6:43 pm rating: 4
#40
Walker, "Tex" (a stranger)
Apparently $51k isn’t enough to buy you a room in an ivy-covered dorm. It seems you also have to trade in your integrity, common sense and any sort of consideration for anyone else.
Team school of hard knocks.
May 19, 2010 at 8:51 pm rating: 3
#41
Cordelia
About the $51K – the student could be there on a combo of merit scholarships, work aid, and student loans – all of which have nothing to do with parent contribution. We have no way of knowing. BUT that still doesn’t excuse the thoughtlessness of leaving your trash for the maintenance staff to clean up because you want to pout like a little princess. At Harvard they have something called Dorm Crew where students are employed at minimum wage to clean the bathrooms, etc. in their dorms. Maybe the note writer should try a week of that and see what it’s like for the maintenance employees!
May 19, 2010 at 9:56 pm rating: 1
#42
Kayla
Man, I love how the Cornell alums are coming out of the woodwork to mention having gone there. It makes Andy Bernard on The Office about 1,000 times more believable.
May 24, 2010 at 6:46 pm rating: 2
#43
Hi I'm a Shprikovakolfarmahjitok
Ok, I’m a university student and frankly my experience makes me side with the poster of the first note.
I don’t know if all universities are like this or if mine is a special case, but my university does not give me entirely what I pay for (and from what I’ve heard, they are all the same).
Just a few examples I’ve encountered:
- My university has no guidelines regarding what to do in the event of problems that occur regularly or are sure to occur.
For instance, I once couldn’t do an exam because of a mistake on the teacher’s part. The university immediately admitted it was entirely the teacher’s fault, yet they could not offer me fair solutions to ensure that I would get the mark I deserved.
When I asked if they had written guidelines or rules about what to do in such situations, they told me they had nothing. Although I could not do the exam because of the teacher’s mistake, this is the same type of situation as a teacher losing a student’s exam/assignment before grading it, which I am sure is an event that happens every year in every university. Yet, no guidelines about this.
- Teachers post all marks online except for the marks on final exams. For these, we must send them e-mails once our final grades(i.e. course averages) are out and wait for replies.
Why aren’t the marks of final exams posed? I’m guessing it’s just laziness. I think knowing my marks is good feedback that tells me how well I did and if I should study more efficiently in the future. Basically, it’s important for academic success. I can’t even begin top understand why such information isn’t given away to students immediately (i.e. without them having to request it).
There are other problems like these that I consider to be quite unprofessional from a university. I won’t list them all,
I just wanted to give a few examples to show what kind of problems I’m talking about (i.e. problems about academic performance and success, not “petty” problems such as “they have a tennis court but they won’t open a swimming pool!”)
So again this could be just my university, but I heard they’re all the same. Students I talk to fell universities try to suck as much money out of them. That is easy for them to do considering the lack of competition on the education market (at this level of education); students don’t have the choice to go to a better uni, they can only choose between sucking it up or cleaning toilets ll their life.
So with that in mind, I would not be very patient with my university. If I was in the same situation as the guy who posted the first note, I would also be telling the university “I’m paying lots of money to live in a building with a chute. So if it doesn’t work, find an other solution!”.
That’s life: you can’t use people and then expect them to make you favors.
As for the second note: I disagree with it. Facility employees do not have to pick up the garbage for students if this is not part of their job contract. If it is, then they are paid to do it. It’s that simple.
The way I see it, things should work that way:
- Students should not bring the garbage outside, they should expect the university to hire someone to pick it up until the chute is working again.
- Employees whose job it is NOT to pick up this trash should refuse to do this task if asked.
- The trash will accumulate in the hall. Wait a few days, and if the university still won’t do anything about it despite the complaints, then a threat to call the sanitary inspection service should convince them.
And I’m pretty sure it is legally the responsibility of the owner of the facility to find an alternative to the chute. You see, students have signed a contract that says they pay to live in a building which features a chute.
Oh and by the way, an elevator won’t help. If the whole dorm takes their trash outside that week, it will be crowded and students may need to wait quite a bit every time they take out the trash.
Not to mention that if this occurs every year, the university should be prepared for it.
And if anyone intends to say “it’s only unavailable for one week”, my reply will be “then they need to hire someone only for one week!”.
Definitely a case of a university trying to save a few bucks on the back of students.
Jun 8, 2010 at 2:40 am rating: 3
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#45 Poohs, chutes & leaves | PassiveAggressiveNotes.com
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