THE MICHIGAN DAILY I Page Five THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Five P ERSPECTIVE We're fall guys and buffers: students as Resident Managers By BLATCHFORD JASMINE EVARE the fall guys. We lose sleep looking for lost dogs. We placate residents who can't pay rent "because of this lump on my breast here"; we are cheap and easy to replace; we are another buffer in the com- plex system of insulation created by big management and land- lords to shield themselves from their tenants. We are a strange breed: we are the Resident Managers of Ann Arbor apartment buildings. Companies, compensation and building size may differ. As a rule, though, we are full time stu- dents who need work to make ends meet. Lured to the job by visions of luxury, stature and the privacy of living alone, we are the front line for tenant complaints: the garbage man, parking attendant, feces scooper and snow shoveler. 'THE CRASH of the door knock- er reverberates in my mid. In that semi-slee, that I've learned to accent. I wnll on jeans andsweater and glance at the clerk. 3:28 a.m. There thev are-stoned, eyes half-closed, reeking of beer. "Where's the dog?" "Whaaa. "The dog man, the dog. Have yon een the dog?" "Ahh." I remember a dog barking while trying to sleep. " Where the fuck did you put the dog?" His wavering Is ludi- crnis. - "No dne man," I say, waking un. "Didn't see one, thoueht I heard one, didn't see one, didn't touch one either. Sorry, hope you find it." I sht the door, snap the dead- bolt; throw the autonilot in my head to "off" and fall into my bed. Halfway out of my jeans I heara mumble. "He was pretty nice for being awakened in the middle of the night." * * * rTyy BE a Resident Manager, one must be many things for many people. Some residents in- sist that you know their most in- timate problems, often using a late rent as an excuse to pour auttheir hearts.: Others feel ian R.M. is an an- thorty figure to be baited and teased. Firecrackers go off un- der my window and I find m name graffitied on the elevator walls. Some tenants feel the R.M. i a logical extension of the land- lord: a tightfisted Shylock buin- ing young innocents for hard- earned pennies. Although most tenants are con- siderate, some suffer for the thoughtlessness of a few. This is only one of the dilemmas in which the R.M. finds himself. A defensive conditioning develops. When the phone rings, I expect the worst and an often unsympa- thetic. Negative residents stimu- late negative responses, even if they have legitimate complaints. One of a landlord's favorite ploys is "The Big Stall," a de- vice that frustrates a tenant by buck-passing, excuses, and time delays. The problem "goes away" (read "solved" for land- lords) when the tenant decides his time is too valuable to waste in a waiting room. When the boss goes home at 5, the R.M. must then answer for uncompleted work, for he is the most readily accessible. Confronted with a complaint and yet impotent to interfere with a matter handled by the main office, the R.M. can offer only sympathy. * * * THE FOLKS in number 12 want their bedframes removed, so they send a representative down to me. I tell her that she's got to call the maintenance company because the job requires a truck and access to storage space. She calls maintenance but everyone's' out and the answering service is on. The tenant comes back, frustrated that she could only get a recording. I say I'll try, and so I put my own message on the recorder. Then I call management to explain the situ- ation and get some idea of when someone will be available to take out the bedframes. "Today? Next week? Just so I can give the woman an idea." The secretary says she'll see. All of a sudden six men and three trucks are working on two lousy- bedframes. They all picked up one of the three messages, and the management gets billed for six men at $4 an houreach. I get a call the next day from the building's owner-"If anyone wants bedframes out . . . you do it." * * * ERNIE AND I are walking up to the fourth floor. He's an old maintenance man from Dex- ter, competent and sensitive. The savior for many tenants, he somehow perseveres through the red tape, triplicate work orders, and bitchy tenants who ask him to move walls. While we climb, he is rapping about the judicial process. "Now you take this guy from New Jersey .. ." "Anywhere you say, Ernie." "Now there's a man who owns his home, and has it broken into twice. So before leaving the next time, he sets up a shotgun with a string to the front door. And, sure enough, ,he leaves and some- one tries to break in, and gets himself blown to hamburger." We're going to break the lock on a door. Some Superfly types hadn't paid the rent in three months and had apnarently final- ly split. Only problem was they had changed the locks. "Now this guy got convicted of manslaughter," Ernie explains. "You tell me if that's fair. If somebody wants to be a joker, that's all right with me. But he shouldn't interfere with my life, thassall." I couldn't disagree. Inside, the apartment is abandoned. I find a .22 caliber bullet and Ernie finds some sunglasses. The shades fit him. "Hey, not a total loss after all." * .* .* The problems lie with both land- lord and tenant. If a landlord in- sulates himself with layers of Resident Managers, secretaries and answering services, he be- comes insensitive to tenants. He chastising me for not being at home to pass out a vacuum cleaner. The phone rings and it's someone asking why the steps haven't been salted; he almost fell and will sue. Taking off my coat and dropping my notebooks, I wonder if the heat in this place will ever work right, and what's Why waste time studying or watching TV when you could be playing pool? POOL IS PARTICIPATION THE MICHIGAN UNION BILLIARD ROOM I= IN - Some feel a Resident Manager is an authority figure to be baited and teased. Firecrackers go off under my window and I find my name graffit- tied on the elevator walls. Others feel the R.M. is a logical extension of the landlord: a tightfisted Shylock burn- ing young innocents for hard-earned pennies. 4yM vd .J.^v~srwr}.": r": r: in collaboration with the Experimental Theater Festival a repeat performance of ROUND AS A HOLE by SKIP STORM AND A TOUC by DONNA KOS SUNDAY, Feb. 24 H OF MIME ST ond CONNIE RATHBUN 7 p.m. Barbour Gymnasium GRADUATE STUDENTS WELCOME! can judge only symptoms, such as sinking rent collections and rising maintenance bills. Such symptoms are a clear sign of problems, for which expenditures will be necessary. Yet when col- lections are down, reluctance to disburse service goes up. Tenants, frustrated with per- sonal or rental problems often damage the property in its com- mon areas, making it unattrac- tive, unpleasant, and often dan- gerous, A single tenant who throws a brick through a foyer window casts all the occupants in his image. To repair the dam- age, the landlord dips into in- come or insurance. The net re- sult is always the same: to amend any problem costs money, and quite simply, that money comes from rent. * * * There is a note on my door going to happen if I take some time off over spring break. I start the shower so people won't knock, turn around and head for a beer. OYR GRAD COFFEE HOUR WEDNESDAY 8-10 p.m. West Conference Room, 4th Floor RACKHAM Blatch ford Jasmine is, clearly, a pseudonym for a local student and apartment Resident Manager who fears that his true identity would seriously jeopardize his financial future. __. Ja Tu Ty Tarn . II iit by JOHN ZEBROWSKI Fifty two poems exploring the individuals relation to experience in the modern world $1.50 available in Ann Arbor at FOLLETTS CENTICORE e ULRICH'S i UNIVERSITY CELLAR i JACOBSON'S WILL BE CLOSED, FOR INVENTORY next TUESDAY, FEB. 26 Jacob sorxYs ; , !. t . ;II -- _ - _- N 7 Box 3908--San Juan, PR. 00904 pose SAT., SUN., & WED. at 2 4 s'university 1, 3,5, 7, & 9 .'w MON , TUES.5at 7& 9 ONLY C A MPUS Theatre Phone 668-6416 Robert Redford as eem iah Johnsn" A SYDNEY P I ILM 4 The man I i r... . 0 0