The She-Beast Encounter

Upper class move-in today. I can understand Moms that don't want to let their freshman leave the nest. But it is pretty sad when they are setting up their Junior's room the way that they like it. Sometimes you just want to walk up to them and cut the apron strings yourself. The sad thing, is that these are the residents that don't know how to do their laundry, are afraid to do anything by themselves, and ask their mom on Saturday if they can go to Central Park ... true story. Not only that, but also these moms can go apeshit when something goes wrong.

Case in point: an individual checked out a moving cart for 4 hours today and made 8 trips to and from her car. Now, there is the slight chance that she was driving a Yugo or a Smart Car, but come on. How much shit can you put into a dorm room. So after 4 hours of her having a cart, and there being an hour long wait list for carts, we call her to politely return the cart. In comes the She-beast of a mom saying that it is so rude and yadda yadda yadda. Anyways, totally chewed my ass out for there being a line for elevators and that it is not exorbitant for us to call to have our cart returned. Anyways, the She-beast was dispatched with ease, and 80% of the upperclassmen were moved in today. So job was completed.

Freshman Move-In

Ok, so with the computer systems here at the school you have to put on the University Firewall and Virus-ware. That's cool; I have nothing wrong with the University picking up the cost of a Norton subscription for me. The thing is this, Fordham sent out a CD that had all of the software and instructions on it. Not one person had that installed when they came here so they were all clueless about what to do. We were talking the other day, no one does anything on his or her own, and this place is devoid of personal initiative. No one will do anything unless you hold their hand through it. But this is the clincher, for those of us using a Mac, there is no network procedure, we get to run our own Firewall and NAV. So we ask the Freshman if they have a Mac or a PC, and this girl says, I have a Mac, It's a Dell, M.Fo and I just looked at each other with a blank stare laughing on the inside. I swear these kids ... 1300 average SAT, my ass.

Done with training

This was something special. I want to keep rants about my job as minimal as possible since a number of my readers are former residents. But there are some things that just have to be expressed. Working this job is hard, it is harder than anything I have done, and I have worked at a lot of different places. It asks of me emotional investment, it requires me to be myself to strangers and to put myself on the line for an entity, that, let's face it, Fordham students love to hate. The ORL here is villified to the point where on some nights I fear that it makes my job more difficult than is safe.

An Example: student X hates his RA because he heard that the ORL is a big evil beaurocracy and that there are all sorts of stupid rules that he has to follow, and that all they do is keep him from having sex (between the hours of 330am and 6am only), and that our sole purpose is to keep undergrads from having guests of the opposite sex. OK, so this is the mindset of Student x and now he comes home to find his room mate passed out on the floor because he drank 8 martinis in 2 hours and he can't wake him up. He is now faced with the choice, do I let him sleep it off or do I go get some help. His animus towards the ORL is manifest in the fear that they are just going to get him and his room mate in trouble and that there is no way that they are going to help in a way that suits him. So he decides to let the room mate sleep it off. In the middle of the night the room mate aspirates, suffocates himself, and dies. So my job is to make sure that whatever the office is doing, I make sure that my residents are confortable coming to me in that situation, and that they know that I will be there for them if need be. But in all honesty, the combination of Security and Student Affairs makes my job really really difficult.

Back From There

I was in Europe with the family for a vacation. It was my parents 25th wedding anniversary and they took us all to backpack through Switzerland, Rome, and Paris. It was fantastic and very beautiful. I haven't had a chance to look through my photos but if there are some that are worthy to be shared I will put them here, or link to a Flikr gallery if there are a lot. More on that trip later, probably anecdotally.

Started RA training today, bright and early at 10AM, so for me it felt like 3 in the afternoon. Which is a curse on itself. The whole thing feels very corporate. I feel like I am doing a guest stint on the BBC's The Office, where they are pumping us up for Diversity Training, and Programming! With exciting sessions called Fordham University Strategic Planning and You! Everything has an exclamation point after it.

The new RD's are ... interesting. Last year we had a new Resident Director for Freshman, and it took her awhile to break into the position to figure out where she needed to push back and what exactly her job was going to entail. For the sake of anonymity the new RDs will be called, Mugly, Menly, and Minny. For those in the know the names have significance. Mugly has more resemblence to my boss than anything that I am confortable with, even her mannerisms and facial expressions are alike, it is rather scary. Mostly because she is always "mugging" for us though. I hate that when you get the impression that someone is angry on the inside, but they are still smiling like their shit doesn't stink on the outside. More on all of that later, going on the retreat tomorrow, and expect some posts on Yurp.