Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[Music]
>> Lunchtime. It's a time of day everyone looks forward to,
especially if you're a student on the North Dakota State University campus with a meal plan.
Entering the dining center is almost like entering your world with unlimited possibilities.
All the different cereals you can imagine.
All the soup and sandwiches your stomach can handle
and of course, all the hot food items are all at your disposal.
But making that food available at the students' convenience takes a lot of time and a lot of work.
Today we're going behind the counter of the NDSU dining service center.
[Music]
>> The hot foods, cereals, salads and soups
don't get out to the counters for the students on their own.
Meet Diane Gudding, one of the NDSU dining service employees
responsible for making sure NDSU students always have something to eat,
even if that means work starting at 1:00 o'clock a.m.
>> Hi, Tom. It's Diane from West.
Say, is Janine there, please?
We have bakery people that come in as early as 1:00 in the morning.
Our deliveries come in in the mornings at 9:30 or so
and our cookies get all counted up here, baked at our bakery.
Our bakery is open over in the auxiliary building.
All of our product comes from them. They cook it off over there.
Our salad department, they come in and they get all of our stuff;
like today, we're going to have snicker salad.
And the ladies over at the Auxiliary, and gentlemen, at the Auxiliary building,
they come in very early just to make sure that their product is all ready to go for us.
If it wasn't for like all of our departments coming together as one,
it would not be like a team. I mean, we'd all fall apart.
I mean, it all starts off somewhere and coming here,
it's just a chain of, kind of like a chain of reaction.
>> The chain of reaction may be necessary to successfully prepare the foods like Stromboli to the students.
But this chain has also formed a family behind the counters.
>> Many of our staff have been here several, several years.
We don't have a big turnaround for staff.
Lynn, how long have you been here?
She's been here 10 years.
Myself, I've been here 11 years.
Some of our dish room staff have been here 30 years.
Rhonda, you've been at 25?
30. Rhonda here has been here 30 years.
So you can see it's, the whole, everybody's been here so many years together, it's like a big family.
You get to know the people and you know what they're gonna do on a daily basis.
>> But what is it that exactly keeps employees around for so long?
>> Alicia, what would be one of your things that makes you want to stay here and work?
>> I like visiting with all the students.
>> The students. They're not only Alicia's favorite thing about working at the dining center,
but the common reason all the employees agree that keep them there.
In fact, you might think that the dining hall employees' only job is to prepare the food.
Well, there might be a few extra tasks that come along with the job.
>> We had a freshman student at the end of the year come in and it was during finals week.
And he comes tearing into the dining center and I'm sitting at the desk.
He says, can you proofread my term paper?
And I'm going what?
And he says, well, my mom's not here and you're the next best thing.
You and the girls here.
So he said please?
So I said OK.
He says I'm going to go catch an hour's sleep, I'll be back in about an hour.
So the girls and I, we all got together and we proofread this paper as best we could.
And he came in in an hour and he goes, oh, you've saved my life.
And for the rest of the week all he could do was compliment all of us on how we helped him pass his term.
>> Great hot food bars, fireplaces, comfortable sitting areas
and even employees that will proofread your papers.
It may sound appealing, but the dining services offer even more.
[Music]
>> Our grill option here.
Students can come over here to the grill and like this morning,
they're making eggs and omelets and things like that.
This stuff is totally stocked for them on a daily basis.
Philip keeps it very clean and filled and organized
so they can make whatever they choose to on the grill.
Lots of times we have students that come over
and they want to make flour tortilla, with pizza, quesadillas.
We have pepperoni in there.
They make their own sandwiches.
Over here, we have a waffle bar.
And when the service, the serving line,
if they choose they don't want the serving line,
it's either closed or it's not something that is offered that appeals to them,
they can come over here and make their own.
We have waffles. They have their own toppings.
They can make their own waffles up every morning or in the middle of the afternoon if they want.
These services are available for 'em at all times.
We also have over in our pizza area in our dining center here,
in the seating area, we have our pizza.
Our pizza's open from 11:30 'til 2:00 for lunch so they have another alternative to eat.
They can go over there and eat.
At 11:00 o'clock, we open up our salad bar and our sandwich bar.
11:30's when we open the service line up for the hot food.
But by opening at 11:00, the students can still come in,
get a salad or sandwich for those that have to get to class at 11:30.
>> Whether you're in the mood for an ice cream cone,
a slice of fire grilled pizza,
an omelet customized by yourself
or maybe a cold glass of chocolate milk,
you can always find it waiting at the NDSU dining halls.
[Music]