Running the centre
Absence log
The absence log is the record of the nights each resident spends away from the residence: when they leave, when they come back and, in many halls, what they eat on the day they leave and the day they return. Porters use it to know who is missing, and the kitchen to avoid counting people who are not there.
Also known asabsence book · nights away · sign-out book · leave register
How it is used in a residence
It is a custom of colegios mayores (Spanish halls of residence with a formative programme) that has outlived paper: it used to be a notebook at the porters' lodge that each resident signed when leaving for the weekend. Today it is usually a shared sheet, and it answers three questions at once. The porters know who will not be sleeping in. The kitchen knows how many dinners and breakfasts are not needed. And management knows who to look for if there is a problem or a drill.
What makes an absence log useful is the detail at either end: on the day someone leaves they may have lunch but not dinner, and on the day they return they may make it for dinner but not for lunch. If that is not written down, the dining-hall cancellation goes one way, the room rack goes out of step and the headcount forecast is wrong. How Bedel handles it is explained in absence log.
Worth knowing
What people take for granted: that if someone is not in the log, they are in the building. The log only knows what it is told. That is why it is worth asking whoever should be back today, rather than waiting for them to say so.
Related terms
- Room rackA room rack is the grid that crosses rooms or people with the days of the month and shows who occupies each bed each night. In student accommodation it usually lives in a reception spreadsheet, and arrivals, departures and nights away are all read from it.
- Dining-hall cancellationA dining-hall cancellation is the notice that someone will not have lunch or dinner at a particular sitting. It is given before the cut-off time the residence sets, so the kitchen prepares the right number of servings instead of throwing away the ones nobody collects.
- Headcount forecastA headcount forecast is the estimate of how many people will eat at each sitting, built from who lives in the residence, who has said they will not come and how each day of the week usually behaves. It is the number the kitchen uses to decide how much to prepare.