Mess Buster
Problem statement
College students hold a grudge against messes. They complain about the food, the cleanliness, the cutlery, the punctuality, sometimes even the variety of Chinese cuisine offered. Such grievances attract attention from the mess committees and the administration, resulting in changes being implemented. However, nothing is satisfactory- be it revamping the daily menu or appointing new caterers. In this abstract, we explore the real reason for this perennial hate.
Introduction
Imagine yourself as a student in your natural habitat. If at any random instance, an observer decides to make note of which activity the subject, i.e. you, are indulging in, which of these have the greatest possibility of being featured?
- Sleeping
- Procrastinating
- Loitering
- Browsing social media on a handheld device.
Despite youngsters spending lavish amounts of time procrastinating or loitering, option 4 arguably takes the cake. The simplest reasoning that offers the best explanation is the fact that options 2 and 3 are usually coupled with option 4, besides option 4 functioning as an independent entity as well. Why option 1, however, fails to make the cut is because the other three activities have invariably affected the sleep patterns, making the activity an unfulfilled urge.
This overuse of social media and technology has induced within the students’ the following negative traits, affecting the way they behave, which ultimately leads to the spurn for messes.
Attention Seeking Behaviour
You go out to the city to eat. Time to relish the delights and enjoy the company, or is it? Arguably, a significant portion of that time is spent in taking snaps, not of your comrades who might/might not sponsor the lavish feast, but of delicacies around you. Tags like #foodporn are used while posting online to climb the ladder of social hierarchy via garnering likes and thus, attention.
Messes never provide such opportunities to be the cause of envy. And this ends up being one of the primary causes for the mess dislike.
Moreover, unlike homes where moms shower their attention by compelling their wards to eat, the mess workers experience tight time constraints, wherein if otherwise they too might proceed to pat your back while saying, ‘Finish your food, dear child.’
Lack of appropriate social skills
Picture yourself running into that online friend you chat occasionally with. Or that other acquaintance you always wave at, but never really talk.
You don’t know how to behave. Do you make eye contact, nod, greet or ignore? There is a high probability of you blabbering dark secrets which will then haunt you throughout your life.
Messes put one in such situations day in and day out. Youngsters prefer staying hungry to encountering such scenarios and places.
Lethargy
Imagine it’s dinner time. You are relaxing in your dorm room. Hunger strikes so you decide to undertake the arduous mess journey. Steps (literal and metaphorical):
- Clothe yourself properly because you’re currently too glamorous. Any observer will have to rinse their eyeballs.
- Search for room/bicycle keys.
- Climb down flight(s) of stairs or wait for the lift.
- Search for your cycle, whose parking spot you have conveniently forgotten. Or take that first step of the thousand step journey (the Chinese approve).
- Keep walking (Johnny Walker approves) or pedalling.
- Reach mess, park cycle or walk inside.
- Dead yet? No? Then find a plate, stand in the queue and wait. Again!
Students today have the world on their fingertips. Everything is conveniently available due to technology. Hypothetically, a mess parcel will always be preferred over the baby steps listed above.
Loneliness
The current generation has been found to be filled with lonely individuals. In a quest to shun this singleness, people seek companionship with the opposite gender (or same, wink wink). Food has been proven to be one of the best ways to bond (read, dates). Messes operating with stringent, only male/female policies, defy one of the primitive desires of most young humans and are thus scorned.
Conclusion
We can now conclude that the real reason why students hate messes isn’t because of the food, or hygiene standards or punctuality. It is social media and technology, the real devils that disrupt the cognitive abilities of the brain to set the benchmark for satisfaction. They invoke the deadly sins, which do the dirty work of shifting the blame to mess inadequacy.
P.S. This post has been sponsored by the mess hate committee. No matter what the cost, the hate will live on.
