'Cliffedwellers Make Beds, Do Chores to Lower Costs

The Annex has no union or wage squabbles with the 700 workers workers who do most of the housework at the 'Cliffe. Instead the administration relaxes while undergraduate chairmen administer a compulsory student work program.

Under this system Radcliffe girls make their own beds, clean their rooms, and devote not more than five hours a week to bells or waiting on tables. They have done most of these jobs since 1942, when the Annex rapid service was curtailed to meet the labor shortage and cut costs.

According to Richard W. Thorpe, business manager of Radcliffe, the work program makes it possible to reduce each student's yearly charge for room and board by $100.

Personal incentive helps run the work system. The work chairmen who are elected or appointed to run the program in each House are rewarded by being exempted from work themselves. In return for this benefit they see to it that students show up to wait at the meal shifts and take bell duty.

There are, however, some flaws in the program. When the work chairmen sign their dorm-mates up for weekly jobs at the beginning of each term, the seniors have first choice. They take the best positions and freshmen get the jobs that are left. The two freshmen who draw the worst numbers are usually assigned to Saturday night bells for the term.

Choico of Duties

At the beginning of the term students face the choice of either signing up for bell duty or for "waiting on." Girls who take bells spend several hours a week at the bell desk near the front door of each dormitory. Cabot Hall" or correspondingly appropriate phrase each time they answer the phone. They are plagued by women wanting baby-sitters and boys looking for blind-dates, but are not allowed to help the latter.

In most of the dormitories different girls are on bell duty from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. During this time the bell-taker rings rising and meal bells, and sorts mail and puts it in boxes. She also deals with delivery men and cleaners. At the end of the day, after seeing that all men have left, she locks up the dormitory.

Taking bells is considered easier than waiting by many Annex students. Some bell-takers read or even typewrite between answering the phone and tracking down the recipients of calls. For this reason a student doing bell work is often required to put in more hours than her friends who wait on the tables.

Girls who choose to wait carry food and dishes back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room, dry dishes and silver, and collect after-dinner coffee cups from the living rooms.

Fortunately for student waitresses the administration clings to 'gracious living' only to the extent of having one sit-down non-cafeteria style meal a day. Dinners at week day suppers and Sunday lunch are waited on individually, the rest of the time waitresses put food on a serving table and carry away dirty dishes from the side-boards.

Weekly room inspection was recently introduced to make sure 'Cliffedwellers keep up with their housework. Las year, the first when maids did not clean bed rooms at all, authorities inspected during Christmas and spring vacations to make sure that students had not damaged college property. This year a more frequent check was instituted and the Board of Hall Presidents voted to let the house committees punish any girls who did not pass weekly room inspection.

When the work program began in 1942, maids continued cleaning rooms once a week, doing some bell duty and helping out in the dining room. With the second reduction of maid service in the fall of 1949, student workers took over all bell work, more dining room work and complete charge of their rooms.