During your stay in the resident halls here at Marquette, you’re going to form some sort of relationship with your RA. There might be times where you wonder what gets under their skin versus what they find funny. Or if there’s anything you’re doing right now that may be annoying to them. Lucky for you, I interviewed 5 RAs and got the best stories ranging from shocking to hilarious. In accordance to rules, all of the RAs mentioned are kept anonymous.

When you’re dealing with up to 24 kids at once, something funny is bound to happen eventually.

One RA recalled the time when she knocked on a door at night and the people opened the door, mistakenly thinking she was a guest to their party.  She has also gone into rooms to find people hiding under beds and in the tub. As a tip, she wants residents to know that saying “Ssssh! The RA is coming!” makes it really easy for her to find you.

An RA told the story of when some of her residents tried to do some redecorating. They moved a bed into the hallway and took a couch up from the basement. This reminded another RA of how some of her residents like to scare her for fun. She said that they’ll jump out from behind the doorway right before they ask her a question. She doesn’t find this to be too irritating, just really unexpected.

But after enough experience with the job, the RAs have found certain things that annoy them (and not just make them laugh).

There are the obvious things like screaming and blasting music in the hallways, as well as moving and tearing down posters or their door decals. One RA mentioned that when he asks someone to turn down their music, he knows when they only put the volume down a notch or two.

Another RA was quite surprised by a trick his residents tried to get away with. He said that “they wrote notes as if they’re from me” and posted them around the floor so they could make up certain rules. One RA said a similar thing happened to her when residents lied about their ID numbers. She said one person told her their number was “1234567” which she clearly knew was untrue.

One of the biggest annoyances for an RA is when people know that guests need to be out of their rooms by 2:00, but they wait until 2:05 or later until they actually ask their guests to leave.

Moving away from the stories, I asked the RAs what their typical plan of action is when they have to handle a problem.

They all agreed that consistency is necessary. They can only use warnings for minor offenses, like loud music, and then write ups for whenever someone is breaking policy.

“My role is not to be finding problems” an RA said. She’s only in charge of documenting them. Only when residents become disrespectful is when she gets really serious.

I asked the RAs if they had any advice for students who want to take up the RA position in the future.

One RA reflected on the tough nature of the job: “be prepared to not sleep and get organized.”

But another RA mentioned that the job is still rewarding: “I would hate the RA job if it wasn’t for the residents. I basically got 24 new friends this semester that were handed to me.”