We’re heading to an early Halloween party. My dorm is bringing a collection of drinks. Cans of beer and cans of cider are slightly different sizes. One student has a plastic bin.

Student #1: “Think these will fit? I don’t wanna try to carry these loose.”

Student #2: “I dunno; that bin’s not too big. Actually… how big is the bin? We can just do the math.”

We measure the bin.

Student #3: “Okay, so… total volume, minus beer volume, times beer count, minus cider volume, times…”

Somehow, she has a mini whiteboard — engineers are like this — and does some math.

Student #3: “That’s pretty close. Okay, if we treat each can as a rectangular cuboid—”

Student #2: “But the z-axis — the cider cans are longer—”

Student #1: “We can treat each layer as a separate packing problem—”

Student #2: “The sum of the height of both types of cans, plus one can on its side—”

Student #4: “Don’t worry; they’ll all fit.”

Student #1: “Wait, how do you know?”

Student #4: “I put the cans in the bin while you were arguing.”

This story reminded me of something that happened to me. This was in my first year in university, in early 2020, in the middle of winter, during a weekend where I stayed in my university’s dorm. It was freezing outside but cozy in my dorm. I was in my bed and unable to sleep because I needed to use the bathroom. I finally convinced myself that I needed to leave my cozy blanket and go to the shared washroom outside my dorm. I checked the time on my phone, and it was around 12:30 am.

I took my keycard and my glasses, and I didn’t bring my phone. After using the bathroom, I came back to my dorm to realize the keycard didn’t work. It was a long weekend, so my roommate had left to go back to her parents’ house.

I remembered that my roommate had experienced something similar to me. It was also during the weekends during the fall, but that time, I was with my parents. She woke up to find that she had started her period and panicked out the door. Due to her panic, she ran straight out, didn’t even wear her pants, and didn’t bring her keycard. She knew the floor deans had a master key because something similar had happened to her friend on a different floor (the first floor). So, she went to our floor dean, and the dean opened the door and said in a gentle voice that she wasn’t allowed to use the master key because she couldn’t tell if my roommate was an outsider. (Yep, an outsider with no pants and only a shirt and underwear.) Then, she closed the door on my roommate. Distressed, she went to the first floor and, luckily, the first-floor dean was there. After hearing the situation, the first-floor dean opened the door of our room for her. 

It was shocking that our floor dean cared so little; during orientation, she gave us her phone number and said if there was an emergency we could call her. She seemed so caring and turned out to be so not caring. To be honest, I’m not sure what her actual responsibilities were, but she did say she was responsible for our floor and would do her best to help with any issues we faced in our residence and outside during orientation.

Still hopeful, I decided to ask her anyway. I knocked, and she opened the door. I told her of my situation, holding out my keycard so she could see it. Then, I asked if she could open my room for me.

Dean: “I can’t; I’m not allowed to because you might not actually live here.”

I looked at the thin pajamas and slippers I was wearing and the keycard I was holding. 

Me: “It’s past midnight in the middle of winter, snowing and negative degrees outside, and I’m in pajamas and slippers. I also have a keycard in my hand. I can’t possibly be an outsider.”

She said in her gentle voice:

Dean: “If you have the keycard, you need to go to [Building] to get the keycard fixed.”

The thing is that [Building] was not attached to my residence, and sure, it was only a minute-long run, but it was winter and the snow was deep, so it would probably be longer, and once I went outside the residence, I couldn’t come back unless I had a working keycard, meaning I would be locked out. I also didn’t have my phone with me.

Me: “Can you just use the master key? I don’t feel comfortable going out in this weather at this time of the night. You can also see I have my keycard right here; it just suddenly doesn’t work anymore.” 

Dean: “I can’t do anything. You have to go to [Building] for them to get your keycard fixed.”

Me: “Can you give me their phone number, then? I don’t have my phone, but I can call them using the resident phone.”

Dean: “I don’t know their number. You need to go to [Building] and let them fix your keycard.”

And then, she closed the door on me.

I am so thankful that, deep down, I still think locking myself outside after midnight in winter, where the snow was deep and the ground was covered in ice, with thin clothing and no phone, was a stupid idea. I’m so thankful I chose to listen to it. The reason will be more clear as the story goes on.

I decided to do what my roommate did and go to the first floor. But I’m not that lucky; the first-floor dean wasn’t there. 

Because I was too shy and so upset by how the dean refused me, I didn’t want to go find her again. I was thinking about making a run for it, but when I opened the door, it was freezing cold. I had never been outside this late at night, and I was a young female who lacked self-defense training. 

So, I went back to my floor (the second floor) and cried in the hallway. I tried asking random students in the kitchen area for help, but they both said they were unsure of what to do. The idea to just make a run for it was more and more tempting because it was only a one-minute run. But I was also scared.

After a long time, I remembered at the back of my head that during orientation, I read somewhere that I could press zero on any phone in my residence and someone from [Building] would help me. I tried it, and someone picked up. I cried as I told them what had happened. Someone did come with a master key and got me back into my room.

The next morning, I went to get my keycard fixed — in proper winter wear. It was freezing, and I was shivering. I always thought I needed to go past [Building #2] in order to reach [Building] and was shocked to find [Building #2] locked. It took me thirty minutes to find [Building]’s phone number, and the receptionist told me I could walk around [Building #2] to reach [Building]. It took that long because their website was confusing, and I didn’t bring gloves, so my hands froze after a while. The snow wasn’t that deep because someone seemed to have shoveled it, but it was very slippery. It scared me to think what would have happened if I had actually chosen to make a run for it during the night.

It bothered me so much that I actually went to the student center once it opened and asked for a manager. I told the manager my experience and my roommate’s. I could tell he didn’t really care. I was in tears, but he didn’t seem to be bothered by it.

I retold him what happened, and during the process, he just had fake empathy. He kept saying he understood and trying to redirect the topic.

Me: “I was in pajamas and slippers and holding my keycard, and the dean still wouldn’t help me and said I might not live there.”

Manager: “Well, it might be that she couldn’t tell if you were actually living there.”

I just stared at him before raising my voice.

Me: “It’s the middle of winter, and I have my keycard with me! I couldn’t possibly be from outside the building!” 

Manager: “Okay, I agree. Well, it already happened. What do you think we can do to avoid situations, so it doesn’t happen to other people in the future?”

This just kept happening. I told him that the dean should have cared more and not suggested that someone go outside in the middle of winter in unfit clothing. He just brushed it off and kept trying to get me to answer, “What should we do to avoid this from happening in the future?” 

He was clearly on the side of the dean and kept finding excuses for her actions, even though he agreed that given what my roommate and I were wearing and holding when we were locked out, it was clear we lived there.

Then, I told him:

Me: “If I ran out that night and found the doors locked, my plan was to run to [Fast Food Place ten minutes away] and ask them to call 911.”

That was when he actually seemed to care, and he immediately jumped in:

Manager: “There is no need to involve the police.”

And then he asked the same question again about how to avoid this happening again. Finally, he asked whether I wanted an apology from the dean. 

I thought about it.

Me: “I want her to apologize to me.”

He promised it would happen. It did not happen and will never happen.

Because he asked so many times, I did make several suggestions, including that floor deans should only be people who care and that my floor dean was unfit to be a floor dean. I pointed out that keycards shouldn’t have this issue, and the floor dean should know what to do in these situations besides just telling people to go outside the building in the middle of winter in unfit clothing. He just brushed off all of my ideas. I finally suggested:

Me: “You should probably put up signs reminding us that we can dial zero to reach [Building].”

Manager: “That would be okay.”

So, the only difference after my complaint is that there is a paper on the floor dean’s door with [Building]’s full phone number. The phone is on the other side of the hallway, so good luck memorizing that number.

I know much more now. There were so many things I could have done differently — including offering to tell the dean what was in my room and unlock my phone. I also could’ve made them appear in the news; they were a big and well-known university.

Anyway, please, if you ever get into a similar situation, don’t ever put yourself in danger. If someone tells you to lock yourself out in the freezing winter with only pajamas and slippers, don’t do it.

Related:
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Campus parking passes at my college could be purchased for either one semester or a full year. One year, I originally intended to study abroad for the spring semester but ended up changing my mind late in the fall. I had a car on campus, and I couldn’t remember if I had bought only the one-semester pass or if I had played it safe and paid for the full year (knowing that study abroad wasn’t guaranteed and that the passes often sold out).

The first thing I did was check my student portal, which showed that my car was registered with the campus police but didn’t have anything about parking. Then, I did the somewhat obvious thing of checking my car windshield, and I realized there was a printed expiration date of May the following year. Awesome, I was all set.

Then, in mid-February, there was a severe blizzard. It started in the late afternoon, and alerts went out that all the cars on campus had to be moved to a specific emergency lot so that the smaller parking lots, dorm driveways, etc., could be plowed. The emergency lot was at the bottom of a hill, about a mile away from my dorm. I dutifully parked my car, walked a mile uphill in the snow for dinner at the dining hall, and hunkered down for the night.

The next afternoon, when the parking ban had been lifted and I went to retrieve my car, I found that I had three tickets. One was for displaying an expired parking pass, and two were for parking in the snow lots without a valid pass. The first of those identical tickets had been issued around 10:00 pm the previous night, and the second was around 7:00 that morning.

I went to the campus police department and showed the tickets to the woman at the front desk.

Me: “I don’t understand why it says my pass is expired. The expiration date is May of this year.”

Receptionist: “Yeah, but the sticker has a hole punch. That means it’s fall semester only.”

Me: “Wait, what?”

Receptionist: “Yeah, all of the tickets are printed with the same expiration date, but then we hole-punch the ones that are only good for the fall semester.”

Me: “That seems deliberately misleading. Where does it say that on the website?”

I pulled up the website on my phone. It was not explained on the basic “Parking Passes” page, and I knew it wasn’t on the student portal. But the receptionist had me click through to a different page, then go to a PDF, and then scroll past a whole bunch of regulations. The hole-punch system was explained there.

Me: “This is so unclear.”

Receptionist: “That’s just the system we use. You can submit a dispute if you want, but in the past, the system has always held up.”

Me: “Okay, but what about these other two tickets? I thought I had a valid pass because the language on the pass suggested I was fine. I made a good faith effort to comply with the parking restrictions.”

Receptionist: “It’s your responsibility to know that the pass is expired. Not having a valid pass is normally a Tier 1 ticket, but parking in the emergency lot without a valid pass is a Tier 3 ticket, which is also why you got two on consecutive days: because you didn’t move your vehicle after you got the first ticket.”

Me: “I didn’t get the first ticket until ten o’clock at night, and I got the second one first thing in the morning. You expected me to walk a mile… at night… in an active blizzard… just in case I had gotten a ticket? When I had no reason to believe I had done anything wrong?”

Receptionist: “Like I said, you can file a dispute if you want.”

So, that’s what I did. They ended up waiving only one of three tickets: the one that had been submitted at 7:00 am. I had to pay for the other two. Also, the spring semester parking passes had sold out, so I had to buy a town parking pass for almost three times as much.

Now, I live in a city with great public transportation, and any time I miss having a car, I remind myself of this story.

Me: “…and don’t forget, Monday’s a holiday, so the Monday discussion group will be moved to Tuesday.”

Student #1: “Wait, what holiday?”

Me: “Columbus Day.”

Student #1: “We celebrate that?”

Me: “Well, the university recognizes it as—”

I’m about to start talking about Indigenous People’s Day versus Columbus Day, but she interrupts.

Student #1: “No, I mean, we’re in New York. So, isn’t there a New York Day or something?”

Me: “…huh?”

Student #2: “Hey, [Student #1], you’re from Ohio, right?”

Student #1: “Yeah, Columbus, why?”

She had never connected the holiday to the person and just assumed each city had its own holiday.

This happened in 2010. Almost all of the professors of this one particular degree course are pretty lenient: you get to write stories. That said, if you don’t turn in a certain number of physical printer pages per semester, your grade will plummet. Rough drafts, finished stories, it doesn’t matter. Not to mention that you must have multiple copies of everything printed out so the other classmates can read and comment, meaning you’ll go through a LOT of paper. 

A rather frazzled classmate of mine is handing her six-page rough draft out to everyone in the room, all twelve or so of us. She realizes she doesn’t have quite enough copies for everyone. 

Professor: “That’s okay. Do you have it saved somewhere? Can you print it in the library?”

Classmate: “Well, uh, no, you see, uh… I don’t have a computer.”

Professor: “…what?”

Classmate: “I live with my grandmother. She doesn’t believe in technology. She lets me use her typewriter.”

Professor: “…you typed all of these out by hand?!”

Classmate: “Now you know why I look so tired all the time! I’ll get everyone more tomorrow. Also, I think we’re out of paper, so I might have to get more…”

Professor: “No. You’re going to get these to us when you can, and we’ll talk about it when you get them to us. Okay?”

That classmate changed the policy for that degree: rough drafts didn’t need to be physical paper, could be sent over email or cloud, and only the final draft needed to be printed!