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Wanna know if a job is easy? Check the job description. If it mentions the word “kiosk,” chances are you’re on easy street.

Case in point: Have you ever seen anyone occupying those Downtown Madison Inc. kiosks on the Capitol Square doing any actual work? I haven’t.

The people who swipe student ID cards at the SERF also work in a kiosk. They have it easy. How easy? So easy that when the Herald came out against the campus living wage referendum in 2006, we did so by posing the question: “Does the student swiping IDs at the SERF deserve a wage hike?”

Despite what Student Labor Action Coalition may tell you, the correct answer to our rhetorical question was “no.”

Now, the powers that be at this university could rectify this situation. They could require the ID swipers to ride a stationary bike while manning the kiosk. They could start making student IDs out of lead, so that the swipers have to put some elbow grease into getting the cards through the swiping doohickey. They could move the kiosk to the men’s locker room, so that the swipers would have to go about their work while avoiding sight of old, hairy men prancing around naked.

But no, the SERF ID swipers don’t have to deal with any of this. They just sit in their kiosks like they’re royalty, exulting in having the cushiest job on campus. Now, personally, I would think their card-swiping counterparts at the Nat and Shell have it even easier, since fewer students go to those places. But what do I know? Not much.In fact, I don’t really know what the student “tech support” staff — the second-place winner for cushiest campus job — does.

Not that it matters. Because next to the SERF ID swipers, everyone has it rough.