You’re In My Seat: A Ridgeway Phenomenon

The Ridgeway Commons is a dining hall on the westerly side of the Western Washington University campus. Its main responsibility is to feed the residents who live in the surrounding dorm community referred to as “The Ridge”. This factor is unique to this dining hall compared to the other two on campus that are meant to serve multiple communities or ones that serve students, residents, staff, and visitors. Just as there is a unique population of people using this dining hall, there is a unique way in which these people choose to act there, or more specifically, where they choose to sit.

What aspects of The Ridgeway Commons influence where a customer sits and how much freedom does a student have to make that decision?

My curiosity is derived from Paul Hilker’s exploration in genre as a way of being where a sense of conformity is explored and the abstract rules present in any situation that dictate the way something or someone acts in that situation or setting is explained through the lens of a genre. Genres require a generalized way of being, this definition is not exclusive to a piece of traditional discourse, and applies to the aspects of life as well. This is explained in his essay “On Genres as Ways of Being” and can allow us to dive deep into the ways of being on the ridge when recognizing the ridge as a specific genre. On the Ridge, there are two separate seating areas which are physically distanced from each other via the line of counters that offer the food options. The deserts are placed on the left side, while the entrees and side-dishes are towards the right, with exception of the pizza island which stands alone amongst the seating area on the left side. Generally there is more traffic on the right side because of the natural movement of people. Customers tend to finish grabbing their entrees first and end up being closer to the right side of the hall, so they chose a table which is on the respective side. This is not an example as concrete as Hilker’s analogy using a student desk that physically limits the user, but in the case if hard logic, there is no justifiable reason for a customer to move to the left side after ending up on the right once they’ve grabbed their desired food items. Those that are on the left side either choose pizza as their entrée, make the active decision to avoid the populously dense characteristic of the right side, or they’ve gravitated towards the desserts before the entrees. There is a sense that those sitting on the left side are in a world of forced conformity. The majority of student’s that eat at the ridge eat on the right, but those who don’t fit well into the right side’s environment, yet still have to eat, are required to find a way to fit in somewhere and that place tends to be on the left. Both sides of the hall have a drink station and a dish return. It should be noted that the right side drink station has more options such as coffee and tea, while the left side does not.

Meal time plays a major role in the behavior of customers. During breakfast there is virtually nothing offered on the left side of the hall and the coffee is on the right side, so rarely do you find a customer deciding to eat on the left side, or the “Kappa” side as it is referred to because there is no reason for them to walk in that direction. During light lunch, there isn’t much offered aside from the salad bar, or left-over desert items from lunch and those are on opposite ends of the hall, so it is anybody’s guess where a customer chooses to sit seeing that there aren’t many people there to avoid and neither side pulls a visitor drastically from one seating area to another. Other factors that may affect a visitor’s decision might be that the right side has a T.V that usually broadcasts sports and that side tends to play the music a bit louder than the more quite left side.

The phenomenon seen on The Ridge can be transplanted anywhere. Why do people prefer to stand on a bus rather than take up a seat next to a stranger? Why can’t you start up a conversation in the middle of a professors lecture? Why do some people ride their bike on the sidewalk opposed to the street? There is a way of being on The Ridge just as there is in the place you may find yourself, but the physical layout of each place and what is offered for you to experience may dictate what options you have as a way of being. You don’t expect customers on The Ridge to feel comfortable deciding to eat in the kitchen. They would be out of place just as you wouldn’t find your way to a store’s stockroom to find the item you’re looking for that isn’t on the shelf without getting odd looks from the clerks. There are social norms for almost any environment you can think of and those norms are facilitated by a place’s physical dimension as well as your role within it, just add free will and you can begin to understand why I choose this seat.