Oh, Those Laundry Machines!

If you’re a student living on this campus, then you’ve probably had to deal with one of Columbia’s most incorrigible problems: laundry machines. These rumbling creatures have a knack for rejecting your Flex account swipes at moments when you have not a single quarter in your wallet. It can be even worse when you pick the lint off the lint screen, dump in all your soggy clothes, and shut the door, only to find that—after inserting a quarter or two—the machine in which you’ve invested money and energy is out of order. Another common cause of frustration is when you’ve neatly sorted out the darks from the lights, found two neighboring washers, dumped the lights in one, the darks in the other, poured out just the right amount of detergent for both loads, shut the door, walked to the Flex machine, swiped your card, walked back to the machine, pressed the button, listened for the familiar click locking the door, and... it never comes.

Agonizing variations of these stories are frequent in the basements of most residence halls. It’s particularly painful when, in a productive fervor, you decide to do laundry during the ten minutes before class starts. You end up running around the building begging for quarters when your Flex dollar has failed you. And then there are those machines that just puke out your quarters for no apparent reason, angering you to kick their metal bellies in embarrassing displays of frustration.

Given the persistence of such problems, why is it that week after week (or month after month) we return to the laundry room, encounter the same problems, and do absolutely nothing about it other than curse, kick, and grudgingly move to another machine? Occasionally a custodial staffer will come in to show us the way, chanting the same old “Hartley hospitality desk!” tune. How often, though, do we take that person’s advice and drag our feet to Hartley? Too often we shrug it off, saying to ourselves, “It’s just a dollar,” or we reason that the time it’d take getting from the basement of—insert residence hall here—to Hartley is simply not worth it. We’d rather forfeit the dollar and try our luck at another machine.

Earlier this month, The New York Times City Room blog published an insightful piece called “Strangers on a No. 2 Train, in a Debate.” The blogger describes a personal experience on the subway in which a disheveled man walks into the compartment, makes himself comfortable, and stretches out across a row of seats as if to take a nap. Lo and behold, a few stops later, this man sits up, unzips his fly, and takes a leak to the utter horror of his fellow passengers. The unabashed man again reclines across the seats while a flock of his thoroughly appalled neighbors flee to the adjacent compartment. The blogger informs us that in response to her volunteering to inform the authorities, one woman says, “All they’ll do is take the train out of service, and we’ll all be stuck.” In the end, not a single person takes the time to report the incident.

Although this anecdote may amuse some, it reveals at its core a serious problem in our society, one in which we are all complicit. It is true that some human tendencies are inherent, that we commit acts of selfishness more often than we realize. But just because a problem might seem universal or perpetual as a result of human nature doesn’t mean we have an excuse to shun the effort to address it on a small scale. Our issue with laundry machines on campus is essentially a microcosm of a more widespread problem. We know that Adam Smith liked to say that individuals in pursuit of their self-interests usually help society as a whole. But the story of the man on the train and our laundry problems on campus force us to question the extent to which we should be self-invested.

One might say that the reason so few of us take the time to file reports at Hartley is because our laundry problems are trivial in the long run. But the reason they seem trivial is because we only concern ourselves with our share of the problem. We only think about the dollar we lose. If everyone in Carman loses one dollar on the machines this school year, a collective $587 would be lost, and that amounts to a great deal. We tirelessly complain about John Jay Dining Hall ripping us off with overpriced meals, but what have we to say about those laundry machines? Admittedly, it can seem unprofitable to go to Hartley just for a dollar refund. But even if we don’t think twice about losing a dollar, we should take into consideration our unsuspecting colleagues who will fall into the same trap unless the problem is promptly addressed.

Depending on the circumstances, I understand that making a trip to Hartley can be time-consuming. But one could always call the hospitality desk at H-APPY (4-2779). The worst thing to do is to let the problem slide. It might sound cheesy, but it is imperative that, as members of a community, we take care of our neighbors—not just ourselves.

The author is a first-year in Columbia College. She is an associate editorial page editor.