Greetings From Campus Anthill, by Anne Wrobetz

A fly buzzes around my head as I survey the vast array of food in the display case before me. Macaroni salad, triple-decker PB and J’s, saran-wrapped turkey sandwiches are all stacked in cornucopias of highly-processed bounty. I am a kiosk peon, one of the proud workers who make eating all the more convenient for the fine students of CU. Customers arrive in a slow stream, chopping my English reading into incoherent pieces that I will assemble later with Sparknotes. A pot of soup releases menacing amounts of steam behind me, compensating for the stream of cold air to the front. The door to the outside keeps being opened and shut as students go about their dining experience. Like ants, all of them run about Campus Anthill, governed by the thoughts of Queen Bursar. Each has a schedule chunked out according to when the various chambers are staffed by worker ants. My shift is 6-9 pm, and here I sit, clad in the noble black uniform bequeathed to all worker ants. I dole out various crumbs in exchange for the swipe of an ID card. On Campus Anthill, you get three meals a day just for being here.

Schedules are monotonous. Sometimes it really does feel like I’m in a colony of ants, scurrying here and there, lugging loads ten times my own body weight, all in order to please some great unknown Queen Bursar and stay in the anthill. Sometimes I’d like to overthrow Queen Bursar and take over a glamorous new job description. Being a worker ant isn’t all bad, though—I’m paid well enough that I can afford rent at my own personal sleeping chamber and still have enough to buy my way into a private picnic every now and again. Also, being in this cozy, soup-heated kiosk gives me a chance to do my homework (handing out sandwiches is not exactly a thought-consuming process). I even enjoy the monotony of my job sometimes. There’s no homework. The midterms are over such easy subjects as the proper sequence of hand-washing. Best of all, there are no pop quizzes. I can focus on other things while I’m making money. Having a monotonous job is just what this ant wants sometimes.

While I’d love to have an internship in my field, researching bioremediation and biological oxygen depletion, for the time being I’m content where I am. A lot of college students have to work jobs that are not intellectually-stimulating, but I try to focus on the positive aspects of mine. This job gives me a lot of chances to focus on my schoolwork, as well as a tone of free food. When I get really down on the clockwork-like routine of being a worker ant, I just remind myself that soon enough I will be moving out of Campus Anthill to raid bigger and better picnics. Who knows, I could be bigger than Queen Bursar.