Kelly Hutchison, a cashier at McEwen Dining Hall who was known for her friendly greetings and conversations with students and faculty, recently left her job partly due to “manager mistreatment.” She worked for Parkhurst Dining at Hamilton for a year and one month, but overall felt “dissatisfied.”
“I wasn’t happy with what I was doing workwise,” she said. “[With] a couple of my coworkers and my bosses I felt like I was treated like a burden. When you go into work feeling like dirt most of the time because your managers don’t give you the time of day or ignore your needs, it’s just not a great feeling.”
Her experience working for Parkhurst was not the only reason she felt she had to leave—there were personal reasons and “things going on at home” as well. However, she pointed to manager mistreatment as the main cause. “I was kind of getting over-scrutinized and micromanaged,” she said.
Hutchison said that her physical health issues were overlooked and not taken seriously during her time with Parkhurst. “I have a lot of physical health issues. Standing is hard for me to do for long periods of time. The repeating cleaning motion would hurt my shoulders and my back. So I would be sitting a lot of times because I didn’t want to strain my body any more than I had to. There would be a lot of days I was just going home in constant pain,” she said.
“I had told them I have these problems. I can’t stand for long periods of time and constantly cleaning was wearing out my body,” Hutchison said. “When we had come back from summer break last year, I was cleaning all the time and I had gone to urgent care for inflammation in my shoulder from overuse.”
Management told her she needed to provide a doctor’s note for accommodation. While Hutchison says she completely understood the need for a note, she did not have a primary care doctor while in New York, and “[managers] wouldn’t take that as an answer.”
“I had a chiropractor and physical therapist, and both of them couldn’t give me a doctor’s note,” she said. “And then I was told a week and a half before I left, that the real reason I didn’t get the accommodation I asked for was because I ‘talk too much.’”
Hutchison had to fight to be able to take Sundays off for religious reasons and to go home on religious holidays. While she “barely used PTO,” on a day where she had two doctors appointments, she was told she still had to come in to work in between appointments even after requesting time off.
“I understand that managers have a lot on their plates and they have to think of everyone fairly. But considering that there were at least two people who had free time at certain hours of the day when I was doing something else, I feel like it could have been a very easy divide and conquer situation,” she said.
“One of my managers, Chris—he was one of the evening managers and cooks—was very understanding of my situation,” she said. However, their shifts did not often overlap.
“I’m trying to get out of food service because every time I’ve had a food service job I’ve had terrible treatment for health reasons,” Hutchison said. “I’m trying to find a doctor who will give me an accommodation notice. But even undiagnosed health concerns or health issues should be taken seriously.”
Even though Hutchison did not have positive experiences with several managers and coworkers at McEwen, she emphasized that interacting with students and faculty always made her day.
Kim Reese, a service attendant at McEwen who is Hutchison’s coworker and friend, said that every morning while Hutchison would wipe the tables, she would talk to students.
“She actually left here with, I think, over 100 extra Instagram followers,” Reese said. “She’s by far my best friend. We hung out at work. We hung out outside of work. If she needed something, or I needed something, we were there for each other. We went to church together.”
“If it wasn’t for the students, I probably would have left at Christmas or spring break. I was so tired of the constant micromanaging and being in pain,” Hutchison said.
“I always thought the students and the faculty and I got along really well. I thought we had really good conversations,” Hutchison said. “There were a lot of kids who were like, you just made my day so much brighter because you were always greeting with a smile or always had something nice to say. When I left I had at least 60 kids tell me that.”
John Crespo ’26 called Hutchison one of his “good friends.” He described a word game Hutchison played with students where they would provide her with a word, and she would try to find it in one of the 40 or 50 musicals she memorized by heart.
“Kelly knew everyone,” Crespo said. “I would stand with Kelly at the front desk nearly everyday chatting, and was always amazed by how many people she knew by name. It was always ‘Hi, Jasaiya,’ ‘I haven’t seen you in a while, Billy,’ and ‘Siena, I love your new earrings!’”
“Kelly was a lovely person. I enjoyed chatting with her whenever I bought coffee in McEwen,” Peter Cannavò, Professor of Government, said. “She was always incredibly friendly. She seemed to want to make a go of it, living and working here, even though she wasn’t from New York State, though she had relatives here. Her departure seemed sudden. One day when I showed up to get coffee, she told me it was her last day. At the time, I didn’t get a clear sense of why she was leaving. She’ll be missed!”
Reese told Crespo that after Hutchison left “things just don’t feel the same anymore.”
“I hope she finds better opportunities elsewhere, and I hope she finds that sense of fulfillment she’s been looking for,” Crespo said.
“Kelly was a valued member of our team, as all Parkhurst employees are,” Lori Barone, General Manager of Parkhurst Dining at Hamilton, told The Spectator. “I know students enjoyed talking with her. We wish her the best in her future opportunities. We encourage all employees to do what is best for them, as Kelly was moving to be closer to her family.”