By: Kerrigan McVicker
Imagine your alarm does not go off on time one morning. You jump out of bed, get ready and rush out the door. Class starts in fifteen minutes, so you decide you have time to grab a coffee and food quickly. The lines in the UC are not too long and you step in ready to order. However, the SharkDining workers are not on their game. Even though there are not many customers, they still seem to take forever to make your order. With feelings of frustration and disappointment, you step out of line and run to class. This is not the first time the workers have let you down, and you know it will not be the last. That’s a problem.
SharkDining staff members have a big job to handle as they deal with numerous college students coming and going throughout the day, so I give them credit for coming to work every day. However, some workers do not put their best efforts into prioritizing customer service. For example, I was up early and had time to order an omelet one Friday morning. As I saw no one was in line and the SharkDining workers were preparing for business, I assumed my order would not be hard to tackle. But I was proven wrong, as I stood and waited 25 minutes for something that could’ve been ready in ten. Luckily, I didn’t have class anytime soon, but I was astonished that the workers saw me standing there for that long and did not try their best to make the order in a timely fashion.
Changes need to be made to SharkDining services, regarding staff and their protocols for productive performance. There seems to be an imbalance of workers, as some days there are many and other days the counters are deserted. Even when there are enough workers to ensure prime customer service, many are often distracted by other staff workers’ conversations or just seem to take their time to attend to customers’ needs. Sometimes, I feel as if I am a disturbance to their day when a worker is rude and reluctant to take my order. Everyone has a bad day now and then, but I’ve noticed a consistent pattern of slow and discourteous behavior coming from some staff members. If I am noticing these things, then I am sure other NSU students and faculty are as well.
The only way to fix this problem is for SharkDining management to come together and decide on a solution to make their customers and their workers happier. It might even be necessary to evaluate each staff member’s performance with the business’ success in mind more regularly. The SharkDining staff need a new game plan; if action is taken, it can benefit both the workers and the NSU community.
