Unrest in Mandeville since arrival of study associations: ‘It is the first time for staff that there’s beer in the department’

Students and Rotterdam School of Management staff are sharing a floor since January in the Mandeville building. Staff say their working environment is ‘turning into a student house’. The association boards, meanwhile, are doing their best to prevent disruption.

Towering piles of dirty dishes in the office kitchen, noisy conversations in the corridors and loud music. Some RSM staff on the sixth floor of the Mandeville building say the atmosphere at work has changed significantly since four student associations moved in.

“I just can’t concentrate anymore since the associations arrived”, says RSM staff member Govert Buijs with a sigh. “I used to work in the office four days a week. Now I can barely manage three. I really get less done in a day.” The data analyst has worked for RSM since 2012. He does ‘work that requires concentration’, so he needs to be able to focus. “I’ve already told RSM that this is a loss of productivity. But no one listened.”

It is the noise that particularly bothers Buijs. Phone calls, people walking back and forth, ‘twenty people talking loudly’. “I don’t blame the students either. They’re young and have just been put here. But I feel let down by the university. You come here to work and expect to be provided with a good workspace. The university isn’t offering that now.”

Compulsory move

The G building closed its doors a year ago, and with it went the offices of many study associations. While there were no staff in the G building (apart from EM), the association boards in Mandeville find themselves right in the middle of the staff.

It has been busier on the sixth floor ever since. The thirteen committees of econometrics association FAECTOR, for example, meet every week in one of the offices; FSR board members often take calls in the corridor because they do not have space in their small office; and around a hundred enthusiastic applicants for a committee position visited faculty association EFR.

Just like a student house

Another sore point is the dishwasher. Dozens of staff and students share one small office kitchen. “I unload it more often here than I do at home”, says an RSM staff member who doesn’t wish to be named. “It’s just like living in a student house. I feel like a student again too.”

The shared office kitchen is covered with notes bearing messages such as ‘Hey, you! Put your own dirty dishes in the dishwasher’. She shows photos of the kitchen counter piled with dirty dishes and old food. “I just avoid the kitchen now.”

Discussions

“The dishwasher, I can understand,” says EFR President Pepijn Boekhoff. “I sometimes unload it myself when I see that it’s full.” The econometrics association FAECTOR collects its dirty dishes in a crate in its office to keep the counter in the kitchen from getting cluttered. The new location isn’t ideal for the associations, says FAECTOR president Lotte Tuk. “But we’re very happy to have a place here.”

“Facilities was driven mad by us”, says RSM staff member Coen Fierst van Wijnandsbergen. Staff submitted a large number of tickets complaining about the students. Before the summer, tensions ran so high among some staff that several meetings were held with the association chairs at the time. They agreed on keeping the office kitchen clean and keeping noise levels down in the corridors.

“Since the board change this summer, the pressure has eased”, says Fierst van Wijnandsbergen, who attended the meetings on behalf of staff. “They’ve left the behaviour from the G building behind.”

Not all employees find the students’ arrival a nuisance: “I actually think it’s nice. It brings a little buzz and liveliness to the hallways,” said another female employee. “I’m happy to be more among the students. That’s why you work at a university.”

Adapting

FAECTOR board members understand why staff complain about the noise: “I’d get grumpy too if I had a nine-to-five job and suddenly there were all these people drinking beer in the corridor”, says board member Femke van Peyma, referring to the situation before the summer. FAECTOR has been occupying the sixth floor since after the summer.

So the board is adapting to the new situation where they can. A loved FAECTOR tradition has had to go, out of consideration for RSM staff: “As soon as the song Evacuate The Dancefloor comes on, we jump onto a colleague’s desk as quickly as possible. The last one has to down a beer. But we don’t do that any more.”

Club house vibe

The weekly drinks with the board and committees now take place at the Smitse rather than in the office. The solution costs FAECTOR extra money: “We can now offer our members only two tokens, instead of unlimited drinks and soft drinks from our fridge.” The social side feels different too: “It’s a lot less intimate. We’ve lost some of that club house vibe.”

That ‘club house vibe’ is particularly important to the association, Tuk explains: “Econometrics is a very demanding degree. We think it’s important for students to have somewhere they can go and not study for a while.”

EFR also considers the social aspect important. “That’s why we have an open-door policy”, says Boekhoff. “Everyone should be able to drop by with a question.” EFR has around thirty committees, which now meet in one of the association’s offices. According to Boekhoff, committee members sometimes run enthusiastically along the corridor, which can disturb staff. “We do what we can by speaking to them about it. But there’s only so much we can do.”

Associations and offices clash

One thing all the students and staff agree on is that associations and office workers cannot share a floor. “It’s the first time there’s been beer in the department for them too”, jokes FAECTOR board member Van Peyma.

Pepijn Boekhoff stresses that his door is always open and that he is happy to talk to staff: “They only have to take ten steps, and they’re here.”