Fire, Life, and Safety

In my last two years as an undergrad at Pepperdine, I've worked for the Housing office as an RA. The job has its benefits (free housing), and at times it has its rewards (once in a blue moon I actually get to help someone). For the most part, though, I really can't stand it. I'm forced to pretend that I am important, to pretend that I possess some modicum of actual authority, and forced--daily-- to pretend that I care about things I really, truly, do not care about, not even a little bit. While it thrills me that my little wards trust me enough to seek my counsel in their dishwashing/video-game-usage/personal hygiene/her-food-makes-the-apartment-smell-funny/I'm-pretty-sure-he-hates-me-because-I'm-black debates, I honestly think that a room full of twenty-somethings should be able to solve problems like these on their own.

When I lived in a dorm full of freshmen, it was a different story: there is no creature on God's green earth more clueless than a freshman boy. My year with the boys of Sigma hall was the busiest of my life. On any given day, I'd come back to my room to find one of them napping in my bed--sometimes I'd wake up to discover this. I kept a bag of cheap cigars in my desk drawer for when they broke up with their girlfriends (you see, the only way to get an 18 year old guy to talk, even when you know he wants to, is to trap him in one place with a 45 minute cigar. He'll open up about the time the second ash drops, and he could be crying by the third).

The trouble with a job like this one is that it really does have potential to be a significant leadership role. In some cases, that potential is realized. For most, like me, being an RA is a silly mess of pretending and paperwork.
Our first piece of paper is one which is handed to me once an academic term, per the ever-vigilant Malibu fire marshall: The Fire, Life, and Safety Form.
I complete this double-sided form twice a year, after I've inspected every room in my 30-apartment complex, and asks questions like:

Is every power cord being properly used?
Are there any pieces of cloth on the wall?
Is all the furniture suitably situated?
Even when it rains, are there any areas where water tends to puddle?
Do any smoke detectors appear to be hyper-sensitively activated?

We're all consumed by security--getting it, keeping it, expanding it. We want, and understandably so, to ensure that we and our stuff will be safe in any possible series of situations. So we develop and complete forms, and we send our people to inspect every lampshade and smoke detector. We search for puddled water and sound the alarm at a clogged dryer vent. We document everything.

In moments like these, I'm forced to confront the fact that my job can be practically reduced to little more than an insurance policy. If the building falls over tomorrow, we've got it on paper that the broiler drawers in every kitchen were free of obstruction. In the end, though, the safety of my belongings still hinges on my neighbour's woefully overloaded surge protector. And that's okay.

Every time I'm asked to fill out another one of these, I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, which my father read to me years ago, before bedtime. Approaching Aslan the lion, a hesitant child asks, "Is he safe?". "Oh no," comes the response. "He's not safe. But he is good." Security, it seems to me, is largely a myth, even with a dutifully completed Fire, Life, and Safety form on file in hard copy. Living in a university apartment complex, or really anywhere else, isn't safe. But it can still be good, regardless of what the form says.