UMass Magazine Online

Winter 2005

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Features

A Fruitful Partnership

A New Kind of Farm a New Breed of Farmer

Dear One Absent This Long While

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The Sweetest Thing

–Mandy Murray ’05




	Mandy Murray ’05 (far right) and her fellow “sweeties” (l-r) Paul Creedon ’08, Mike Morand ’07, Alison Briggs ’07, and TJ Kelly ’06 are just five of the more than 130 students employed by the eight student-run businesses on campus. (photo by Ben Barnhart)

THERE IS A CHAIR IN Sweets and More—the chair—that when put in a certain place is the most frightening chair in the world. It is small and black, with huge gashes in the seat and one leg is missing its foot which causes it to wobble if you don’t sit in it just right. Those of us who work at Sweets know that the chair is harmless, but for the people vying for jobs each semester, it’s a hot seat.

I experienced the chair when I was a sophomore. I was 19 years old and I was looking. What I was looking for wasn’t clear to me, but I thought I’d start off with a job. One hungry night I found the perfect place to work right in my dorm. Sweets and More is a student-run business on the first floor of Field. As I paid for my oversized sugar cookie, I could tell the people were cool—the music was loud. And the smell of baking goods was irresistible.

At my interview in the Sweets lounge, the chair was surrounded by a menacing semicircle of six people. I smiled and pretended that I was at ease as I rocked back and forth on the chair’s one remaining foot. Cold sweat ran down my spine.

I left the interview on wobbly legs. Sitting in that hot seat for 20 minutes made me feel like I had just returned from a voyage at sea. I went to my room and tried to steady myself while waiting for the phone to ring. When it finally did I
was offered a job. I didn’t know it then, but that job would provide the elusive thing for which I’d been looking.

I attended a small high school in a close-knit community. In comparison, UMass seemed like a huge city. For most of freshman year I felt lost, and even though I began making friends, something was missing. At Sweets I found a place to belong. I found a family. Since then, I’ve helped hire other employees. In the process, I’ve gained little brothers and little sisters—fellow survivors of the chair. In our annual fall cleaning of Sweets, a few of us decided that the chair had seen its day. The gashes in its seat had grown, the wobbling was more pronounced. We brought it out to the dumpster. One of Sweets’ co-managers brought it back inside. It wasn’t quite time for it to go. It’s possible that every Sweets interviewee since 1975 has had to sit in it. It will continue to be a bane to every interviewee until it breaks outright.

My graduation is just around the corner. Even more terrifying than the unknown of the “real world” is the thought of leaving behind my Sweeties—my family. I know we will stay close, even if we won’t be making milkshakes together anymore. Sweets and More will remain, as will all the memories we made there. And, for a while at least, the chair will remain, too.

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The Sweetest Thing

The Sweetest Thing: larger image