Dorm Work Orders: What’s the Problem?
Submitted by abrancat on Thu, 11/10/2005 - 15:30.
|
By Anthony Brancato
Staff Writer Showers are a morning ritual for many college students. They grab a bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap, a towel, and ...a wrench? That’s the reality for 21-year-old senior Ryan Wilson and his suitemates of Dreiser College in Tabler Quad. “The knob to turn the shower on just comes off and we need to use a wrench to turn it on and off,” said Wilson, a double major in Geology and Earth and Space Science. “We've filed many reports, talked to RAs and RHDs, and about a month ago they came to fix it. They didn’t so much as fix it, as they just screwed it back on and it didn’t even last a day. So we are pretty much at wits end with that whole shower thing.” Senior and health science major Joseph Weiss, 21, of Schick College in Kelly echoes that sentiment. “I pay all this money in student loans to go to this school,” said Weiss about Campus Residences. “I sent in a work order by e-mail four weeks ago and still no word.” According to Kenneth Fehling, Director of Residential Operations at Stony Brook, 30,000 work orders are placed a year to Campus Residences in order to fix various broken accommodations in Stony Brook dormitories. Fehling says he is aware that students have complained about the time it takes for the workers at Campus Residences to respond to work orders and is trying his best to fix the problem. He says it is mostly just a series of miscommunications. “Communication is probably the biggest problem,” said Fehling, who has been Director of Residential Operations since late 2002. “With computers you lose sense of touch and sense of thinking. Sometimes it’s hard to grab hold of what the problem is.” On the Campus Residences website, http://studentaffairs.stonybrook.edu/res/, there is a section where students can submit work orders for repairs. There are options to select the quad, building, and room, as well as to write a short description of the problem. Fehling says that the confusion begins with the sometimes wrongly identified description of what exactly the work order is really about. He used lighting fixtures as an example. “If a custodian answers a ‘light out’ order, replaces the light and it still doesn’t work, there’s nothing they can do so they refer it to an electrician,” Fehling says. Sometimes they don’t get to routine work for a few weeks unless it’s an emergency. Emergencies are dealt with in a day or less. He says the same occurs with dormitory showers, with regards to having a description of a shower head that may be loose from its base. Sometimes these requests could really be for a plumbing problem that may take a little longer to repair. Fehling says that the time it takes to respond to the work order often leads to students leaving repeat orders, adding to the backlog. “If a repair doesn’t happen in two weeks, it is a communication problem or a backlog problem,” Fehling says. “It’s hard to pinpoint the problem. We get repeat orders so our backlog could be longer then it really is.” Fehling also says he’s not sure his workers are following the rules. “It bothers me that my workers may not be following the right orders,” he says. “Does the custodian just give the ‘light out’ order to the electricians instead of filling out a broken fixture order getting the order wrapped in the system?” His message to students who have an on-going problem with the work orders is to call the Campus Residences office directly and the problem will be taken care of as quickly as possible. “If you feel it’s an emergency or a slow response, contact the quad office and they will contact the facility manager to get appropriate response,” said Fehling. In the meantime, he has been looking into the imperfections of the work order process. “If an order is described wrong, workers should be making the correction not passing along the mistake,” he says. “I will meet with custodian supervisors to emphasize more strongly about what may be happening.” Fehling says he not only has been keeping on top of the maintenance supervisors, but has been behind the recent dormitory renovations which took place last summer. “I did focus groups in every quad in 2004,” he says. “I found that showers and bathroom problems were a main focus of students.” According to Fehling, renovations have been done over the past few years, beginning in Roth Quad and ending last summer in H-Quad. But none of those upgrades led to the revamping of the plumbing and electrical systems, which are now a priority for Fehling. "I started becoming involved in renovations last summer,” he says. “Plumbing is one of our biggest problems and concerns, the past renovations had to do with minor upgrades, but both the plumbing and electrical were renovated in Greeley and Stimson in Roosevelt Quad last summer. I plan that Wagner and Keller will be renovated the same way in 2006." |
Submitted by J Licitra on Tue, 11/15/2005 - 03:11.
my freshman suite in Toscanini was infested with termites. after complaining to everyone from our RA up to Dallas Bauman, we were finally told by someone from the physical plant that this had been happening for 5 years straight. the infestation was so bad that you could count about 5 termites on a one inch square piece of tile (multiply that). my suitemates and I built duck tape fences 2 feet high (no joke) to keep them from crawling into our dorm rooms. eventually, a suitemate purchased some pesticide and we sprayed the bathroom ourselves.
lesson learned: campus res is only concerned with their PR and their bottom line. the quality of life for residential students, regardless of how much you pay to be here (see dining hall hours) is not their priority.
Submitted by GAgathos on Tue, 11/15/2005 - 10:07.
I encourage people to send in any photos of their accomodations.
Submitted by MikeN on Tue, 11/15/2005 - 12:45.
Ick, that must have been disgusting to live in. Let's not forget the constant power outages as well. Of course, I could also talk about my own personal experience with Campus Res, but that's a feature article in itself (and not a pleasant one).
I wish I could say this was t
I wish I could say this was the only problem with Campus Residences...at least Mr. Fehling took the time to speak to the Independent, and give reasonable answers to questions. That hasn't always been the case with that department.