Checkout Insanity

Posted by Braden

Checkouts . . . *sigh* . . . what a long, long week. It started out alright—only a few checkouts per night, mostly over the phone, not too much junk in the lobbies or overflowing from the dumpsters. Friday, though, was madness.

Of 13 boys' rooms, only two were ready for their final checkout walk-through at the time they scheduled. While I waited for the next room to be ready (as I was on duty and couldn't really leave my building to do anything else), I built architectural wonders out of the turned-in mattress pads. :) What did I care though that the boys were all late? I was on duty all day (with the exception of a few hours in the middle of the day for quick meal), and the rooms all needed to be done that night; I'd just do them all right in a row. And did. And it was painful.

For five hours I did deep-cleaning checks, recording the things that needed to be completed, the jobs that needed redoing, and the charges for boys who had already left, etc. You know that black mold that shows up on top of shower-curtain rods and seems to come by the pint? No? Well, neither did most of the boys in my hall. I usually had to get some on my finger first from checking it before telling them that the rod would need a quick scrubbing. And splashboards—oh, how I hate checking the splashboards!

Finally, Friday night at 10 p.m., the last of the walk-throughs were done. By 10 a.m. the next day, all of the boys were out of the building, and I had the rest of the day (until 6:30 p.m., when I finished) to prep the building for the next event for which housing was required: Women's Conference (talk about a tough crowd to satisfy in terms of cleanliness)! I put a blanket, mattress pad, and pillow on each bed, closed all the blinds, turned off all the lights, locked all the doors, filled out final work-order requests, collected all the things that boys forgot about or didn't realize that they'd forgotten (six boxes full of everything from posters to magnets to socks to pots). Lobby trash cans were emptied, leftover cleaning supplies taken to the central building, smoke alarms tested, and fire extinguishers checked. At last, at 6:30 p.m., I finished. FREEDOM!

In all sincerity, the RA job has been a blast all semester! I've loved the chances I've had to help my boys, plan programs, be involved, and learn people-management skills; but man, way to end with a bang . . . a somewhat painful, but relatively brief, bang.