Students: physical plant not on the ball

In the beginning of the semester physical plant was behind in their work orders, but resident life claims they have caught up with all of the orders. Students, however, are still complaining about physical plant not responding to their orders and having to live in conditions they feel are not suitable.

by Kristen Williams staff writer

Playing catch-up was the name of the game for the members of Cabrini's physical plant staff at the start of the fall semester. Now, they are back on track, or at least they· seem to be to a few people.

Students and resident assistants alike began to grow tired of having to complain hundreds of times in order to have a work order responded to.

Students needed furniture removed or added to their rooms, bed posts fixed and lights that worked.

According to Cathy Caulfield, director of resident life, some of these issues weren't addressed for up to two weeks. Kathryn Darienzo, a sophomore who lives in House 3, has a different opinion though.

"As soon as I got to school my RA put in a work order to have the metal bed posts removed from the top of my bed," said Darienzo, "I had to wait until October for it to be done, and it only took two minutes of their time."

RAs had to unfairly take the brunt of the complaints for most of the work not being done. Students waited for up to a month to have clean laundry rooms, fresh water and furniture in their rooms. During this time, they would often blame their RAs for the work not being taken care of, when in fact the work orders had been placed, they just hadn't been acted upon.

So what caused this "back log" of work? Physical Plant was unavailable for comment, but ac- cording to Caulfield and Dawn Rocci, assistant director of resident life, there were a number of things that hindered their work.

According to Rocci, some of the facilities staff was not reporting for work. These men had either physical, medical problems or personal issues to take care of in the beginning of the year. Therefore, the staff that was here was putting m their normal amount of work for their eight hour day, and then they were also trying to do the work of those not present.

Both Rocci and Caulfield made it clear, however, that if there were emergency cases, such as water leaks or no electricity, it was called in and taken care of immediately. They also claimed that after they called a staff member about a back logged work order it was taken care of either that night or the next day.

As of now, however, the staff of the resident life office says that physical plant is no longer playing catch-up.

In defense of the unavailable physical plant, Rocci said, "The backlog happened more towards the beginning of the semester than it is now. We're doing a good job."

Students, however, still have an opposing view. Dixon House resident Megan Merkle has been waiting for physical plant to tend to her room since she got to Cabrini this semester.

"The whole top piece of our closet is missing there·s a whole instead," said Merkle. "The first week we were here we spoke to our RA about it and she had put in a work order when she arrived before the rest of the students."

Though physical plant did visit the room to see what needed to be fixed, they did not do anything to it. They simply said that they would be in touch to let Merkle and her roommates know when they would be back to fix it. No word has been heard.

Other residents at Cabrini are still waiting for soap, towel dispensers, mirrors and fresh scented water in their bathrooms, holes repaired in bedroom walls and doors that lock.

"I understand physical plant has a lot of stuff to do, but it's not that big of a campus," said Darienzo, "All we're asking for is decent living conditions, the least they could do is make an attempt to be on top of this stuff. It's important to us, even if it isn't to them."