Busiest Work Week So Far

Last week was the busiest we've been at work so far. We had all buildings open, and conference and camp attendees living in all the dorms. The night I was duty was the busiest I've ever been since I started working. One group had over 500 people, so I was working from morning till late at night. I didn't even get to eat dinner, but the best part was that this man saw how hard working we were, he decided to buy us dinner. So we got a free late night dinner of Chinese food.

A little explanation of what a summer staff does....

During the summer, when the dorms are empty, they are converted into a hotel-like housing service. Conferences and camps would rent out the rooms, and the summer staff would be in charge of making sure they get what they need - towels, linens, soap - and also see to it that everything works fine - running water, working toilet and A/C, lights, etc.

The summer staff is divided into 3 teams - Conference Assistants (CA), Maintenance Assistants (MA), and Project Assistants (PA). I'm an MA, so my job is to make sure everything is working fine. We fix minor damages in all the dorms and apartments - plumbing, lights, furnitures, HVAC, and more. The CAs deal with the customer service part of the job. They check people in and check people out, they work at the front desk of each building, and they prep rooms - making beds, making sure there are towels, soaps, toilet papers, etc. The PAs work on different projects throughout summer - basically, they do a lot of painting of rooms and patching holes in the walls.

Throughout the summer, we would have a lot of groups coming in and out. Last week we had a Native American Conference with over 800 people, Tennis camp, Boys Lacrosse camp, Girls Lacrosse camp, Meyerhoff Scholars, Upward Bound, Honors College Scholars, and more. In the next weeks, we would have cheerleading camps, soccer camps, and more academic and athletic groups come in. So it is a busy summer.

The big groups from last week had already checked out, so the dorms are cleared and empty, except for one. This week has been pretty mellow so far, but then again, it's only Monday. Unfortunately for me, I'm scheduled to be on duty this July 4th, and more groups are coming in a few days. I'm just hoping to see some fireworks on the 4th. I'll have to strategically find a nice location where I can see the fireworks. A few people already gave me some locations with nice views.