Cannon Center Chaos

Lines extending out the doors. Scarce amounts of food. Limited available seating. Problems such as these exist in the Cannon Center on the weekends. The Cannon Center is open from 6:30 in the morning until 8:00 at night, on the usual weekday. However, on Saturdays and Sundays, the popular food spot for freshmen closes at 6:00 P.M. The concern increases though, when you take fast Sundays and firesides into consideration. On fast Sundays, the Cannon Center does not open until 3 P.M. and closes at 6 P.M. and on nights of firesides; it closes at 5:30 P.M. These hours do not provide enough time for a person to eat at a leisurely pace and allow them to enjoy the food. On days like these, it often takes a long to time to even enter the dining center. The lines can be excruciatingly long, especially on fast Sundays. In order to solve the problems, I believe the Cannon Center should extend their hours on the weekends in order to allow everyone to enjoy a refreshing, unstressful meal, especially on the Sabbath day.
This topic is important to many freshmen because it is the place where they go to get all of their meals. However, on the weekends it is difficult to find a good time to go to dinner. Sunday dinners are important because the quality time it provides people to spend with others. At dinner, students are likely to be engaging in pleasant conversations, rather than returning to their computer after church. Leisurely Sunday dinners allow students to discuss with their friends what they learned in church that day. In turn, this will allow others to be lifted up and enlightened. Longer weekend hours for the Cannon Center would also benefit the families that come to partake of the food on Sundays. It is important for family dinners to be relaxing and enjoyable, in order to become closer as a family. With the thought of family and friend unity, longer hours at the Cannon Center would benefit the quality of conversation within the groups.
A second problem pertaining to the weekend hours of the Cannon Center is the lack of food when masses of people are all trying to get the same food. Students and family only have a limited amount of time to get their food on the weekends which creates a problem with the ratio of food they decide to make. One Sunday, 15 people made it into the Cannon Center with only five to ten minutes for it to stay open. When they entered, there was practically no food for them to eat. They were forced to just grab a bagel and other quick foods because that is all that was left. Extending the hours on the weekends would give the workers enough time to make the correct amount of food. There are only a certain number of appliances in the Cannon Center and when there is a large number of people that come to get their food at one time, there are not enough ovens and other appliances to make the amount of food necessary. However, with less people coming in at once, there would be plenty of room to make the right amount of food.
Although extending the weekend hours of the Cannon Center would solve many problems, it might create some as well. One particular problem that must be addressed is that of employees working on Sundays. In the Mormon religion, members are taught to keep the Sabbath Day holy, which includes not working on Sunday. However, if a student takes a job at the Cannon Center, they know they will occasionally have to work on Sundays. With the short weekend hours, the student employees only have to work a couple hours on the Sabbath Day. One problem presented with lengthened hours is the fact that the students would have to work too much on Sundays. However, one solution to this problem is if the Cannon Center uses different employees. The students could work the same hours as now, but other students could work the shifts of the extended hours. This would end the concern of students having to work more hours on a Sunday. Also, the extended hours would help the student employees with the level of stress they experience as they work. At the present moment, employees are faced with crowds of people all wanting food on Sundays. If one were to observe the workers on this day, they would see an employee struggling to fight through the maze of people in order to change the juice, or to add clean plates to the pile. They have looks of frustration on their countenance as another student cuts in front of them to snag the final burger. If the hours were extended, student employees could relax while they were working, creating a more relaxing Sabbath Day for them.
Another issue at the Cannon Center is the issue of limited space to sit. After waiting in a long line, then finally scavenging for food, a person needs a place to sit and eat. However, due the crowds of people, there are often no places to sit. As has happened to many students, sitting on the ground becomes to only available place to sit. When people are sitting on the ground, that provides too many opportunities for accidents. People on the floor must also be against the fire code. If there were less people cramming into the Cannon Center in a short period of time, people would not have to sit on the floor; therefore, saving any fire hazards that might be present with masses of hungry students eating on the floor.
In conclusion, administrators should extend the hours of the Cannon Center on the weekends. It would solve many problems that students and families experience while visiting the popular food spot on the weekends. No longer would there be lines extending through the opposite side of the Cannon Center, nor would there be scarce amounts of food due to the mass amounts of people that shuffle through the door. These problems may seem pointless, but they truly cause issues that the administration needs to deal with. When students are not getting enough food, or when students are sitting on the ground eating their dinner, and also creating a fire hazard, something needs to be done. Although it would affect the student employees that work at the Cannon Center, there are particular ways to allow the student workers to work the same amount of hours on a Sunday. They could have more students working on Sundays but have them work shorter shifts. With the many freshman and families that venture to the Cannon Center on the weekends, it is not only beneficial, but crucial to extend the weekend hours for everyone’s convenience.