Posted on 03/25/2022 3:44:44 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Anyone walking into Hillside would instantly notice the eye-watering prices — $2 for a pack of Top Ramen, $5.29 for a box of 30 Saltines, $5.59 for a single head of garlic. However, the problem is far worse than it first appears. When buying a meal plan, a student must spend about $1.30 for every declining dollar. Thus, the true prices of Hillside products are astronomical — $2.58 for ramen, $6.90 for saltines, $7.29 for garlic. Hillside’s Grubhub menu (yes, Hillside is on Grubhub for some reason) allows one to explore this capitalistic wet dream where prices are often double the already-exorbitant price: $15.18 for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ($19.79 in actual money), $16.18 for Oreos (really $21.10), $22.58 for a pound of frozen ground beef ($29.44).
If you wanted to make a plate of nachos with beef, cheddar cheese, garlic, tomatoes, and tortilla chips (and you decided to actually pay for food at Hillside), you would have to shell out over $55. If you don’t have the oil and seasonings to make an actually edible meal and you decide to also snag some spices from Hillside, you would end up paying anywhere from $60-$70 (or you can stick to that $55 cost if you’re really white). Even with President Mangelsdorf’s $900,000 salary, this is absurdly expensive.
Now, I cannot speak to the quality of those nachos, but for a price like that they’d better be life-changing. (If any readers decide to make these extortion nachos, I would be interested to know if you instantly attained enlightenment, transcended this mortal plane, and reached nirvana.) If, however, you are still trapped in this wintry hellscape, at least be glad that Hillside didn’t charge you even more. Because, ultimately, Hillside is a monopoly predicated on the fact that you are required to have a meal plan. Even without stealing, many people like myself have extra declining at the end of the year, leaving two options: 1) Become a Declining Daddy™ or 2) Spend your extra declining fueling the cartel that is Hillside Market.
As a Senator for the class of 2022, I am working to reform the meal plan system in order to give students more options. I met with a representative of Dining Services to discuss some ideas, but when I broached the subject of lowering the amount of money required from students for a meal plan, the response was rather disheartening. I was told that “this was an issue of money” and that giving the students more options would “be a problem” for dining. They claimed that this could potentially result in certain dining locations having to close, despite the fact that certain dining locations are already closed while we still pay the same fees. Because of their unwillingness to see a loss of profit, we have to take matters into our own hands. But before you feel bad about theft from the innocuous-sounding “Harvest Table” that serves our food, you should know about their wage theft.
“Harvest Table” was quietly launched in 2019 by the international multibillion-dollar company Aramark to get away from the company’s bad branding. Aramark has a long history both of working with UR and of reprehensible behavior. The United States government first took legal action against the company in 1964, and have since done so too many times to list here. But just in the last decade or so, Aramark has served food infested with maggots, suppressed unions, violated labor laws, caused a disease outbreak in Ontario that killed over a dozen people, benefited greatly from the prison-industrial complex, and even sparked a prison riot in Kentucky because of poor food quality.
As it stands, every student at UR is required to give money to this heinous company, even if they don’t live on campus. With every swipe of your ID, you are supporting a company that pays employees minimum wage while their CEO makes $5 million a year, which somehow makes Sarah Mangelsdorf’s salary seem reasonable. Even when you are paying for a drink at Starbucks (which is a whole different ethical can of worms), you are supporting a company that uses unpaid prison labor (read: legal slavery), because the Starbucks on campus is operated by Aramark. If you are on campus and need food, you should go to the dining halls and take more dollars worth of food than you paid for. You should even take the fresh fruits and vegetables sitting as displays. And if you need to get something from Hillside, it is your moral duty to steal it. Just as they rob us blind, so too must we rob Hillside.
When they drive Hillside Market out of business they will whine about living in a food desert.
Why it is the duty of Hillside Market to prosecute shoplifters.
(And if you need to get something from Hillside, it is your moral duty to steal it. Just as they rob us blind, so too must we rob Hillside.)
Yeah, I like this plan.
Should end well
Look, Ezra. Is it too much for you to just go to WalMart?
Ramen is reasonably priced there.
I take it this is not sarcasm. This is actually the mindset that young skulls full of mush are infested with.
And why not? This is a common normal practice in ghetto hell holes. Why not in collegiate hell holes as well?
Geez, then don’t shop there.
(When they drive Hillside Market out of business they will whine about living in a food desert.)
Don’t spoil the surprise! 😆😜😎
In the words of the great philosopher Richard Pryor upon eating at a Chinese restaurant: “You order sh!t, you eat sh!t.”
I think her complaint is by attending the University of Rochester, you are required to pay for a certain balance at the store every semester - you have no choice.
I thought it might be Swiftian.
UR chief gets $900k?
Lack of useful curriculum and elite wealth transfer informs me to NEVER fund my grandkids’ higher edumacation through traditional brick and mortar institutionalization.
The US taxpayers are the real victims.
Pre-n!aw? Or Political Science?
Pre-Law….fat thumbs
The original Ezra in the Bible would pull out a can of whoopass on Antifa Ezra….
Ghettos are full of people who are trained to be criminals. Having been given everything they have all their lives they expect to continue to be supported without having to work. “Hey! Gibmedats!”
Many college students are much the same. 19-22 years old, they’ve never had to work either and while maybe not as feral they act just as entitled. “Hey! Gibmedats!”
Almost $6 for garlic, is he serious?
The left wants to defund the police so that they can commit more crimes.
I want to defund the police so that citizens can dispense real justice. I’d like to see neighborhood vigilante committees who will deal with these punks very harshly.
The laws and the court systems do not work. Why not just be a self-regulating society? Normal people out number the freaks. Make the freaks sorry that they are freaks.
According to yp.com, there are 250 grocery stores in the Rochester area. They include Save-a-Lot, Aldi, Walmart, Dollar General.
Shop around.
Ezra Kruger, author of the article, is just trying to justify theft. Where does he think he is? San Fran or LA or Seattle or Portland?
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