The RA means resident assistant and they are students who have certain responsibilities in the dorms outside of regular business hours. Some cynical students say that the RAs are responsible for staying sober during the weekend. Nonetheless they are the ones who need to know if there has been an injury in the dorm. I found the RA, Dave, and asked if he had heard about a woman falling down the steps and possibly being injured. He said no.
“I see,” I said, “I need to report a broken door between the common room and Aikens north.’’
“That I know about,”
“How? — it just happened a second ago.”
“I reported that the spring on it was broken a couple of days ago.”
“Sorry, we are not on the same wavelength here,” I said, probably still having the Schrödeinger wave equation on my mind. “I came running over here because Dingle told me of an injured woman and I broke the glass on the fire door as I ran through it.”
Greg, the RA, and I went to the door and he now understood. He thanked me for reporting it, taped it up, jammed it open, and said that this was indeed the door whose broken spring he had already reported.
We never did find anyone hurt from a fall so I went back to Shrödinger and Dave went back to his room. RA’s are supposed to be in their room or in some other clearly identified place in the dorm when they are on duty, and Dave was always in his room. Therefore he was always available when needed but did not always know what was going on in the dorm.
The door’s window and spring were fixed on the following Monday. A few weeks later I received a bill for $140. The university was billing me for the damage to the door. I talked to Dave and he said that he only reported that I was involved in the window break; he didn’t know who broke the spring beforehand. I called facilities management to try to find out what was going on but they said I had to make an appointment with a manager. So I went to see an administrator in the university’s power plant to appeal the charge.
The administrator, Nelson Porter, was a tall, lanky man with extreme male baldness that left him with a horseshoe of salt and pepper hair around the back and sides of his head. He was known throughout the campus as the guy with the keys. He had keys to every door on campus and he always carried them dangling loudly on several large key rings. He wore the same white shirt, narrow dark tie and green work pants every day, regardless of the weather.
I stood in front of Nelson’s desk and pleaded my case. I emphasized that the door was already broken, and had been reported earlier. I had reported the broken glass to the RA immediately and felt that I should not have to pay for it.
He shook his head and said, “You think I should pay for it?”
“Well, yes. If the door’s spring was not broken the glass would not have broken.”
“You know that for sure?” He said smugly, not trying to hide his contempt for me.
“Yes.”
“Ok,” he said shaking his head doubtfully, “I’ll subtract the spring repair and labor costs and just charge you the cost of the window.”
“I should not have to pay anything. The door was broken and it was the lack of a properly functioning door that resulted in the broken window.”
It might or might not have been beneficial for me to try to point out that not only was the door was broken, it had no warning signs about the defective spring and it was lucky that I or someone else had not been injured as a result. But I did not have a chance to pursue that argument before I was interrupted by Nelson.
“Listen,” Nelson said, obviously annoyed with me and his voice rising in anger, “I am billing you for $69 in parts. If you refuse to pay it, you do not graduate. If you appeal it, your account with the university may be put on hold and you may not be eligible to register for next term. Your account for this incident stands at $69.00. What you do about it is up to you.”
The man’s arrogance was infuriating. He knew he had absolute power and that I was in a position of complete weakness. There was no way I could force him to do the right thing, so he would get his money. I paid the bill. For me at that time this was a substantial amount of money. Every penny I had needed to go to tuition or living expenses. Nothing was extra and nothing was being saved. There was no choice, however.
I have used this episode as a learning experience for my own dealings with students. I am currently a Professor of Neurology and am fortunate to work with many bright and talented students. Remembering the demeaning treatment I received from Nelson Porter, I try to treat all my students as if they are potential peers. Nelson felt that I was a small fry with no recourse or significance. He made me feel small. So I always make sure that my own subordinates never feel small. Even though I did gain in the end from my experience with Nelson, I have not let that change my mind on what I resolved to do when I walked out of his office. I do appreciate the lesson, however.