RA Without the Resources

This week I had the unfortunate experience of trying to do my job without the benefits of my master key or access to my email.

My email was temporarily restricted due to a loan paperwork issue, which took me two days to fully correct. Within the same period of time, the front door of my building decided to eat my master key-which also took two days to rescue.

AKA I ended up spending two days with no ability to any of the individual parts of my job. I had to work as an RA and as an ARD without being able to do anything independently.

At first, I actually thought-"Well I might as well consider the next few days a vacation, because there is not much that I can do." I was so wrong-I found out that in the midst of my lack of access to the concrete parts of my job-I was no less busy than normal. Instead of an inconvenient break-I was given a fortunate understanding of the fact that my job is so much more than unlocking doors and sending in maintenance requests.
I spend significantly more time working with individual residents about individual situations.

It felt a little bit more like the spiritual discipline of fasting, where one takes some time off of a normal piece of life so that one can focus, and depend on a deeper and more important piece.

While, I am thrilled to have my keys back, I did find a lot of value in taking the time to understand the value of the less concrete aspects of my job.