SIMONA HINES
January 27th, 2017
“I try to stay in touch with them [students]. I had one of them I was calling my daughter. She was from India. She left here like… I’d say about 5, 6 years ago and she was majoring in psychology but I haven’t heard from her since. So one year they told me that she came up here looking for me [there were some scheduling issues] so I never got to see her. So I hope I can see her this year, I hope she’ll come up — been a couple of years, but I hope she’ll come back. Yep, she said she was gonna come back. Yep, because she couldn’t wait. She had a flight to catch, she was rushing, and I was on another building. By the time I got there she was already gone. Yep, now I was crying, I was emotional for that ‘cus I wanted to see her you know…That’s why I come here every day. Not just ‘cus of money. It’s like a family.” Upon first hearing her, her voice is like a 16th note rhythm on a snare drum—rapid and alert.
Simona’s voice has been reverberating through the University of Rochester campus for 16 years. Before working for the university, she was a customer service manager at TOPS, a cashier, CNA home health caregiver, a sales representative telemarketing, and worked many years as a nurse. She has been caring for people most of her life, but she hadn’t always envisioned university dining as her main occupation. She had been working for a while as nurse, but the passing of her mother in 1998 changed her perspective. “I think my mother passed and I just didn’t like the way that the hospital’s scent got to me—I know that must sound a little crazy. It reminded me of death, so I really backed away from it, and then I started cooking and cooking and cooking at home all the time because of my big family. Since my mother had passed she left me with five siblings to raise plus my own two [kids].” She had two more children after that making a total of nine people to raise and care for. Now Simona is the grandmother to five grandkids and considers her family even larger since working in dining at the university. “I never call in. I never do none of that.”
“Not even when you’re sick?”
I eventually learned that Simona was diagnosed with both Systemic Lupus and Graves disease in February of 2011. She takes her medication twice a day and doesn’t consider her illnesses a hindrance in any way. She said, “My hands and stuff — my joints and stuff be swole… and I be tired a lot, but I try not to let it get to me you know… as long as I don’t stress I’ll be okay, which stress kills everybody.” On the tougher days she considers the support of her coworkers assuring as well as the support she’s gotten from the student body. Curious, I asked her what is the strongest show of support that she had gotten from students and she mentioned the strike demonstration that happened in the past. “The students were right there. We was up at the hospital a couple of years ago. Students came out of nowhere with their signs and stuff [with] like you know ‘Keep our benefits right for the employees’ and stuff like that. Now that — I really liked that. That let you know that they [students] respected us too.” Simona also mentioned that its always great to see students sharing positive reviews of their work with their managers. “I watch that a lot. I watch that a lot. I like when they say things like that about us because it lets the managers and the supervisors now that we are human too. We all make mistakes, but the students really appreciate us.” Besides the initial struggle of not have covered employment during the summers, she admitted that the hardest part of the job for her is watching students graduate and leave.