"We thought you knew what you were doing!"

Harry Potter 7 pt 1 was a pretty fantastic movie. It made all of last week a bit better. When things were ridiculous at least I had that to look forward too. Last week was trying to say the least. To be more realistic with my assessment I would have to say that it was the worst week of my short professional career thus far. Lack of training combined with the appearance of lack of support combined with the fact that no one in this department seems to take the time to critically analyze or LISTEN to people.

On the up side (or on the entertainment side), I walked into my office on Thursday to this:





My students, they amaze me.

Here's to another week, another Monday, to going on duty this Tuesday, and to the hope that I still hold that each week (regardless of duty) will be better than the last.

Sick Days

Sick days aren't all they used to be cracked up to be. It was a difficult decision to make, laying there in bed, weighing the pros and cons of using a sick day and missing out on a day of work, versus laying in bed and getting better. It was surprisingly tough to decide that recuperation would help me in the long run. It helps that I'm able to remote into my desktop computer and check emails while I lay here on the couch. It means I won't be TOO backed up on Monday.

Sorry, A Kid Lives Here

The day after the steam pipe burst was one that I had pre-arranged with a woman for her to bring a bunch of 2nd graders in for a "college student for a day" experience. It didn't matter that I had worked 14 hours the day before, I needed to be bright eyed and bushy tailed - mainly because I wanted to make it fun for the kids. I got an idea laying in bed that night about how to make this more fun, and got up extra early to get into the office and make "room assignment cards" for each kid, which they would provide to the front desk and get assigned to their room. Anita had a blast playing along, she asked them all for their ID, which produced four dumbfounded faces until their teacher prodded them, whispering, "show her your new shirt!" Each kid held up a shirt that had their name printed on it. I also made a full scavenger hunt for them, in which they had to do things like "find your room" "find your mailbox" "locate your RAs room" "learn what a PM is", ect. They had a blast, and their teacher said that I would probably be hearing from her next year too.

Their favorite part was their 'rooms'. I had them assigned to different rooms in our tour suite, which is an empty suite that has all the furniture and is semi-decorated for tour purposes. They loved their rooms and wanted to immediately leave 2nd grade, attend college, and move in. One of the girls went as far to use the white board in the room to claim her space, letting any and all college students know that the space was taken:

Holy STEAM PIPE BURST, Batman

Well, shit's really hit the fan here. Hope everyone else is having a normal non-exciting day at work. I've dealt with every police officer, fire man, fire chief, engineer, facilities worker and higher up for this university within a 12 block radius. Not to mention the fact that we now have no fire alarm service in the building, so my staff is on fire watch - and so am I. I would never ask them to do anything I wasn't willing, so I'll be patrolling the building at 4 and 5am. If you're up, shoot me a text.

It's going to be a long night.

You leave paraphenalia alone... and it multiplies.

These are the type of things that I get when I walk in my office in the morning; it always makes me chuckle.

This is a story written by an organ in the 1st person

Watching Fight Club always makes me introspective, makes me wonder about what I should be doing with my life; what I should be valuing.

Tonight has been a good night in my job. I've made some really good connections with some students in my building. I have a funny thought process that goes through my head when I talk to students, when I introduce myself, when I respond to their concerns. All of my freshman fill out a survey online, and one of the questions is "do you know your Resident Director?" I've started looking at the answers to that one, and they are interesting - and they make me think. It colors my interactions a little, I want to them all to know me, it's that adolescent need to be liked combined with my inherent nature: I want to be the best at everything I do.

Being the best at this job is a little different than a typical career. I have to interact, build relationships, discipline and provide for 740 college students - a most unpredictable and not easily mollified bunch.

Best can be a relative term.

Shocked, Appaled and Disheartened

Well, after that last post.... I'm feeling very down. I never thought I needed to stress that expected behavior with my own staff.

Idiots.

It's the small victories

I sent a letter out to every resident in my building on Friday, please see the text below:

Resident of [building acronym],

Hey! This is your Resident Director of [Building], Miranda. I hope that your first week has gone really well, and that you’re looking forward to a relaxing weekend. With classes in full swing I hope you’re taking advantage of getting ahead in the beginning – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “I wish I’d done better at the beginning of the semester! I wouldn’t be in such trouble now!”

I’m emailing you, and all the residents of the building to first say that I’m happy that you’re living with us, and second to highlight a few things. With the weekend coming up, many students are looking to have a good time with their old and new friends. However you choose to have fun is your business, I just hope you are safe doing it. I also hope that if you elect to have fun in any ways that would break any housing policies or laws that you make those choices off campus. Please respect your floor-mates room-mates and suite-mates by not breaking policy inside our hall. Please know that you will be held responsible for any choices that you make if it comes to my or my staff’s attention – and I’m pretty sure that no one wants their college records marred with any sort of continuing policy violations or anything.

We’ve got a lot of fun stuff going on in the hall this weekend, movie night, trips to Chinatown and to Greekfest – talk to your RA or PM for more info!

So be safe this weekend! Travel in groups and be smart about where you walk and what’s going on around you. Remember that my office is open any time you want to drop by!

When leaving the office to go to an after hours social with the department on Friday, I told my supervisor that I was predicting four incident reports in my email on Monday morning. Her response was, "If you have ONLY four, I will be seriously impressed and your RAs must be doing a fantastic job community building."

This morning? I had NONE.

Small victories man, small victories. :)

Nerves, I has them.

Well, here we go. Tonight is when I will meet all of my student staff members and training will start. I'm nervous about not knowing enough to prepare for things that I have to prepare for but don't know are problems until after they happen.

Confused? Welcome to the role of a new first-year hall director.

Part of the problem is that my department doesn't really know how to plan ahead, and operates under the philosophy of last minute and CYA (cover your ass). I'm determined to try and change some of these things, but right now I'm just hoisting the storm sail and trying to ride it out until the students arrive. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. This is probably the worst part about this career path - the continued job switching and the need to re-learn everything. It's great for learning humility, but hard on the nerves.

Deep down inside, I just really hope they like me.

The Tipping Point

Well, this weekend my staff arrives. I'm exhausted. Being in this office for so long is stressful. I'm doing something nice for myself tomorrow, but that means I'm losing a day of prep.

Sitting here... I thought I had more to write. I think I'm too tired. Time to leave the office I suppose. Nap time perhaps.

Cleaning House and Office

I'm exhausted. I feel like I need to join the Spanish culture and take part in afternoon siestas. I have a lot to be doing today so there really isn't time to be napping. Considering that I never took a real lunch I'm debating the idea of leaving work in the next twenty minutes or so in order to head up to the best friend's apartment and help with the move in process. I suspect a ninety minute train ride, so I'd like to head up there as soon as possible.

Work is still confusing. Mostly because I have student staff members moving in this coming Monday, and I don't even know what their role is in my building. Apparently that is something that I will be developing. Considering that it's been two years since I've worked in this building in any capacity, I'm not sure what I need to prepare for, what the challenges will be, where help will be needed. Ergo - I have no idea what their job needs to be.

This is always the fun part of this job. You come into a new building, new department and you make decisions based upon your prior experience at different places with know real working knowledge of what's needed. Training can be a large help in this process -but if you don't have a good base from training, or a very good training program... well then you're off and swimming with no life vest.

My one saving grace is that I do at least have a working knowledge of this department and of this building. Just not in the capacity of the position I'm in now. I will just have to adapt I guess.

I spent part of today getting my office and desk cleaned up and prepping files and ideas for SRA and RA training. My mom, on her part has been cleaning my apartment every day. I always come home to find my laundry finished and folded. It's very wonderful. I'm going to be very lonely when my parents leave.

Clear as Mud

Some days I feel the need to let words flow out onto a page to release the logjam of thoughts that are in my head. This is done with the hope that by unloading the overall pressure, that the important bits in my head will able to fall out of the cramped dusty corners of forgetting that they've been pushed into by everything else and finally come to some sort of organized 'settling'. The tough part, however is when the vital and superfluous are delivered at the same time and without clarification. The logjam has now become Confusion Soup - a serving of side chatter mixed with a heaping spoonful of unanswered questions, a dollop of attitude, a dash of sympathy and flavoring of pertinent-to-my-job-success vital information. You can't divide a completed recipe back into it's parts, ergo, Confusion Soup is what you get and all you get. Eat up.