Work orders are a part of Facilities that has always been confusing and the way each order is handled, depends entirely on the situation.

Facilities received over 10,000 work order requests between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017. Of those requests, 41% of them were related, according to Deborah Lisk, coordinator for work orders.

Usually there are spikes in work orders on move-in day. “During these times, Facilities prioritizes safety issues and then works the remainder of the work order requests,” Lisk said.

But how these work orders are processed is mostly unknown to students. According to Tim Stewart, head of the cleaning services department, work orders in each department are processed the same way.

The process starts when a member of Linfield, whether that be a student, faculty, or administrator, submits a work order form either through email or phone call. In the cleaning services department, all work orders go to Stewart, who then processes the request.

Part of processing the request includes deciding whether the work order is a priority, an emergency, high, low, or deferred.

If it is an emergency, Stewart will have someone fulfill it immediately. A high priority request will be taken care of in a quick and efficient manner.

A low priority request will be take care of, but might not be done for a while. A deferred request means that it probably won’t be taken care of during the school year, but will be done either during a break during the school year when students aren’t here or in the summer.

After processing the request, Stewart hands the request over to Marilee Siewert, coordinator of cleaning service employees.

Siewert then decides who is assigned to the work order depending on which building the work corresponds to.

While the work request is being fulfilled, it sits in limbo as “incomplete.” The part that confuses many students is that they have to check the work order form that they created in order to determine whether their form has been completed.

According to Stewart, “Facilities receives about 20-25 work orders a day, but that spikes during move-in and move-out.”

In terms of charging, usually facilities will make judgment calls based on the situation. Facilities understands that the rooms undergo wear and tear, “If students are up-front with us, facilities will always try to help out,” Stewart said.