The Don Files: Part II
Part two in a continuing series. Today's stories cover racial intolerance and stealing Nutella. [ Part I]
Double switcheroo: As much as the RLC and RLPC try to use the green forms to make good roommate matches at the beginning of every year, there will undoubtedly be at least one pair of frosh who just can't get past their differences.
One term it was a pair of girls, named Rhonda and Afshan. Rhonda was a Jewish girl who had lived in Canada her whole life and was very liberal-minded; Afshan was a Muslim who, although having lived in Canada for a few years, still practised many of her culture's traditions and was very conservative. After some arguments and problems, Paul K* suspected that each of their parents were intolerant towards the other culture and were encouraging their child to not show love towards the other.
On several occasions when Afshan was away at class, Rhonda would spray Afshan's belongings - clothes, jackets, bedding - with Febreze because the South Asian cooking smells in them "smelled disgusting." Completely uncalled for.
At the same time, there was a girl in the college, June, whose roommate had never showed up. June was feeling a bit lonely and she had stated that she wouldn't mind having a roommate. After discussing it with June, Paul gave Rhonda an ultimatum: either you stay with Afshan until Christmas and put up with it, or you can live with June and stop complaining. Rhonda took the latter option and moved to her new room within mere hours.
Much later on in the term, Lindsey (the floor's don) was walking down the hall on a Wednesday afternoon and Rhonda called out to her. She came running up to Lindsey with a sheet containing the signatures of June, Rhonda, and two other roommates on the floor, stating that they had all agreed to a roommate swap. Since Rhonda and June were now having issues, they had arranged for a roommate swap that would work best for all parties. Oh, and the best part? Rhonda had arranged it such that she got to stay in her present room, and June (the girl who had graciously opened her door to Rhonda) had to move down to hall to swap with someone else.
After seeing that the girls had already moved all their stuff into their new rooms, Lindsey gave the letter to Paul K. Paul promptly went into the ResNet admin settings and disabled internet access for all four girls until Monday.
Rhonda was released from her contract at the end of December and moved to REV for the winter term.
The lawnmower: Throughout the first eight months of 2004, the Grad Building had been under construction. It opened (with days to spare) in September 2004. After its opening, the college used hydroplanting to spray grass seeds on the dirt surrounding the building, but forgot one important step: removing the rocks and bits of debris in the dirt.
In Spring 2005, our gardener was mowing the lawn on his riding lawnmower, and when he was mowing near the Grad Building, he damaged his machine's blade on the rocks and debris. He said that he would refuse to cut the college's lawn until the lawn was cleared (and, obviously, that the college would have to pay for replacement blades in the event that there was more debris hit the blades in the future).
Not wanting the college to look bad worse than it already was, GB* asked the Res Life Team to recruit students to pick up the rocks and debris during their free time on a weekend (although he would provide food and pop for students who helped out, since there was no meal service on weekends). The dons advertised this on our blackboards. Unsurprisingly, not a single person on my floor volunteered to help out; in fact, I had several students come up to me and tell me what a dumb idea it was.
After telling GB that no students were interested (I claimed that it was because students were busy with midterms), he had to resort to hiring people for a couple of hours to pick up the debris.
Smoking: One common annoyance as a don is repeatedly telling people to butt out and take their smoking away from the building. I found people smoking in stairwells (with the door barely ajar), directly outside doors, even outside people's windows. I issued cards to a few people who repeatedly "forgot" my requests.
At a June open house day, a student came up to the admin and said that his parents were moving out of Ontario, but he was going to be starting at UW that fall, leaving him with no place to stay until September. He asked if he could possibly rent a room until frosh week, and he was given a contract as a "conference" to occupy an empty double room on one of the many vacant floors.
As I mentioned earlier, I always did a full walk-around the college at night, even on the empty floors where no one (or just a few guests) were staying. One night, I walked onto Empire and immediately noticed that something was wrong. I sniffed my nose a bit, walked down the hall a few doors in each direction, and pinpointed the smell. I grabbed a senior student nearby to identify the smell, and she had the same diagnose: cigarettes.
I got Jason*, and we knocked on the guest's door. He called out to wait a minute, and in the meantime (with my ear to the door) I heard a few things moving in the room. He let us in, and Jason was upfront with him. "We smelled something in the hall. Are you burning something in here?" He gave us excuses about burning old documents, but we didn't buy it (since we recognised the smell as being cigarettes). We also saw that he had neatly wrapped his smoke detectors with thick plastic bags, meaning that this had not been his first time smoking in his room.
We let him know that if he was caught burning stuff in his room again, we'd talk to the admin and ask for him to be evicted. We never had another problem with him.
It's good to share: Another "conference" we had staying at St. Paul's that term was a girl working on finishing up her Master's thesis, named Geneviève. She wanted to have a quiet place where she could work, but still be near to campus. One of the first times that I heard about her was when Joanne* came to me one night, angry as I had ever seen her.
"She stole my Nutella!"
"What?" I asked, not understanding her complaint.
"That French conference girl came down to Toast Time and toasted her bread. Then she took the bottle of Nutella and put a knife in it. I told her that it was my bottle and I had bought it! She asked if she could use it, and then continued to use it before I had a chance to say no. And then, as she gave me back the bottle, she said, 'It's good to share, you know?'"
I told Joanne that, as a don, I couldn't do much, but that if there were further problems or Nutella thefts, I would deal with Geneviève. Joanne never let that bottle of Nutella out of her grasp whenever she went down for toast the rest of that term.
On other occasions, Geneviève was loud and noisy in the cafeteria during mealtimes and argued with residents over the tritest of matters.
After she had been living at St. Paul's for a couple of weeks, Graeme* and I were returning from class and were cutting through St. Jerome's. As we walked through the back SJU parking lot, we saw Geneviève unloading a bunch of boxes and personal effects out of her car trunk (which was parked in the handicapped spot). She told us that she was fed up with St. Paul's and found a better deal at SJU for the rest of the summer. Geneviève was being charged $800 per two weeks at St. Paul's, which she thought that it was a fair (albeit pricey) deal, until the cafeteria staff told her that the rate didn't include a meal plan and that she was forced to forge for her own food.
Geneviève asked if we would help her move a few boxes from the car into her new room. Graeme and I agreed, though we suggested that it probably wasn't a good (or legal) idea for her to park in a reserved parking spot. Eventually, the SJU building manager saw her parked there and told her to move immediately. "It's only for disabled guests of the college," he told her.
"Well, I'm disabled right now with all of the stuff I'm carrying," she retorted. Steaming with anger, the building manager stormed off, and returned a few minutes later to tell Geneviève that a truck was on its way to tow away her car.
Fast-forward a week or two. The RLPC was having a small farewell party held in his honour in Sunken Lounge, and there had been a few posters up around St. Paul's promoting the event. The residents and college staff were there enjoying themselves, eating cake and reminiscing about old memories. Then, coming up the path, the students see Geneviève. There were murmurs whispering amongst the students, guessing that she had seen the posters and that she wanted to score some free cake.
Geneviève got talking with Prof. Fenn over a piece of cake, and some students thought of a way to get revenge at her for having stolen Joanne's Nutella. "I'll pay $5 if someone will go over, take her cake right off of her plate and eat it, and say, 'It's good to share, you know?'" one student quipped.
"Make that $10," said another.
"$15," added in a third.
Then Curtis* volunteered to do the deed. He walked up to Geneviève, who was in mid-conversation with Prof. Fenn, ate the cake, and said, "It's good to share, you know?" The students looking on could barely control their laughter.
Geneviève got her just desserts that day.
Double switcheroo: As much as the RLC and RLPC try to use the green forms to make good roommate matches at the beginning of every year, there will undoubtedly be at least one pair of frosh who just can't get past their differences.
One term it was a pair of girls, named Rhonda and Afshan. Rhonda was a Jewish girl who had lived in Canada her whole life and was very liberal-minded; Afshan was a Muslim who, although having lived in Canada for a few years, still practised many of her culture's traditions and was very conservative. After some arguments and problems, Paul K* suspected that each of their parents were intolerant towards the other culture and were encouraging their child to not show love towards the other.
On several occasions when Afshan was away at class, Rhonda would spray Afshan's belongings - clothes, jackets, bedding - with Febreze because the South Asian cooking smells in them "smelled disgusting." Completely uncalled for.
At the same time, there was a girl in the college, June, whose roommate had never showed up. June was feeling a bit lonely and she had stated that she wouldn't mind having a roommate. After discussing it with June, Paul gave Rhonda an ultimatum: either you stay with Afshan until Christmas and put up with it, or you can live with June and stop complaining. Rhonda took the latter option and moved to her new room within mere hours.
Much later on in the term, Lindsey (the floor's don) was walking down the hall on a Wednesday afternoon and Rhonda called out to her. She came running up to Lindsey with a sheet containing the signatures of June, Rhonda, and two other roommates on the floor, stating that they had all agreed to a roommate swap. Since Rhonda and June were now having issues, they had arranged for a roommate swap that would work best for all parties. Oh, and the best part? Rhonda had arranged it such that she got to stay in her present room, and June (the girl who had graciously opened her door to Rhonda) had to move down to hall to swap with someone else.
After seeing that the girls had already moved all their stuff into their new rooms, Lindsey gave the letter to Paul K. Paul promptly went into the ResNet admin settings and disabled internet access for all four girls until Monday.
Rhonda was released from her contract at the end of December and moved to REV for the winter term.
The lawnmower: Throughout the first eight months of 2004, the Grad Building had been under construction. It opened (with days to spare) in September 2004. After its opening, the college used hydroplanting to spray grass seeds on the dirt surrounding the building, but forgot one important step: removing the rocks and bits of debris in the dirt.
In Spring 2005, our gardener was mowing the lawn on his riding lawnmower, and when he was mowing near the Grad Building, he damaged his machine's blade on the rocks and debris. He said that he would refuse to cut the college's lawn until the lawn was cleared (and, obviously, that the college would have to pay for replacement blades in the event that there was more debris hit the blades in the future).
Not wanting the college to look bad worse than it already was, GB* asked the Res Life Team to recruit students to pick up the rocks and debris during their free time on a weekend (although he would provide food and pop for students who helped out, since there was no meal service on weekends). The dons advertised this on our blackboards. Unsurprisingly, not a single person on my floor volunteered to help out; in fact, I had several students come up to me and tell me what a dumb idea it was.
After telling GB that no students were interested (I claimed that it was because students were busy with midterms), he had to resort to hiring people for a couple of hours to pick up the debris.
Smoking: One common annoyance as a don is repeatedly telling people to butt out and take their smoking away from the building. I found people smoking in stairwells (with the door barely ajar), directly outside doors, even outside people's windows. I issued cards to a few people who repeatedly "forgot" my requests.
At a June open house day, a student came up to the admin and said that his parents were moving out of Ontario, but he was going to be starting at UW that fall, leaving him with no place to stay until September. He asked if he could possibly rent a room until frosh week, and he was given a contract as a "conference" to occupy an empty double room on one of the many vacant floors.
As I mentioned earlier, I always did a full walk-around the college at night, even on the empty floors where no one (or just a few guests) were staying. One night, I walked onto Empire and immediately noticed that something was wrong. I sniffed my nose a bit, walked down the hall a few doors in each direction, and pinpointed the smell. I grabbed a senior student nearby to identify the smell, and she had the same diagnose: cigarettes.
I got Jason*, and we knocked on the guest's door. He called out to wait a minute, and in the meantime (with my ear to the door) I heard a few things moving in the room. He let us in, and Jason was upfront with him. "We smelled something in the hall. Are you burning something in here?" He gave us excuses about burning old documents, but we didn't buy it (since we recognised the smell as being cigarettes). We also saw that he had neatly wrapped his smoke detectors with thick plastic bags, meaning that this had not been his first time smoking in his room.
We let him know that if he was caught burning stuff in his room again, we'd talk to the admin and ask for him to be evicted. We never had another problem with him.
It's good to share: Another "conference" we had staying at St. Paul's that term was a girl working on finishing up her Master's thesis, named Geneviève. She wanted to have a quiet place where she could work, but still be near to campus. One of the first times that I heard about her was when Joanne* came to me one night, angry as I had ever seen her.
"She stole my Nutella!"
"What?" I asked, not understanding her complaint.
"That French conference girl came down to Toast Time and toasted her bread. Then she took the bottle of Nutella and put a knife in it. I told her that it was my bottle and I had bought it! She asked if she could use it, and then continued to use it before I had a chance to say no. And then, as she gave me back the bottle, she said, 'It's good to share, you know?'"
I told Joanne that, as a don, I couldn't do much, but that if there were further problems or Nutella thefts, I would deal with Geneviève. Joanne never let that bottle of Nutella out of her grasp whenever she went down for toast the rest of that term.
On other occasions, Geneviève was loud and noisy in the cafeteria during mealtimes and argued with residents over the tritest of matters.
After she had been living at St. Paul's for a couple of weeks, Graeme* and I were returning from class and were cutting through St. Jerome's. As we walked through the back SJU parking lot, we saw Geneviève unloading a bunch of boxes and personal effects out of her car trunk (which was parked in the handicapped spot). She told us that she was fed up with St. Paul's and found a better deal at SJU for the rest of the summer. Geneviève was being charged $800 per two weeks at St. Paul's, which she thought that it was a fair (albeit pricey) deal, until the cafeteria staff told her that the rate didn't include a meal plan and that she was forced to forge for her own food.
Geneviève asked if we would help her move a few boxes from the car into her new room. Graeme and I agreed, though we suggested that it probably wasn't a good (or legal) idea for her to park in a reserved parking spot. Eventually, the SJU building manager saw her parked there and told her to move immediately. "It's only for disabled guests of the college," he told her.
"Well, I'm disabled right now with all of the stuff I'm carrying," she retorted. Steaming with anger, the building manager stormed off, and returned a few minutes later to tell Geneviève that a truck was on its way to tow away her car.
Fast-forward a week or two. The RLPC was having a small farewell party held in his honour in Sunken Lounge, and there had been a few posters up around St. Paul's promoting the event. The residents and college staff were there enjoying themselves, eating cake and reminiscing about old memories. Then, coming up the path, the students see Geneviève. There were murmurs whispering amongst the students, guessing that she had seen the posters and that she wanted to score some free cake.
Geneviève got talking with Prof. Fenn over a piece of cake, and some students thought of a way to get revenge at her for having stolen Joanne's Nutella. "I'll pay $5 if someone will go over, take her cake right off of her plate and eat it, and say, 'It's good to share, you know?'" one student quipped.
"Make that $10," said another.
"$15," added in a third.
Then Curtis* volunteered to do the deed. He walked up to Geneviève, who was in mid-conversation with Prof. Fenn, ate the cake, and said, "It's good to share, you know?" The students looking on could barely control their laughter.
Geneviève got her just desserts that day.