Free as in what?

Let’s talk about free food. At the student picnic they were serving free food to both students and mentors alike. I got to thinking about the meaning of free and the concept of free food. According to Wikipedia free "refers to things which are available at no monetary cost (like free beer at a party)." That said I'm still at the conclusion that the free food served at the student picnic was not free.

One could argue that there was no monetary cost to either the students or the mentors, meaning no money was exchanged from the hands of the consumer to those of the servers. But wait a minute; I just said it wasn’t free in any way; the basis of my argument stems from the time we spent in line waiting for said food. I personally was in line for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

The industry standard cost per person for every minute they spend in a meeting (not doing work) is approximated to be $3. Last year the student association boasts a record turnout of just over 700 people, assuming an equivalent turn out this year at $3 per minute and not counting the lunch hour, this 2 and a half hour event cost the lab over $63000.

As if wasted government spending wasn’t enough, during the time I spent waiting inline for my free food, at my nominal student pay rate, I could have earned $31.98.