Perspective 1: Business as usual
By: Harpur Schwartz
There is a new cleaning lady in town that goes by the name of The Cleaning Camel. Are you someone who gets frustrated when you’re a minute late taking your clothes out of the machine and you come to find that someone has hastily thrown your entire wardrobe on the floor? Do you live in one of the dorms in Central or South campus where the laundry machines can only be found in the basement? Is it annoying when you are trying to do your laundry and there are no available machines because it seems like you are doing it along with the entirety of your dorm? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then today is your lucky day. For $699.99 a year you can have your dirty clothes picked up at your dorm room to be washed, dried and folded. But wait, there’s more. For an extra $599.99 your dry cleaning will also be taken care of.
With the ability to outsource almost everything these days, the question becomes, “is this new laundry service a gift from the camel gods, or are we simply contributing to the already disdainful label of the ‘lazy college student?’”
The Cleaning Camel is in fact backed by Connecticut College, but Conn only receives 10% of the profits from this service. The money goes directly to the programming funds for Residential and Educational Living. So who is actually behind The Cleaning Camel? That would be Copacetic Life, better know at Conn as Jeff Celniker, the entrepreneurial member of the sophomore class and the guy who we now trust with our dirty laundry. Most of us will agree with the statement that doing laundry is a tedious chore – I know I do. But thanks to Celniker, this is a chore that you can choose to no longer worry about.
According to Celniker, “You can do your laundry just like you can walk into downtown New London, but you’re probably going to pay more for the gas to get there in your car because it is more efficient.”
This is a service for those who want it. If you are willing to pay, then you will. If you want to do your laundry on your own, then that’s fine too. This service is one that is great for athletes or students too busy with extra-curriculars.
The Cleaning Camel was considering twenty different businesses before they settled on the Groton Laundromat and Shalett’s Cleaners to participate in the newly developed cleaning service. Once you sign up, you are given a laundry bag and/or a dry-cleaning bag for your dirty clothes. The laundry service pick-up is Monday, and clothes are returned on Wednesday. The dry cleaning service does pick-up on Tuesday and returns clothes by Thursday. Customers are told
to leave their clothes outside of their door for pick-up. As of right now The Cleaning Camel only cleans clothes, so if you want clean linens you will still have to launder those yourself.
Fast turnaround is the main focus of The
Cleaning Camel service. Students want their clothes back fast; they do not want to have to wait a week. The motto for The Cleaning Camel service is “time is money.” Most students on campus are involved in extra-curricular activities, and time is of the essence. The flyers all around campus ask students to consider, “How much is your time worth?”
Well, as an uncertain college sophomore whose future is up in the air, I’d say my time is roughly worth the equivalent of a minimum wage paying job, about $8.70 per hour. So, if I do about 3 hours of laundry a week it means I am roughly losing $26.00 of my time. If we factor in the fact that I am already spending $3.00 to wash and dry my clothes (we all know that as a college student, I am going to try and shove as much laundry as possible into one load in order to save money), it seems that Celniker should sign me up for his service which would cost me roughly $28.00 per week, $699.99 a year.
Of course, the plot twist at the moment is that laundry is temporarily free (how long it will last is unknown, so get all your laundry done now. I mean it; wash everything!) So, would you rather spend three hours of your time a week doing laundry, spend $3-$6 (not including the price of detergent) while multitasking and maybe doing homework as you wait, or would you rather pay for the service to be done for you?
When I first heard about the service, I had a few concerns. First, I wasn’t sure how I felt about leaving my clothes outside my room. What if someone took my bag, and with it the entirety of my closet? Celniker believes that theft will not be an issue unless someone is the exact same size as you. Of course, we also have the Honor Code.
Because The Cleaning Camel is a new business, there will be some things that need to be ironed out. For instance, do you have an allergy to certain detergents? Are you a dancer whose clothes need to be washed a certain way? Celniker asks you to write a note and he will help you to the best of his ability. If you are thinking of signing up for a few weeks before opting out, don’t. Getting your money back is possible, but not necessarily easy or hassle-free.
Money can buy happiness in the form of clean, freshly laundered clothing. However, there are some people that would argue that you go to college not only to receive an education, but also to learn basic life skills such as doing laundry. Regardless, it seems this trend of outsourcing the every day chore is spreading. Numerous other NESCAC schools have laundry services, such as Hamilton College’s HillFresh and Middlebury College’s Middlebury Wash and Carry. But, suppliers are catching on to what college students are willing to pay for. For instance, at George Washington University there is a service called DC3 where you can pay a cleaning service to come clean your dorm room. At the University of Texas at Austin, you can order snacks, condoms, and even kegs to be delivered to your dorm room. At Cornell University there is a service that you can pay to pack up and move you out of your dorm room at the end of the year.
What have we learned from all of these new, somewhat outrageous services available to students? There is a fine line between a student who is too busy to do their own chores and a student who is simply just too lazy. But who are we to decide where to draw that line? •
Perspective 2: Laundry for the rich?
By: Anique Ashraf
Connecticut College is committed to the principle of diversity.
At least, that’s what we hear all the time; from the website’s front page to speeches given by the school’s leaders. We are constantly reminded that Connecticut College strives for diversity in its student body. Now diversity can mean a lot of things: aside from race, sex, sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity or national origin, it can also refer to academic interest, individual innovation and personal expression. All of these are openly discussed on campus, as they should be. Except for class. We never talk about class or economic diversity.
The New York Times recently came out with a list of colleges that admit the most economically diverse students, based primarily on Pell grants. Connecticut College is number 65. This is not a criticism. The fact that a small college like Conn even made it to the list is a good thing, and a lot of Conn’s financial aid is not based on Pell grants. Besides, we’ve moved up six positions from last year. We’re doing well.
Enter the Cleaning Camel Laundry service.
I know your rebuttals. I know that the college did not come up with the service, that it’s not mandatory and even the ridiculous notion that it actually saves you money because your time is somehow worth minimum wage while you do nothing, just because you exist (hah!).
The college endorsed the service. We received a campus-wide email about it. There are posters everywhere. 10% of the profits go to programming at Residential Education and Living. Conn is invested. The first argument is moot. As for the “not mandatory” line of reasoning – I urge you, reader, to wake up. It is not a choice precisely because you have to pay for it. It’s not about your willingness to pay $700 a year to get your laundry done, it’s about your ability to pay. In other words, it’s not a choice if you don’t have the money.
Why is this bad, though? We live in a capitalistic society. This happens all around us. Why am I angry with this?
Because Connecticut College is committed to the principle of diversity and you’re a complete hypocrite if you believe that and think Cleaning Camel is okay. Because we are exposed to the systems and cycles of inequality. Because our professors research poverty, because we are aware of the unfairness of the system. Because we know that you don’t just make money by yourself and that there are a ton of privileges rich people have that mostly include being white and male and straight. Mostly, though, I’m angry because my friend last year did her laundry by hand because she couldn’t afford the regular washer and dryer – $3 total for one load – all while working fifteen hours a week and taking classes. I’m angry because I’ve run out of money for laundry myself and waited until my next paycheck to do it, all while I continued having time to live my life at college. I’m angry because we are perpetuating a cycle of inequality so ingrained that most of us don’t even see it.
I’m angry that you don’t see a problem with this precisely because you’re rich enough not to.
Listen, I don’t care if you do your laundry by yourself or if you pay seven hundred dollars to get it done. I do care that you know there’s people on this campus that live paycheck to paycheck. I want you to confront your privilege. I want to point out, in no uncertain terms, that the likelihood of you spending seven hundred dollars of your own money to do laundry is very low. I want you to know that a lot of people aren’t as privileged as you are in the parenthood department. I want you, also, to know that yeah, you’re being lazy. Laundry takes an hour and a half max because of the new washers and dryers. I want you to know that you could do homework while doing laundry. It’s not a ridiculous concept. No one stands around the washer the entire time. I want, finally, to leave you with this quote from Momin Javed ’16 in response to the Cleaning Camel Laundry Service, “What’s next? The Camel Reading and Paper Writing Center?” •
