A Hard Day's Night with AVI and Security

By: Alexandra Zott

Posted: 11/5/09

AVI

After a brutal day at work, AVI sous chef Jacob Owen, who works from 7:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. or even until midnight, faces a 50-minute commute to his home in Pataskala, a town just outside of Columbus. His job is undoubtedly demanding: Owen manages working an average of 14 to 15 hours a day, six days a week.

"Work at night is mind-boggling," Owen said. "One moment your brain feels fried and the next you feel like you're on top of the world. Every moment is controlled chaos."

After the servery doors close, the AVI staff still has several hours of work cleaning and organizing the two-level kitchen and loading dock. Each station must be organized and checked for cleanliness and quality and temperature of food. The store rooms are re-stocked and once per week inventory is taken of everything in the refrigerators. The lower kitchen, where 90 percent of the preparatory work for catering parties, picnics and dinners takes place, must be cleaned and re-stocked for the next day. The staff must close the servery and all dining halls, prep the servery and Pub kitchens for the next day and manage the dish tank, tray carousel, coolers and freezers.

Despite the relentless tasks and chores that make Kenyon's dining hall run smoothly, Owen said he enjoys working nights. "In the p.m. I like the quiet, a lot of time to think and put my mind in place," he said.

After reviewing his constant flow of duties, it is hard to believe that a quiet moment can be had, even after the last stragglers have left Peirce. For Owen, those periods of reflection in a still, nighttime Peirce are what make the last hours bearable.

Campus Safety

Long after students have left the library and their books for tomorrow, Greg vonFreymann, second shift supervisor for Campus Safety, continues his job of keeping the Kenyon student body safe.

"A night position in security means that you are primarily who the students are relying on from 11:00 at night to 7:00 in the morning," vonFreymann said.

After professors, administrators, maintenance and other staff leave campus, security becomes a focal point for students' phone calls involving everything from gaining access to locked labs to reporting suspicious activity.

The most memorable phone call vonFreymann remembers receiving was a noise complaint from Mather Residence Hall. Getting into his SUV, equipped with a first aid kit and pictures of those who have been barred from campus or are a potential threat to the student body, vonFreymann headed to Mather. Once there he noticed people poking their heads out the windows to watch him walk inside where, again, multiple pairs of eyes accompanied him down the hall to the room where the disturbing noise had been heard. The door was locked and his subsequent knocking instigated no new noise. The hall was completely silent.

Heading back to his car, vonFreymann wondered about the source of the noise until he caught a glimpse of his SUV. Once grey with the visible letters "S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y" on the side, the car was completely covered in what looked very much like thick, wet snow. A closer look confirmed it: a group of students had completely covered his car in shaving cream. Meticulously and heavily covered - body, windows and tires - vonFreymann realized that driving would be an impossibility. He could do nothing but laugh and breathe a slight sigh of relief.

A serious safety concern centers around the student body's laid-back attitude towards locking doors, especially at night. Because doors to the dormitories are open all day and locked late at night, there is plenty of opportunity to walk in and out before K-cards become necessary. VonFreymann, whose daughter attended Kenyon, strongly encourages students to make sure they lock their doors if they are alone and before going to sleep.

Working the night shift makes it difficult for him to see his family as much as he would like, but he enjoys the social aspect of working at night. VonFreymann places importance on building a good relationship with students, and working busy nights makes interacting easy. After his shift, the commute home to Apple Valley is only about ten minutes.