Is it acceptable of all things considered to call Circuit Managed Laundry Systems, the company with a monopoly on the university laundrettes in halls, a bunch of Fascists? Maybe not, but they aren’t far off.
The charge sheet is endless. Not having a normal coin operated system like every other launderette on the planet, designing a card system which requires you to journey to Costcutter and use the least user-friendly machine in the world to buy your card. Not giving change, so you have to make sure you have a five pound note, or better still coins, because it wouldn’t take the five pound note I gave it. Not actually washing your clothes properly, in some cases failing to get them vaguely damp. The dryers taking fifty minutes and not really drying your clothes. And the online top up system is about as convenient as being kidnapped by Somali pirates. I rang them about this and sat in a queue for twenty minutes before giving up and going for a cigarette.
Circuit’s next piece of audacity has actually irritated me to the point it gets its own paragraph. When you pay £5 for the card, you only get £3.50 credit. That is daylight robbery on Circuit’s part. It may only be £1.50, but it’s £1.50 for a flimsy piece of plastic which they virtually force you to buy, assuming, of course, you don’t want to be confused for a homeless man or chased out of your lectures for smelling like an open sewer in a South American slum.
This is Circuit consciously abusing their monopoly with extoritionate rates. This isn’t Communist China; we don’t allow monopolies in our society so companies can’t just, to use a phrase, “mug everybody off.” When I apply for a debit card, they don’t dare try and charge me for the card itself for one simple reason; that they set to gain from me choosing them as my card provider. If they try and charge me for a piece of plastic then I’ll just go somewhere else. It’s their loss. With Circuit you don’t get a choice.
So what can the University do about all this? Well the University either needs to step in and make sure that Circuit provide a competent service and a fair deal for students or allow other laundry companies to provide alternatives to Circuit on campus. But there are also things we can do as students, like wash all of our clothes in our sinks. Which is free and probably washes them better than the Circuit machines anyway. Or alternatively just refuse to wash at all and stand outside of Heslington Hall until the smell becomes unbearable and the University administration caves in.
Obviously we are now paying three times more to the University than last year’s intake, which should have given the University a considerable cash boost. Now I’m not one of those anti cuts militants, this isn’t about the fees themselves but rather how the University is spending them. So where has the money gone, Brian? Most of this extra money is allegedly supposed to have gone into student services. Do the University of York think that just because they’ve outsourced the laundry to a private company they can make like Pontius Pilate and wash their hands of the whole crime? The University is obligated to make sure that students have at very least an acceptable service and it’s clear we are simply not getting one.
The laundry service is by no means the only issue. Take, for example, the Hes East debacle. YUSU has allegedly won some sort of big victory recently in regards to the buses; I don’t profess to know the ins and outs of it. But still Hes East has been lacking a working cashpoint or a permanent shop. Rumour has it they’re now using chicken bones for currency over there, which is pointless because they still have to go to Costcutter on Hes West to buy the chicken. What the hell is the deal here? Why does it seem that time and time again the University is somehow rendered unable to do anything about these issues? Whilst all the time the plans continue to go ahead for a new ninth college. Once again I’m not a property developer but surely that isn’t cheap? Until the problems with student services have been fixed for existing students the University cannot even think about spending an extortionate sum on providing facilities for theoretical students. It’s about time the University showed us where our money is going, because I think most students would agree that at the moment, the answer would be, not where we’d like it to.