Dietary Aides

The cafeteria is facing not only many open positions across the district within the department, but also supply chain issues and shortages with their vendors. Regional Manager of Food Service Kenneth Witte says that the menu of the cafeteria has been affected by these consequences of the labor shortage. 

“The labor shortage is pretty apparent. There’s been a lot of change. I feel like it’s an unsolvable problem,” Witte said. ”We have to work with the amount of staff that we have. We had too many items and not enough people making those items.”

Witte has also noticed changes in what is expected of workers, as many within the cafeteria department are facing longer workdays amid the shortage. 

“People were getting frustrated and burnt out really easily. We’ve had people coming in earlier and staying later. We’ve had to pick up the slack of the people we’ve not had. It’s frustrating, but at the same time, it’s just change and it will get better,” Witte said.

According to Witte, shortages within the national supply chain have caused issues with the district’s food vendors, which provide the food for breakfasts and lunches in the cafeteria. Vendors have sent replacement products that don’t always align with the cafeteria’s menus. For example, Witte says that a common replacement in the past is replacing chicken patties with chicken tenders.  

“[Vendors are] trying their best and we’re trying our best to make everything work whenever we can. No one understands that from the outside. [Students and staff] think that the food quality is worse than it was, or they don’t have the products that [we] say [we’re] going to have. It’s true, but that’s what we’re stuck with. We just make it work,” Witte said.

Witte feels that students and staff should have more empathy towards the dietary aides.  

“[I wish students had] a little more understanding and [knew] that it’s not our fault. It’s no one’s fault really. We’re all in it together. As a human race, we’ve created these supply chains, and now it’s just not working out as it used to. Everyone is thinking on the fly, starting from the bottom to the top,” Witte said. “Don’t blame the person that’s serving you the food, because you don’t know what they’re going through and you don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes.” 

Despite the stresses of managing a department with many holes, Witte has worked to find the silver lining in the problem, and encourages those in similar situations throughout the district to do the same. 

“I think we should all have a positive outlook. It stinks right now, but it’s going to get better at some point. People are going to start coming in, people are going to come back to work,” Witte said. “Maybe the stars will realign. Maybe everyone that was in this sector before, maybe they’re not the ones who are right for this job. Maybe the people coming in, the next generation of them are the ones who really will excel at this type of work. I just try to stay positive and make work fun.”