Five student employees at Lincoln Dining were fired for failing to attend an orientation and training session, and their terminations have temporarily affected the efficiency of the dining hall.

The training session, which took place Oct. 15 during Homecoming weekend, was the fourth session offered to the 70 or more student-employees.

Maureen Carey, a freshman pre-nursing major and fired staff member, said she thinks the firings were unjust because the Oct. 15 session was a reiteration of previous training sessions and was unnecessary, according to testimonies from staff members who attended a previous session. She also said she remembers one manager telling her she should not worry about attending the meeting.

Employees notified

Ruth Cain, a Housing and Dining food administrator, defended the decision.

Notification placed next to the employee time-clocks from Oct. 1 through Oct. 15 explained that failure to attend the session would result in termination for the 15 to 20 employees that had yet to attend a session, Cain said.

Alexis Woollard, a junior public health major, said she agreed with the firings.

“The employees were formally warned of the consequences of not attending an orientation/training session,” she said. “I had to attend orientation and training and I’ve worked here for three years. The employees [who were let go] were given a second chance on Oct. 15, and they didn’t take advantage of it.”

Every dining location can have service problems, Cain said. Absenteeism, lack of employees and illness affects every dining hall.

Long lines

The recent firings can be attributed to some of the problems Lincoln Dining has had of late, she said.

Freshman finance major Faiz Patel said he recently had to wait 20 minutes in line for a grilled cheese sandwich; it was not the first time he has had to wait 10 minutes or longer.

“I was upset that I had to wait that long for my food,” Patel said.

David Hayes, junior business major, and William Michels, a mechanical engineering and applied mathematics double major, said they both had to wait 10 minutes or longer for items from the special-order grill.

“It’s worth the wait for special-order grill items though,” Michels said.

He finds the wait to be longest on Sunday evenings when there are about 10 to 15 people in line at a time, he said.

During some instances, some grill items are not available to students during designated grill hours due to lack of employees and having to shut down the grill, Carey said.

“People got mad when we refused them food items,” Carey said.

She said she sometimes saw 20 to 25 people in line at the grill during late dinner hours having to wait from seven to eight minutes for their food.

New workers are going to be hired to replace the ones who were fired and another mandatory orientation and training session will take place in January, Cain said.