By: kimkardashian
Nobody wants to work in this country anymore. Am I right? I think Kim Kardashian (queen of menial labor) put it best when she said “Get your fucking ass up and work.” Excellent and timeless advice from Kimberly, the one true oracle of our generation. The lazy ass students of UVM could learn a thing or two about work from Kim K. The current student population at large is criminally averse to work of any kind, especially if it falls under any of the following categories: meaningless, silly, boring, embarrassing, yucky, cringe, tiring, disheartening, disillusioning, or disappointing. Unfortunately for all you whiny babies out there, virtually any and all of these words can be applied to every entry-level job in America, especially those infamous part-time gigs offered here on our very own college campus.
This lack of industriousness is not new to the University of Vermont, which has always been known among knowledgeable parties as a stinking grease trap of inertia, a cavernous utopia for only the most feckless and scatterbrained of stoners and deadbeats. For years, the university has attempted to incentivize students to apply for campus jobs. These incentives have included childish offerings such as ‘flexible schedules’, ‘convenient locations’, and ‘career advancement’. It was only recently that the higher-ups began to realize that the sleazy potheads to whom they were catering would never be drawn in by something so bourgeois as career advancements or practical working experience. The ringleaders of UVM Dining, in the spring semester of 2022, realized what they needed to do to bring in student workers. They had to sink down to the gruesome youth.
It started in January, when the situation was at its bleakest. Student workers were dropping like flies. Either they were quitting to focus on their schoolwork, falling victim to coronavirus, or dropping out of college to move to Albany and make skate videos full time. There was no one there to stand behind the counter at Simple Servings and mournfully dole out white rice. There was no one to crack open beers for retired economics professors. And there was no one to replenish sweating glasses of ice water with the shakiest, most ridiculous adolescent hands you’ve ever seen in your life. The system was failing. The seas were rough. So UVM Dining, the shepherds of culinary greatness at our beloved university, made a bold decision.
It’s not so hard these days to figure out a person’s darkest secret. Especially when it comes to egotistical college students who believe that their every thought is so genius that they must provide it to the entire Internet at large. In the beginning, it was easy stuff. Nothing too lethal. In the later weeks of January, many students began to receive anonymous carrier pigeons holding UVM stationary in their little talons. They received spooky scary messages such as:“Beware! Your dirty little secrets are not safe! I know about your tweet from 2015 about Carly Fiorina. How dare you. Unless you want everyone to know you secretly think the coal industry is awesome, meet at this location at midnight.”
Panicked students, obviously worried about their spotless leftist reputations, scurried out of their dorms late at night, making their way through a system of underground tunnels, which had been carefully drawn out in crayon on the stationary they had received from the aforementioned pigeon. The tunnels had clearly been constructed under duress. The subterranean infrastructure system was akin to those homemade emergency tunnels the little stop-motion animals dug in Fantastic Mr. Fox. It was not an easy journey, much harder than making the drunken walk back to campus after an embarrassing night at Kappa Beta Whatever. But, eventually, the Crayola map led these lucky students to the Davis Center loading dock, where they were inevitably fingerprinted, run through a metal detector and then knighted by a rather raunchy Queen Elizabeth impersonator. After that, they were official employees of UVM Dining. And there was nothing they could do about it. Many students woke the next morning thinking it was some kind of bizarre dream brought on by their copious use of psychedelics. But then, they looked over to see their new UVM Dining name tag waiting on their desk and remembered; this was no dream. This was life.
As the spring semester went on, the various dining halls and other dining locations began to refill with chipper student workers. They were happy to be endlessly swiping packages of sushi from the Marche all day, as long as nobody found out about the parkour videos they posted on YouTube with their buddy Jake in 2014. Washing dishes in Central Dining Hall was a far better alternative to being exposed as a furry. And hey, they were making a decent wage. Enough to fund their substance use and buy the occasional elaborate dinner from the local Olive Garden. It was okay, this new life, this half-freedom. They wore their dull golden name tags with something not quite like pride, but not quite like shame either.
This brings us to the present, April of 2022. Skies are blue (sometimes), birds are chirping (maybe), and our dining facilities are chock full of student workers in their cute little uniforms. Now that you’ve read this water tower special report, you know that things are not at all what they seem. These students are working under false pretenses. But the peculiar situation begs the question: Aren’t we all working under false pretenses? Does anyone apply to a part-time job at the Creemee Stand because they dream of becoming an ice cream baron? Did you work at your dads’ hardware store in the summers during high school because of your passion for the Philipps Head Screwdriver? No. You worked these jobs because you had to. You allowed yourself to become a cog in the great American labor machine because you had been fooled into believing that not working was somehow a shameful waste of time. You were taken advantage of, just like those kids standing right now in the dining halls, waiting to refill the marinara sauce supply. What makes you think you’re so different?
We live in a complicated world, which is why it is more important than ever to champion truth and bravery in journalism. When our water tower team reached out to a UVM Dining supervisor for a quote on this controversial subject, they had this to say: “None of this is true. Where did you come up with this? How would we ever have access to carrier pigeons? Who are you? Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” Decide for yourself, devoted readers. I’m no charlatan. May the truth set you free, or at least make you laugh.
Categories: April 12, front page, samantha stillman