It is 4:56 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. As I sit here in my room listening to Phish and craving a buffalo chicken calzone, there is only one thing on my mind: how unhappy I am with the way the Merchants on Points (MOPS) dining take-out system works here at Tufts.
Of all my complaints about the school, this one definitely takes the cake as to which is my biggest pet peeve. This system is in dire need of a major overhaul for many reasons, the first being the fact that Tufts imposes restrictions as to when a student can call up a local restaurant that accepts Dining Dollars under the MOPS system and order food.
5:00 p.m. - yes, it is a little early, but it has been a long week - is a completely reasonable time to order dinner. But the restaurants in the area are prohibited by Tufts from selling any food on MOPS before 7:00 p.m. on weekdays and 1:00 p.m. on weekends. Literally, if a restaurant takes an order before 7:00, Tufts will refuse to pay out on the order, and the restaurant effectively is left handing out free food to customers.
My next gripe is that Tufts prohibits restaurants from serving dine-in food to students who intend to pay with their Dining Dollar account, eliminating any customer-vendor interaction. Not only does this detract from the ability of servers to get to know their customers, this restriction might also be affecting business for these restaurants. If the student's intent is to dine at a restaurant rather than order take-out, why would a student choose to dine in at Pasta Pisa when they could go to Bertucci's on Rt. 16 for just a few dollars extra? This is taking away convenience that I thought was supposed to be the basis of the MOPS system to begin with.
One final problem: the lack of variety of restaurants to choose from on the MOPS program. Yes, I know that some restaurants in the area - namely Tasty Gourmet (and, let me tell you, if they were on MOPS, they would be getting all of my business) - cannot handle the added business of MOPS orders.
But the fact that our school offers only seven restaurant choices to order food from through MOPS and that four of them are pizza/sub joints is insulting. And, to be honest, Pasta Pisa and Caf?© de Crepe are the same restaurant. Variety is missing; it is as much of a shame as I could possibly think of.
So here is my alternative, though I cannot really claim the idea as my own, but rather that of one of my brothers: Rather than deal with the hassle of using MOPS and being stuck in a bind when I just want to eat, I'm going to get a "food debit card." I'll load 'er up with about $600 and buy some meal blocks. Besides being just as cost-effective as buying a meal plan, I will be able to eat on my own schedule, not a schedule devised by Tufts to keep its students in the dining halls.
Not to mention that most of the restaurants in the area that accept Dining Dollars can also process orders on Visa, and this card would add about 50 more restaurants to my list of choices for dinner.
Rather than be confined to ordering delivery pizza and subs - which, if I really wanted, I could get at the Campus Center Commons, Hotung Caf?© or Hodgdon - I can choose between Kee Kar Lau, Tip Top Thai, Redbones, and Nick's House of Pizza, just to name a few.
And if you have ever been annoyed by these illogical guidelines imposed by our school, I urge you to join me.
Matthew Murphy is a sophomore majoring in economics.
