On
October 15th, 2015 at about 7 o’ clock pm, I observed the students
inside of the laundry room on the 4th floor. In Alumni Hall, on every floor there is a
laundry room consisting of four washers and four dryers. It is free to use the washers and dryers and
there are certain rules to abide by with using them. Such as, taking your
laundry out within 10 minutes of it being done and cleaning up after your self.
It is located on a narrow path toward the left side of the room, there is a
wall dividing the kitchen from the laundry stations. The laundry room holds a
competitive nature about it. It’s like the Hunger Games where everyone is
lurking around trying to find an open washing machine and when they do find it
they snatch it up. Students are always waiting for washers and dryers, they are
either sitting they’re waiting for another person time to run out or they are
checking every floors laundry room. Individuals, both boys and girls, get
really frustrated when there is not a washer or dryer open. When they walk in and
see that there is none open there is a mixed look of disappointment and
desperation on their faces.
I did notice that there were more girls
than boys doing their laundry at the moment. Many of the girls would take time
to separate lights and darks, and use two different washing machines for it. Although
some just threw it all in together as did many of the boys that came. Some
people use two or three washers at a time, one for their darks or clothes in
general, one for their bed sheets, and another for either carpets, towels, or
more clothes. I couldn’t help but think that it was really unnecessary and
selfish for one person to be using two to three washers, while there are 500
people in the building trying to find a place to do their laundry. In the laundry
room there is also a huge controversy over people leaving or forgetting their
things in the washer or dryer. The rule of the laundry room does state that
people must take their laundry out within 10 minutes of it being done. They can
do this by either setting an alarm or remembering the time when they put it in.
When one girl was waiting there for over 20 minutes for a washing machine, she
got frustrated and started taking another persons clothes out because it was
sitting there for 15 minutes. The girl was nice about it and put it in the
drying because from prior everyday observation, some will just leave it on top
of a washer or dryer. Some students have a system going about doing their
laundry. This system consists of a group of friends that will ‘hold’ a washer
and dryer for them selves. One friend will find a washer and start washing
their clothes, when that one friend put their clothes in the dryer, another
friend will then take hold of the washer. This is sort of like a chain reaction
that is on going until the group of friends is finished with all of their
laundry. But this system does not allow a person to use more than one dryer
unless it is open, so in order to run another load of wash they have to wait
until the chain of friends is finished in order to run another load.
In the laundry rooms there doesn’t seem to
be much going on besides people doing laundry. But to take a look actually
inside of the laundry rooms and observe students in the act shows that there is
a lot of different ways people act. The boys and girls in the laundry room seem
to do their laundry almost the same, but what I couldn’t tell from this observation
was how often boys do their laundry versus how often girls do their laundry.
Even though there seemed to be more girls in the laundry room at the moment,
there could be a difference of genders on different floors. Also, I wonder how
people choose the days to do their laundry and if they prefer to do this during
the nighttime or the day time. This gives an insight into the freshman in
theses dorms daily lives because laundry is something that needs to be done on
a daily basis.
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