Thursday, November 21, 1996
GREEN:
The many roles, responsibilities were not considered in columnBy
Sergio Gonzales and Laura Luu
In regards to Leah Green’s Nov. 11 column, "You know you’re
having a bad day when …"
You know you have writer’s block when …
… that Viewpoint deadline is tomorrow and all you have are
complaints about the day you’ve had.
There are people in this world who don’t know how they’re gonna’
eat the next day.
There are people in this world who don’t know how they’re gonna’
put clothes on their children’s backs and shoes on their feet.
There are people in this world who never learned to read or
write because they were out in the fields working to provide for
their families.
You, on the other hand, are fortunate to be receiving a college
education at an acclaimed university. As a journalist and
contributor to the Daily Bruin, how can you justify the unwarranted
personal attack and unfair caricature that obviously contributed
nothing to your last article  not even the slightest hint of
humor  without giving the parties involved an opportunity to
rebut?
Let me give you a true account of a bad day.
You know you are having a bad day when …
… you go through all the things that were listed in a recent
Viewpoint article and in addition: have to get up at 7 in the
morning to get to work to pay for books and tuition, skip lunch to
make it to class on time, then rush back to work for a split-shift,
then hike up to Rieber to just miss dinner, go to three hours’
worth of meetings, then grab your radio to be on duty until 7 the
next morning, do your rounds only to encounter someone who should
know better than to bring bulk alcohol (nine beers constitutes nine
shots of hard liquor or nine glasses of wine, which in my
experience as a bartender I can vouch for you is more than enough
to get the hardiest of booze-hounds drunk) and leave it out with
the door wide open, spend an hour filling out paperwork for the
said incident, get back to your room to spend two hours counseling
a resident who’s having personal and family problems, and then try
to find time to do that homework that’s due tomorrow before you
have to get up and go through the same day again.
To top it all off, somewhere during your bad day, you finally
find a few minutes to sit back and read the Daily Bruin and see an
article that kicks your feet out from under you. Ms. Leah Green, I
know you have talent in you that would be better spent writing an
article that lets people know how hard it is being a resident
assistant. Maybe you could explain to people that an RA is a
full-time student too, who holds a full-time job, and usually has
another job on the side. Our roles as RAs are: 1.) to provide an
in-house resource for residents seeking counseling ranging from
pregnancy to suicide, 2.)give residents academic advice, 3.)
provide students opportunities for personal growth, 4.) help them
develop leadership and study skills, 5.) ensure a safe and
comfortable community for you to live and study in, or 6.) at the
very least giving you back your name and humanity in a school
36,000+ strong that has labeled you with a nine-digit student i.d.
number.
Unfortunately, ours is also the burdensome task of upholding
university and OnCampus Housing policies; believe me, we don’t
enjoy the hours of paperwork it comes with, nor do we relish the
negative image that it brings on us, but it is part of our job. So
the next time you think you’ve been treated unfairly by your RA,
please take a moment to place yourself in his/her shoes and show a
little compassion and understanding.