April 15, 1975
-Jon Hiratsuka
People think of the
maintenance department only
when things break down.
Preventive work on pumps or
boilers goes unnoticed. If the
heat fails three times during
the winter, students want
Grimsley Hobbs' house at
tached to the same heat pipes
which service their dormitory.
The individual student
judges maintenance by its
speed and effectiveness in
fixing his own broken window
or restoring hot water to his
dormatory. According to this
criteria, the performance of
maintenance is neither laud
able nor terrible, but spotty.
Shore dormatory has been
so overheated all year that
residents have had to keep
windows open and sleep with
only a sheet even in 20 degree
weather. In Binford water
drips through the broken
waterproofing underlying the
upstairs shower areas and
forms dangerous puddles on
the floors below. On the other
hand, small items such as
light fixtures and window
locks are fixed promptly,
Binford and Shore coordina
tors said.
In Bryan most vacume
cleaners are broken, to the
dismay of residents desiring to
clean their carpeted suites.
Bathroom fans cannot be
repaired due to a lack of spare
parts. Clogged toilets and
sinks are usually fixed the
next day. Many residents have
complained about insufficient
heat, not knowing that
thermostats are set for no
higher than 68 degrees.
English runs short of hot
water due to the limited.
capacity of its hot water tanks
and the lowering of the hot
water temperature from 160 to
140 degrees.
Milner has had sporadic
heating failures: 2nd North
especially has had problems
with cold showers. Several
interns said service was very
slow at the beginning of the
year, but it improved later in
the year when maintenance
was less busy. Desk lamps are
not repaired since required
parts are no longer made.
Other instances of prompt
repairs, delayed repairs, or
neglected problems could be
cited.
Reasons for maintenance's
shortcomings include bureau
cracy. the lack of manpower,
parts, and money, the
relations between mainte
nance head Ron Keene and
dorm residents, the lack of
residents' control over their
dwellings, and the college's
unwillingness to invest .in
major repairs.
Why Things Never Seem To Get Fixed
To get something replaced
or fixed involves red tape. A
student fills out a "pink slip"
or referral form. His intern or
dorm coordinator signs it and
takes it to housing director
George Scholtz who in turn
takes it to Keene.
Routinely then, a student's
request passes through the
hands of three people, and a
week may elapse between the
student's submitting the
request and the actual repair.
Each person in the referral
chain claims to pass the pink
slips he receives on to the next
individual within 1-2 days,
though they admit lapses.
Keene claims that, with
certain exceptions, requests
are acted upon within 1-2 days
after he receives them.
Emergencies are reported and
acted upon more quickly. Low
priority items such as closet
doors for students' rooms may
be neglected. If vandalism is
suspected (broken windows,
damaged room doors), repairs
are ususally not made until the
culprit can be found and
billed.
No formal channels exist for
conveying this or any other
information back to the person
submitting a request, how
ever. He has no way of
knowing if maintenance got
his request. He ususally is not
told if maintenance deems his
request invalid, or if repair is
delayed due to a backlog of
work orders, a lack of spare
parts, or other reasons.
Furthermore, if mainte
nance works on a problem and
mistakenly assumes they have
corrected it, one has no way of
letting them know the problem
remains.
A student is discouraged
from going to the maintenance
department personally to
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The Guilfordian
request or inquire about
repairs. If a repair is not
made, his only formal
recourse is to fill out another
pink slip each day and hope
that his coordinator or Scholtz
can exercise some suasion
or secure some explanation.
But the student who continues
to shiver under a cold shower
while receiving no explanation
is more likely to give up and
conclude maintenance is
indifferent or incompetent.
•*
Maintenance chief Ron Keene
While the standard referral
system and the maintenance
department's general inac
cessability inconvenience stu
dents. they simplify mainte
nance's handling of com
plaints. Keene can receive
students' pink slips in a bulk,
once a day, from Scholtz only.
Keene claimed correctly that
he is too busy to personally
receive and answer complaints
from individual students, and
that maintenance cannot
afford to hire a full time
person to process complaints.
He admitted that a system
better than the present
referral process is needed, but
he said he didn't know what it
would be.
Keene himself is the source
of much controversy. A
number of people have said
that the maintenance head is
difficult to work with. When
repairs are not made, they
hestitate to contact Keene
directly and complain too
insistantly for fear of getting
on his bad side. They fear he
would then be more unwilling
to fulfill their requests.
Several students have
reported unpleasant pcrsonai
encounters with Keene. Some
claimed he seemed indifferent
to student concerns.
Some residents in the
Frazicr Apartments claimed
Keene and his crew stole and
destroyed property and enter
ed their dwellings without
permission.
When interviews, Kecnc
did not appear to have horns.
He admitted his crew has
accidently slashed garden
hoses while mowing Frazier
lawns. He denied that his men
are authorized to enter the
apartments when the resi
dents are not home unless a
request form is signed. He
volunteered that one emplo
yee thought a lawn mower
standing in a yard was junk
and took it away. The mower
was junked before the owner
could claim it; after 6 months
and much inconvenience, he
was reimbursed.
Keene challenged those
making accusations to' identi
fy themselves and speak out
publicly or go to the civil
authorities. They have not
done so, partly because they
fear Keene will make things
difficult for them (perhaps by
fining them at the end of the
year, ostensibly for not
leaving their apartments
clean), partly because they
have little concrete evidence.
There is then some
suspicion but little proof of
dishonesty and petty sabotage
on the part of maintenance.
There is also sonic attempt to
crucify Keene on the basis of
his personality.
It is debatable whether
Keene gets revenge on people
by intentionally delaying
repairs they want, or whether
hearsay and Keene's undi
plomatic dealings with some
individuals give him this
undeserved reputation. How
ever, this reputation docs
work to his advantage in that it
keeps many people away from
the admittedly busy man.
It is true, however, that
dorm coordinators who are on
good terms with Keene arc
more likely to receive
explanations from him when
repairs .cannot be made
quickly.
Perhaps the controversy
over Keene the man obscures
a more fundamental cause of
conflict. The maintenance
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department sees its task
primarily as the physical
upkeep of the facilities;
whereas students see the job
as one of making dwellings
more livable. They almost look
upon maintenance as a service
to students.
Keene and his staff of 8 full
time and 6 part time
employees are responsible for
buildings and ground, faculty
homes, rental property, and
many acres of college land: so
they can truthfully say they
cannot attend to everything at
once.
Yet. in their choice of
priorities, conception of pro
blems primarily in mechanical
terms, and failure to consult
those affected by their actions,
their orientation towards the
physical plant as opposed to
the residents shows.
Keene said that they have
held off replacing the
admittedly inadaquate heat
controls in Shore this long due
to cost. He and Jim Newlin
knew that if windows in the
rooms containing the dorm's
thermostats' are opened, the
whole dorm will overheat. But
they did not know how much
discomfort this entails for
residents.
Much ill feeling results from
the fact that residents have
little say in maintenance
decisions which affect them.
English dorm residents
resented it when, without
warning, their couch was
taken to be re-covered. On the
other hand, they appreciated
being told one day in advance
(hat their water would be
turned off for several hours
while a water fountain was
being installed.
The.furniture in Shore lobby
was also re-covered, but many
Shore residents would rather
have had maintenance use this
lime and money to paint the
kitchen or repair the plumbing
in it.
The run down state of some
of the equipment and systems
servicing the dorms also
complicates maintenance's
task. Repeated breakdowns
necessitate stopgap repairs;
replacement or overhaul of
major equipment is costly.
Last summer the heat pipes
leading to English were
•eplaced at a cost of $40,000.
Before this was done, English
experienced periodic heating
failures. This summer defec
tive waterproofing in the
Binford shower areas will be
replaced.
The following suggestions
for improving maintenance's
effectiveness and mainte
nance-student relations will be
put forth.
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