The only child, who has never had to share anything in his life with anybody, who is currently throwing a temper tantrum worthy of a two-year-old because his roommate put one fucking can of Coke into his refrigerator without asking, then comes crying to me about it. Then, when I laugh in his face and tell him to grow the fuck up, goes crying to my boss, all over one fucking can of coke in his fucking fridge.
[/QUOTE]
But the can of Coke was FUCKING!
I third the “penalize the parents, no refund”. Against the death penalty as a matter of principle, though, so can’t second the execution… but yeah, putting them kids up as lab animals sounds good.
[QUOTE=Don’t Call Me Shirley]
As a former RA, I agree wholeheartedly. Let me add a couple of categories of people who should be banned or perhaps executed on the spot (execution being my preferred solution for these two dunces, because both of them ended up getting me into trouble with my boss):
The only child, who has never had to share anything in his life with anybody, who is currently throwing a temper tantrum worthy of a two-year-old because his roommate put one fucking can of Coke into his refrigerator without asking, then comes crying to me about it. Then, when I laugh in his face and tell him to grow the fuck up, goes crying to my boss, all over one fucking can of coke in his fucking fridge.
The fucktards who refuse to turn their stereo down, ever, often leaving it on when they leave for class, and pretend not to hear me knocking on their door. Then, when I shut off the power to their room, go crying to my boss. (Incidentally, my boss liked the idea of shutting off the power, but I got in trouble because I left it off for about 5 hours, and told them that the next time their stereo was too loud their power was going to be off for 24 hours, which got the boss an angry phone call from fucktard’s parents.)
Yeah, I thought I was a pretty good RA. My boss disagreed, but what can you do?
[/QUOTE]
I was lucky enough to have an apartment with a good roommate in college.
But I think RA’s should be able to handle it like an Army barracks sergeant would. Having been the barracks NCO in a past station I’'ve dealt with these kinds of things before.
The guy leaving before you could unlock his door? he’d be sleeping on the floor in the hallway until the 1st sergeant or any RA equivalent of got there in the morning to deal with it.
The guy with the stereo he won’t turn down? Ha! I impounded a jerk’s stereo. It stayed in a storage room for 2 weeks while he got floor mopping duty. When he got it back he was a lot more considerate.
and hey, when someone is just too fucking immature or stupid, we discharge 'em. So the OP has a good point in calling the parents and telling them to come get the kid.
Unfortunately, this particular student is not only stupid enough to lock himself out at 2:30 AM, he’s also got an attention span shorter than a goldfish. He’s apparently wandered off somewhere. I start running all over the building to find him. Eventually I locate him next to his door chatting with two young women.
[/QUOTE]
HELL, I see two young ladies wandering around at 2:30 in the morning I’d try to get to know them too.
This was actually not allowed where I went to school due to security reasons I guess. Campus security read me the riot act one night. Evidently it’s against the rules.
[QUOTE=Big Bad Voodoo Lou]
If the guy locked himself out of his room twice in one night and wandered off randomly, it’s very possible he was extremely drunk or on some kind of drugs. He might be stupid (and if he got that drunk or stoned, he probably is), but it sounds like the behavior of someone who isn’t fully in control of his faculties, regardless of how limited they already may be.
[/QUOTE]
If the guy was drunk or stoned, wouldn’t he have been asleep the second time around? I suspect that he’s just having trouble getting used to the door locking automatically if he closes it.
Ah, the memories.
I was an RA for 3 years at university.
The first two years was in a girls-only residence run by nuns. That was…fun.
The last year was in a coed house. Fortunatly, there were four of us, and it worked out nicely personality wise. Cindy and I would be the ones throwing drunk guys out at 4 am, and MJ and Laura were the ones you went to see if your boyfriend had just looked at another girl and the world was ending. I have little patience for that kind of “problem”
Now, if you’ve managed to give yourself alcohol poisoing, or if the boyfriend decided slapping you around was a good idea, then you have a problem I can help with.
My freshman year of college, I had a roommate who would often leave our room without her keys. As far as she was concerned, we should just leave the door unlocked all the time so she could come and go as she pleased without having to bother with silly things like keys. Nevermind that several people who had the same idea had had things stolen from their rooms. She got really angry at me once because she’d been out late and when she’d come home, the door was locked and she couldn’t get in and she’d pounded and pounded on the door, but I didn’t wake up and come let her in. So she’d had to go stay in her friend’s room, horrors!
Where’s that barfy smiley when we need it? :yurk:
[/QUOTE]
:rolleyes:
God I hate that. Look. *Every * generation thinks the generation after it is pampered and will ruin society, yet it hasn’t happened yet. Don’t be that (old) guy. This is a pitting about one jack-off, not the entire generation.
[QUOTE=The Weird One]
My freshman year of college, I had a roommate who would often leave our room without her keys…people who had the same idea had had things stolen from their rooms…
[/QUOTE]
Freshman year I lived in suite style housing. Open the suite door and to your left there’d be a room with toilet & sink, to the right one with shower & sink, and in front 2 doors leading to the bedrooms. We never locked the outer door, but I didn’t care as I didn’t leave any of my stuff in the bathrooms. My roomate had a habit of leaving and not locking the door. One morning I woke up and he was in the shower. I got dressed, locked the bedroom door and left. Oh and apparntly he forgot his towel . He ended up having to wrap the translucent shower curtain aroung himself and walk all the way down to the building office to get a spare key. I claimed I thought it was one of our suitemates in the shower and he never left without his key again.
threemae, I was an RA for four years, an RD for two, and an area director for one. I feel your pain, bud.
I’d let said frosh know - all of them, actually - that they get one jackass moment for the year. One free lockout during normal waking hours. If it’s after that, or your second time, enjoy the comfort of the downstairs lounge or someone who will let you sleep on the floor.
Seriously, if you don’t draw a line in the sand about lockouts, they will dog you all year. I actually overheard some women planning their evening out - they took those dinky assed purses and left their keys. “You don’t need your key, Sarah can just let us in,” one of them said.
I called Sarah, asked what she was doing that night. Turns out she was planning on going home for the weekend. I told her, “Have a great time, and don’t come back tonight!”
Where’s that barfy smiley when we need it? :yurk:
[/QUOTE]
It makes one yearn for the good old days, when parents would “slap their kids into next Thursday” for such offenses such as sipping a little extra soda.
Seriously, though, the "helicopter parent"phenomenon has been snickered over on college campuses for some time now. There are some problem parents, but I don’t believe this is widespread. It’s just that they’re so damned noticeable. And annoying.
I know parents who DO/DID use carseats and bike helmets, and yet still have the ‘suck it up, learn independence, do it yourself’ attitude as their kids grow. Given those examples, and a whole host of other reasons (including stories about dumbass teens long before we had child restraint laws), I question the correlation between “Baby on Board” signs and the lack of responsibility in adolescents.
[QUOTE=D_Odds]
I thought I read dancewithcats’ article before. Someone should report Ms. Jan Murphy for blatant plagiarism. The WSJ article is over a year old.
[/QUOTE]
Feel free to contact the publisher of the Harrisburg Patriot News: www.pennlive.com
Seriously-today I show up at an 8 unit apartment building (primarily inhabited by a students-and a new crop now) to do some maintenance work on the hydronic boiler and get it ready for fall. There’s a truck parked in the driveway with out of state plates. No big deal-everybody has to learn that the driveway serves not only that building, but also four-six other buildings, as it is their access for parking in the rear.
So, I start inquiring who belongs to the truck, and the kid responsible for it asks what the problem is. I tell him it’s a single lane alley, not to be blocked, because in addition to being owner/occupant access, it’s also a full length fire lane. Everybody before this fuckstick has been cool with the advisory, but he whines, “But there were other people blocking it earlier, why do I have to move now?” :smack:
Jesus H. Four Alarm Christ on a Big-Balled Lonk. What a juvenile whiny-assed pathetic response. For a moment, I thought about going all G/Sgt. Hartman on him: “Sound off like you’ve got a pair!” but realized that he didn’t, and the appropriateness of the FMJ quote would be lost on him. Little jerkoff instead parked across the sidewalk, and Gburg PD ticketed him. I’d bet he called Mommy in tears. :putz:
The fucktards who refuse to turn their stereo down, ever, often leaving it on when they leave for class, and pretend not to hear me knocking on their door.
[/QUOTE]
My friend Rolf was an RA in college and he had a great solution to this problem. He kept a big roll of packing tape onhand, about the size of an industrial-length roll of duct tape. When somebody pretended not to hear him he would use it to “knock” on the door (flat side of the roll).
On your standard-issue wooden dormroom door it sounds like a sledgehammer attack. It was utterly impossible to ignore and got immediate results, as I saw on several occasions.
As far as refusing to turn the stereo down, didn’t they have some kind of “24 hour courtesy hours” rule?
[QUOTE=Valgard]
As far as refusing to turn the stereo down, didn’t they have some kind of “24 hour courtesy hours” rule?
[/QUOTE]
My dorm did. Most dorms I heard of did, actually. From 11pm to 7am (8am on Saturdays, 10am on Sundays), anything louder than a mosquito’s buzz was Not Allowed. If it was people talking, one of the People in Charge would come in and tell you to cut it out. If any kind of electronic items were involved, they’d be seized.
I got the same room for three years. Second floor, last on the left. Each of the individual rooms had one bed, one shelf, one table, one chair, one sink and one closet. The toilets and showers were all at the beginning of the hallway. Some girls liked showering with music: they’d take their portables to the restroom/shower area, put it on a sink and plug it to the wall. One year the girl across the hall from me would leave the portable in her room, full blast, with the door open, and the bathroom door open, and the door of the stall she was using open. We might have been ok with that if she hadn’t always played the same damn tape and taken over half an hour to shower.
Since this was during “daytime”, we couldn’t officially complain. But we could, and did, take her portable and bring it to one of the third floor rooms. The girls who took it were first-floor: she never thought of asking anybody outside our room for it. We returned it after three weeks. Next time she left it on, we switched it off and left the tape in one of her potted plants. That finally got the message across - but we were seriously considering dumping all her tapes.
[QUOTE=SnakesCatLady]
Is there a policy to make these idiots pay for the keys? Or a fine for getting locked out? If not, it might be something to consider.
[/QUOTE]
When I went to college, they charged a 25$ fine, billed on your account at the school, if you had to get let back into your room after being locked out.
The one time they let this sort of slide was during fire drills, if you forgot to grab your keys.
. He ended up having to wrap the translucent shower curtain aroung himself and walk all the way down to the building office to get a spare key. I claimed I thought it was one of our suitemates in the shower and he never left without his key again.