Ryan’s Journey

Monday night I came home to change my shirt, and head back to my fraternity house for our meeting, I noticed that the elevator wasn’t working. So I headed back to the front desk to let them know. As soon as the girl at the front desk turned to grab the number for the after-hours maintenance people, the fire alarm goes off. I stay there in the lobby waiting for everybody to get out, since I still had my cold.After the students headed outside, I got the attention of the RA’s and RD, who were standing there. At first they pretended like I just appeared there. I asked if they wondered why I was downstairs sitting in the lobby. They acted like it was a natural thing, me randomly sitting in the lobby at 6:30 pm. An RA is a resident assistant/advisor, who answer questions about various things about living on campus and such. A RD is a resident director.

One of the RAs came over to where the RD and I were talking, the RA was like “Remember I checked on you like five minutes ago?” I looked at him and straight up said “I don’t really think saying ‘Hey what’s up Ryan’ and didn’t even hear my answer because you walked away, is checking on me.” Then I began asking them to tell me what the University of Washington’s policy for disabled people in case of a fire alarm. They mumbled a few things, which showed they didn’t have a clue. I told them how the University of Washington’s policy only entails if the individual is in their room. Doesn’t say what to do if the person just walked in the door, on another floor visiting somebody (GASP! Disabled people have friends??), or downstairs getting food. The brillant RA and RD both offered to escort me to my room. I began to laugh, and politely asked how that would work when the elevator was broken, and that it was the elevator that caused the fire alarm in the first place. The look on their face wasn’t too happy. Then I mentioned how my RA never even spoke to me in regards to the policy at all.

While the students were heading outside, I shot a text message to a guy in my fraternity saying there was a fire alarm here so tell people I probably will not be at the meeting because of it. When I was talking to the RD, she caught sight of my cell and told me how she thought of the idea of giving her my number. I just laughed again and said the following things:

1. her idea wasn’t original at all, since the RD from last year tried to get my number, which he got that idea from somebody else
2. I pointed out that I don’t have my cell on me always.
3. Nine times out of 10, I have my cell on silent, so hearing it OVER the fire alarm is impossible.
4. If I did hear, feel, or see (in the case of it being on my desk) I wouldn’t answer it due to the fact of me getting to a safe place is more important than answering my cell.
5. That it is the responsibility of the RA, or the person who the RA assigns to help me, to knock on my door to check on me, and then report that status to the person in charge, who in turn tell the firemen. Which never happens.
6. As a follow-up to #5, I said by having the RA or you call me, it breaks the rules of the University of Washington’s policy since that states that somebody is supposed to physically check my room from the last time I was told the policy.

After the fire alarm was all finished, I told the RAs and the RD that would be in the lounge, and to get me ASAP when the elevator is working again. Around 8, I haven’t heard anything from them, so I gave the RA on duty a call. The RA said he’d give the RD a call, and come to the lounge and tell me in 15 minutes. Finally an hour later he shows up in the lounge with another RA, and says he doesn’t know anything new. Trying to stay calm, I couldn’t believe that was possible, I told them that I had to get my room soon, but there is no way that I am just letting my wheelchair chill in the lounge overnight, so they had to figure a solution out. I went on to say how much my wheelchair costs, what it would mean if something happened to it, and that I would have to hold the University accountable. They came up with a plan to lock the doors within the lounge; I agreed to this plan. Unfortunately, this required me to crawl up and down the stairs.

Normally, I don’t like being this much of an asshole, but I had to be firm and show that their crappy job wasn’t good at all.

Technorati Tags: university of washington, fire alarm, policy

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