- Joined
- Mar 15, 2019
Last week, I attended a small focus group about the dining options on our campus. It advertised a $20 gift card to be used at any of the dining locations for participants, as well as free snacks for the duration, so I thought, free food, why not.
You could’ve told me it was an Impractical Jokers sketch and I would’ve believed you. Every single attendee, including the focus group leader, was morbidly obese, the skinniest being maybe 300lbs. To be completely fair, two of them were absolutely lovely and very helpful in their feedback, and the leader was a huge (sorry) sweetheart as well. But the rest, my god, you’d think the buffet cafeteria single-handedly murdered their infant children. You know how Buzzfeed always gets the most snarky, covertly racist dickheads for their “Americans try _____ food” videos? That was them, except they were indistinguishable from Jabba the Hut, or each other for that matter—if you’ve never been in a room with all fat people, you’ll notice that it puffs up over their features until they all look like the same 500lb toddler.
The chief complaint was that the most expensive meal plan only covered 19 meals a week, meaning for at least two meals, you would be on your own. They wanted to be able to eat at the buffet three meals a day, every single day, despite complaining that there weren’t enough options (there most certainly were) and that the food was cold/soggy. Mind you, this was a focus group for commuters; meal plans are typically used by undergrads living on campus, without access to a decent kitchen or oftentimes transportation. They also demanded that said buffet stay open until midnight, because “some people work late.”
On top of that, they insisted above all else that we need ANOTHER Starbucks, despite us having a relatively small campus and with four different coffee locations already. You want to know their reasoning? The lines at Starbucks are too long, and, “We need more healthy food on campus.”
In the end, it was worth it. The brownies and lemonade were pretty good (weird combo tho), so I guess I can live with the fact that America is getting one waddle closer to the pig people in Spirited Away every day.
You could’ve told me it was an Impractical Jokers sketch and I would’ve believed you. Every single attendee, including the focus group leader, was morbidly obese, the skinniest being maybe 300lbs. To be completely fair, two of them were absolutely lovely and very helpful in their feedback, and the leader was a huge (sorry) sweetheart as well. But the rest, my god, you’d think the buffet cafeteria single-handedly murdered their infant children. You know how Buzzfeed always gets the most snarky, covertly racist dickheads for their “Americans try _____ food” videos? That was them, except they were indistinguishable from Jabba the Hut, or each other for that matter—if you’ve never been in a room with all fat people, you’ll notice that it puffs up over their features until they all look like the same 500lb toddler.
The chief complaint was that the most expensive meal plan only covered 19 meals a week, meaning for at least two meals, you would be on your own. They wanted to be able to eat at the buffet three meals a day, every single day, despite complaining that there weren’t enough options (there most certainly were) and that the food was cold/soggy. Mind you, this was a focus group for commuters; meal plans are typically used by undergrads living on campus, without access to a decent kitchen or oftentimes transportation. They also demanded that said buffet stay open until midnight, because “some people work late.”
On top of that, they insisted above all else that we need ANOTHER Starbucks, despite us having a relatively small campus and with four different coffee locations already. You want to know their reasoning? The lines at Starbucks are too long, and, “We need more healthy food on campus.”
In the end, it was worth it. The brownies and lemonade were pretty good (weird combo tho), so I guess I can live with the fact that America is getting one waddle closer to the pig people in Spirited Away every day.
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