Desk Adventures

When you work at a place for any amount of time, you see and hear things that are amusing, odd and sometimes nerve wracking. Especially when you work at a university, late a night.

As I've mentioned before, I used to work late nights at the desk. These are high peak times, especially Friday night/Saturday morning. You see all sorts of people in various levels of intoxication.

I've seen people try to crawl past the desk to sign in, run past the desk to get into the building, girls dressed in almost nothing to go to frat parties in December... it's an interesting job. I've also seen people try to seek beer and wine into the building and holding it while they explain to me "oh, it's not alcohol, its just a vase that you hear in my suitcase".

People have actually run away from here when I ask them "if there is anything that is not allowed in the building, you better toss it now. People have come in with blood on their faces, people have come in carrying another person who is hopefully passed out. People have started to fight outside of the front doors, police have arrested and cuffed residents for reason I don't know. Residents have actually stolen IDs and tried to gain access to the building only to be stopped by the ID readers by the door. When asked if their ID works, they eventually fess up and I tell them to leave.

Some residents are very dumb when it comes to getting pass me at the desk. People have waited very close to the doors that lead into the building, waiting for someone to open so they can get into the building. People have sworn up and down that they live here and when asked simple questions about living here like "what's your room number?" or "who is your roommate?", they try to act all cool and make up excuses.

As the semester and year goes on, I don't see as much stupid behaviors from residents. They generally know the rules and so do their guests. It is usually the first three weeks where I see the majority of these situations.

Workin' the Desk

CAs have many assigned roles. One of which is a desk assistant (DA). What a DA does is, well... sit at the front desk of a residence hall. All freshman halls on ASU campus are open 24/7. There is someone behind the desk at all times, save for winter break and summer vacation but even then, there is one hall that is open for Summer Bridge or a main winter break desk. CAs are required to work four hours at their hall's desk. Those required hours are not paid but we can work more hours to make some money. It's not a lot, $7.25 an hour but it pays the bills. Myself, I work 16 additional hours at Palo Verde East and Palo Verde West desks. Since I'm in PLEX (Palo Verde East and West), it only makes sense to work these desks.

This is a brief run down of what we do at the desk:
-Check the keys to make sure that they are all accounted for
-Check out keys to residents who have locked themselves out of their rooms
-Check out keys to appropriate vendors and ASU Facilities Management
-Check out equipment
-Answer telephones using proper telephone etiquette
-Various administrative tasks
-Checking students IDs to verify that the live here and if they don't, they have a resident of the building escorting them
-Being aware of the behavior of the residents and calling the CAs on duty to have them address the issue

Those are basic DA tasks. It's gets more complicated when move-in and move-out occur. As with any job, we have rules that we have to follow. Some rules are:
-No drinking at the desk or before your desk shift
-No sleeping at the desk
-Don't leave the desk (someone is always behind the desk)
-Always dress in ASU attire
-Always be on time for your shift or call ahead to let the person you are relieving that you will be late

You can be fired if do not follow the rules. Some rules are more serious than others (like the no alcohol rule) and they do fire you on the spot.

If you follow all the rules, it's pretty fun and can be laid back, depending on the shift. I've been working the desk since I was a freshman so I've experience really heavy traffic and seeing no one during my shift. I've also seen some very interesting sides of residents during my desk shift. It can be very entertaining.