The Corp is not perfect.
That’s why feedback, like last week’s Voice op-ed by Julie Patterson entitled “Corporal punishment: My daily dose of café-au-hell” is so important to us. While I take issue with a great deal of the author’s commentary—and all of her blatant falsehoods—the article was not useless. The criticisms leveled in the piece were vague and emotional, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the author, a Corp customer, had enough bad experiences with our services to label us the worst organization at Georgetown.
It’s cheesy, but the Corp refers to the student population of Georgetown as our shareholders. My friends in the McDonough School of Business will be quick to point out the misuse of the term, but it encapsulates our relationship with the Georgetown community: ultimately, we are accountable to and responsible for serving our fellow students. So, although “shareholders” is only an analogy, it seems like last week’s article offers a good opportunity to highlight to our shareholders some of our most recent efforts to improve in some of the very areas Patterson complained about.
One particularly pungent ingredient in the author’s daily dose of hell was pricing at Corp services. Regular customers of any of our storefronts know well that labeling our prices as “inflated” is not just a mischaracterization, but a gross misstatement. Additionally, the author seems to oversimplify the heavily nuanced issues related to price structure and inventory management.
We often brag about our $1 Cokes, so I’ll avoid beating that dead horse. Our staple drinks at Uncommon Grounds, MUG, and Midnight MUG—teas, coffees, lattes, mochas, etc.—undercut both Starbuck’s and Saxby’s prices. You may have also noticed an increasingly wide variety of new, affordable prepared and frozen products at Vittles and Snaxa, an effort to better meet the daily needs of our fellow students.
Other Corp offerings, like our Storage and Shuttle services, provide a level of affordability that is unmatched by any competitor. Finally, over the past two years, we’ve focused heavily on consolidating our vendors, which has and will continue to cut prices across our services. While I can’t promise we’ll ever be able to match the prices of international chains like Safeway and McDonald’s, I can promise that we’ll continue to work toward that end, and we’ll continue to pass our savings on to our customers.
Patterson also mentioned poor customer service, another area where self-awareness is important for the Corp. In the past two years, we’ve expanded and standardized our training across all Corp services. In the revamped model, training is pointed and comprehensive, and employees spend 400 percent more time in training. Beyond that, we’ve updated the mechanism we use for internally incentivizing good performance and addressing poor performance in a timely and direct fashion, going beyond what many of our larger competitors like Safeway and Giant do in this area.
Most importantly, our Corp-wide management team is finalizing a model of evaluations in which all employees are involved as both subjects and contributors. These efforts are relatively new, and I know that they haven’t achieved the goal of ensuring universally high standards, but we are actively working to that end.
Finally, the author derides the component parts of the Corp, that is, our employees. These generalized claims were extremely disappointing. To label all Corp employees, or any subset of this campus community, as entirely “pretentious and indie” or to question the intelligence of our employees is simply unfair. The Corp is not removed from the exceptional atmosphere that Georgetown cultivates, as even a limited interaction with any of our employees will demonstrate. In my admittedly biased view, it is our student employees who truly set the Corp apart from its competitors. We share your midterm misery, we’re just as pleasantly surprised by Hoya football’s strong showing as you are, and we can recommend a good Micro teacher right before Add/Drop ends.
I’m not excusing the Corp’s failings. I’m certainly not suggesting that the Corp deserves a free pass because of our unique student-run structure or non-profit status. Nor do we deserve a blind eye because of our philanthropic donations to the Georgetown community. I’m contending that it is only through constructive, pointed criticism that we can continue to identify and correct our internal issues and ultimately serve Georgetown better.
So keep the comments coming through our virtual outlets (sweetideas@thecorp.org, comments@thecorp.org), through my inbox (ceo@thecorp.org), or by registering feedback with employees on shift. In the meantime, we’ll continue to find new ways to serve you, like Corp Catering’s new group package for students or our free advertising opportunities for campus organizations. For helping the Corp improve, for your continued support, and for holding us to high standards, I say a big “thank you” to the Georgetown community. The Corp’s not perfect, but we’re working on it.
Thank you, Brad. Thank you, Corp.
You mean we can talk about stuff like this without being obscenely negative and idiotic? You mean we can have rational conversations?
Nom that Soda Tax Down Corp, Nom. Nom. Nom.
Brad,
Well done in your response to Ms. Patterson’s article. I think you did a wonderful job of rebutting some of the mistaken points she made, while at the same time, remaining collected and factual. I shall continue to down my daily cappuccino at Uncommon Grounds before heading to Econ class every day!
Kudos,
Friend to The Corp
Way to go Brad! As a new Corpie, I felt offended and personally attacked by Julie’s article. But your article showed me that we don’t have to stoop to such low standards to stand up for what The Corp does for Georgetown!
that would be what the leader of a cult would say http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRfDE9bndfg
hahahahahaha too true.
and if the Corp was so dedicated to improving service and its level of professionalism, then why are their interviews and employee selections based entirely on personality?
REALITY CHECK: Just because you think a person will fit well into your pretentious cult of personality, doesn’t mean that they will be a good employee! If the Corp wants to be taken seriously and treated like a REAL LIFE business, then maybe they should start selecting employees who have experience in REAL LIFE jobs and who posses REAL LIFE skills necessary to run a business efficiently. If not, then they should call themselves a fraternity, not a business.
On the plus side, I do appreciate many of the Corp services, like Storage and the Turkey/Bunny Shuttles. I really appreciate having the Corp on campus and do not mean to attack Corp employees individually in any way. I have many friends who are in the Corp and know that there are many Corp employees who work hard to serve their fellow students.
P.S. Even if Julie’s article was sensationalist and negative, at least it got people’s attention and started this dialogue.
Very well said, Brad. I’d expect nothing less from a man of such fine character.
@@not julie patterson,
How many Georgetown students don’t have the “real life skills necessary” to sit at a cash register? Isn’t it a safe assumption that anyone at Georgetown can handle making coffee or stocking shelves? If that’s not a safe assumption, then we should be raising these issues with the Office of Admissions, not the Corp.
So once you accept the fact, as I do, that all Georgetown students can handle retail work, then what else do you expect hiring to be based on other than personality? Stick-to-it-iveness?
Also, reality check: personality DOES matter in hiring at every level in every industry. Since graduating, I’ve been on the “hiring” side of the table, and I can tell you that personality gets people. No, my employer is not a fraternity.
As a non-Corpie, I can say that I appreciate the work that the Corp does and the services that it provides. That being said, when I read Patterson’s article, I frankly agreed with some of the problems that drove her to write it. Still, as someone who has raised an issue with the Corp in the past, I know that people like Brad welcome criticism. It makes The Corp better.
But what Julie Patterson wrote was not criticism; it was simply bad journalism. By making incorrect generalizations and neglecting to check her facts (or denote hyperbole where there were blatant errors), she made her article too ignorable. A well-reasoned article would have prompted a more productive dialogue and ultimately may have led to more solutions. Either Julie Patterson is not actually interested in things getting better or she has a really bad sense of how to get what she wants.
Brad, thanks for being an adult in handling the rant. I’d expect nothing less from the head of the world’s largest entirely student-run corporation. I’ve never had a bad experience with one of your employees. And while your lines are pretty darn long at some of your services and I’ve had a bagel order forgotten here and there, the Corp has never been short on class.
In addition to being an adult student, I also work at Georgetown, and for the last 10 years have relied on The Corp to provide many pots of coffee and bagels for my office. Now, I didn’t read Julie’s commentary; however, my office can attest to the fact that we CHOOSE to work with The Corp instead of the other options on campus because of the service we receive, and because we want to support our students.
Anyone who has any experience in the workplace should know that customer service skills are predicated on a person’s ability and willingness to engage with the client. Personality is extremely imporant. We have found The Corp staff wonderful to work with, and with over 10 years experience with this organization, I think I have enough ‘data’ to make that judgment.
The allegation that The Corp’s execs have established a ‘pretentious cult of personality’ demonstrates a lack of understanding of corporate culture and mission. Brad and his colleagues have spent a great deal of time and thought in creating an effective culture to fulfill The Corp’s mission. Instead of lobbing vapid verbal assaults at them, people might want to actually look at the actions they have taken to recruit, hire, train, and manage student employees to meet annual business goals. I think it’s pretty darned impressive.
The Corp provides a valuable service to my office many, many times during our fiscal year. I never hear any complaints about the service, the attitudes of the people we interact with, the price, or the quality.
It’s my (aged) opinion that the people who work for The Corp gain extremely valuable business experience, and the people taking shots at them ought to realize that the work journalism isn’t advanced by taking cheap shots at anyone.
Responding with class will always give you the upper hand, especially when you’re in the right. Good for Brad and good for The Corp.
I wonder what kind of university Georgetown would be if students with initiative (like Brad) and students willing to express their concerns (like Julie) joined forces to correct some of the awful flaws in the Georgetown administration and Georgetown bureaucracy.
Every time student groups squabble, every time a “racial incident” causes rifts in the student body, every time student leaders try to tear down one another rather than focus on improving Georgetown as a whole, the University administrators must laugh because they know that they can get away with their own serious failings rather than answer to the student body.
Campus security
DPS’s total ineffectiveness, even when they do catch thieves
Caving to the ANC at every turn/allowing the neighbors to dictate University policy
Dorm maintenance
Campus-wide wireless Internet
Campus security
The MSF
The basketball training facility
The desperate need for science facilities
Campus security
All the other building projects consistently years behind schedule
CSP nickle-and-diming student groups
The alcohol/party policy that has killed GU’s social experience
OCAF and the countless bureaucratic nightmares that students experience there
Did I mention campus security?
Student groups can point fingers at each other all day long. The Voice misreported something about my student group. The Corp has long lines sometimes. GPB didn’t get my personal favorite musician for the spring concert. The Hoya vaguely implied something that might be politically incorrect. SCC can’t let me drink at Senior Dis-O because I’m 20 years old. GUGS burned my burger. GUSA can’t hold a functional election. GERMS insisted I go to the hospital. One of the Chimes sounded a little flat at the F# in the fourth line of the fight song.
At the end of the day, it all pales in comparison to some of the more major campus problems. But it is easier for students to target each other, so the University can slip by while those who pay tuition continue their in-fighting over the same issues year after year after year.
Amen.