My Life as an RA

It’s a Tuesday night and one of your fellow RA’s gets sick and so you offer to cover the desk for them. You get ready, put on your work attire (duty duds) and do a round of the building. You get downstairs and sit on the couch as you watch residents come in. Since it is Tuesday, Hall council shows up and has a meeting for about an hour. A quick hour of duty has already gone by.

The second hour of duty begins and you go on another round of the building, everything is quite, almost too quiet as you are finishing the round on the last floor. You sit back down on the couch and this time there is no one but you there. At around 10:30 the sick RA comes back from the hospital and talks to you about how he is feeling. 15 minutes later and you are packing up again to go on another round. The round is finished and now you can stay in your room for the rest of the night.

Hour three has now begun and you are in your room minding your business when your roommate informs of you of some loud residents on the patio. You walk outside and tell them they need to be quiet or you will call public safety. As you are talking to them the cold night are is blowing on your bare skin and your legs are shaking. You give them one chance to be quiet and calm the loud drunk resident down.

Hour four and you go on the midnight round. Building is quiet again and so you go back to your apartment and skype your boyfriend.

Hour five rolls around and the last round is so close and at your finger tips. You do the round skeptically looking and waiting something is to happen, and before you know it, you are homefree in your bed getting ready to sleep.

As you begin to dose off you hear a sound, not a half hour after you get into bed, by someone shouting and stomping. You quickly gather yourself together and go directly to the location of the noise. Nothing is around and the hallway is silent. As you are on your trek back to your room, you hear a sound again and go back to check. You stumble upon the same drunk kid as earlier but this time with no shoes.

Your eyes are wanting to close but you know you have to stay awake. You ask the resident what is wrong and all he states is that his friends have disowned him. You ask him about his shoes… his response that its irrelevant and runs away. As you follow behind him on his trail to the patio you are on the phone with public safety informing them about the situation and the RDOD(resident director on duty) as well. You inform them that the resident has climbed over the railing of the patio to the other side and has now jumped onto the dumpster and down onto the parking lot.

Not knowing how exactly to react, and knowing once you step outside you will be cold again, you go for the safety of the intoxicated “friend.” You ask him to come back and he shouts NO YOU COME TO DUMPSTER AND PICK ME BACK UP!! speechles you pause and ask him to quiet down. You attempt to convince him that coming inside is the best thing. He refuses and runs away.

You are at the home stretch of the night (or so you think) once the officers arrive. Three of them for this one kid. They decide to PC (protective custody) him for the night until he sobers up.

Half an hour later and you find yourself in your boss’s office writing a report of what happened and informing some of the residents how to do so as well.

2:30AM and about an essay of a report later, you arrive in your room, lock the door, turn off the lights, crawl back into bed, flip the warm covers over you, snuggle with all your teddy bears, close your eyes, and pass out.

That is your life … Just another unexpected night for You, the RA.