My Housing is Ghettoish

My Housing is Ghettoish

This is not an overstatement of a disgruntled first season newbie rookie. This is the mantra of a permanent resident taken advantage of and lied to by the Housing office here.

My building is “Big Blue” 155. For all intent and purposes the best building. Galley is there, the store, craft room, recreation office, gear rental (xx skis, games, dressy clothes….), the library, the video store, and the computer kiosk…… everything under one roof.

Fortunately, I was the first on scene in our room. There were 6 beds, so I chose the one in the front corner behind the door when it opened. The room is sparsely furnished. No dressers or wardrobes. The only dresser space we have is the 2 small drawers under the bed and the nightstand drawers. It looks like a room in an orphanage or home for wayward youth. Let’s do some math: 6 beds, 5 nightstands, 4 pillows, 2 lamps (1 doesn’t work), 1 mini fridge and 1 chair that is disgustingly filthy.

Returners told of these rooms as “transitional” rooms. They were for the personnel not staying in McMurdo. They were only there until flights could go to South Pole and remote field camps, so their accommodations didn’t need to be complete for only a day or week. I wondered if a mistake had been made. All my roommates were moving on to other work sites. Chelsea and Elissa were going to Pole, Rosemary to WAIS Divide, and another roommate was going to Byrd. She never stayed because she found a friend with a spare bed in a quad room.

First year permanent residents are typically supposed to be roomed in 155, but upstairs in quad rooms. I was glad to be on the first floor, but not with a possibility of sleeping w/ 5 other people. So I calmly approached Housing and inquired about the arrangement of me being in a transitional room. They informed me that those rooms were no longer considered transitional, that they were in fact permanent rooms. I asked why then all my roommies were transitional, and their reply was “coincidence”. I left there with a bad feeling.

Later that day I was eating lunch with Shuttle Bob and Ginny and told them my predicament. They were both appalled at my situation. They both had been coming down for a few seasons and never had heard such a thing. They both suggested that I talk to Tom my supervisor.

I let Tom know the problem with the room of not having a place to put everything. Everyone had to stack their bags and luggage in every corner, overflowing everywhere.  The drawer space was certainly not adequate for a permanent resident for 4 months and living out of your stacked bags wasn’t good for morale either. Even the beds weren’t for permanent residents. They were not the adjustable height beds for stacking or storing gear baggage underneath. He shot off an email to the Housing supervisor Curtis and then asked me to go and introduce myself to Curtis later that day.

When I went to the Housing office, I introduced myself to Curtis and explained that my supervisor Tom had sent an email on my behalf and wanted me to put a face to the name. Curtis seemed less than impressed and definitely gave off the vibe that he didn’t care. I explained the room setup. If it indeed was a permanent room, it certainly was not furnished accordingly. He stated he would try and move me upstairs to a quad but there was no guarantee. I told him that I didn’t mind being on the first floor, I just wanted a wardrobe to put my bags in and out of the way, and wanted to be fairly roomed with 3 other roommates, not 4 and absolutely not the full 6. He told me that wardrobes were scarce but give him a week and he would try and get one from Hut 10.

All this sounded more promising than what his assistant asked of me a few days earlier. She said there were NO wardrobes to be had, that maybe they could scrape up a few more nightstands to stack or I could knock on doors on the second floor and ask around to see if anybody had an open bed. When she told me that, I stared at her dumbfounded. Weren’t THEY housing? Didn’t they have records of what empty beds they had? And what group of ladies would tell a complete stranger they had an empty bed when they could live less crowded? GRRRRRR! So stupid!

Elissa was successful in getting more lamps for us.  The switch on mine had the wires bulging out of the switch and it needed to be wiggled just so for the light to stay on. A week after dealing with that, I wiggled it for the last time when sparks flew out of the switch, shocked me and shorted out the lamp. Elissa had moved out to a friend’s room temporarily, so I threw my lamp in the non-recyclable bin and took the one from that bed.

Elissa left because we all got emails telling us to make room for a roommates. The 5^th person’s name was Tressa. She was also a perm res who quickly became upset with the room situation and vowed to find other quarters post haste.

So a week goes by. Chelsea left for Pole, but the day after, Heather another perm, moved in. On a good note, I walked into my room and almost smacked into a giant wardrobe. Good- now I can start settling in. I turn my bed 90 degrees, put the wardrobe at the end of the bed and hang a sheet from the back corner of it, down the length of the bed to the wall. Then the space between the front corner of the wardrobe and the door hinges, I hung another sheet as my door to my new cave. I may have too many roommates but at least I have privacy now. In guilt I offered half my wardrobe to Tressa who declined because of her grand plan to escape, so I let Heather use half.

Heather had made a friend at orientation named Ellen. Ellen was stuck on the top bunk in her room and was not comfortable or happy. So Heather, without consulting the established residents of the room, invites Ellen to move in to our already crowded room. GRRRRRR! Rosemary doesn’t like this and moved to the room Ellen just came from, since she’ll be leaving soon anyway.

In case you lost count: Me, Tressa, Heather and Ellen. Fine with 4. Tressa is using an empty bed as a wardrobe; her stuff stacked high. Then we all get another email that another roommate is coming.

Tressa on two separate occasions has found different places to move to and has properly asked Housing for permission to do so. Each time they told her she could not. Then Ellen officially asked Curtis if she could move INTO our room and he approved. So apparently, you can move into our ghetto, but no one can legitimately leave. At this point I’m beginning to think this is a personal vendetta against me by Housing. GRRRRR!

Our new roommate is Casey; another cook like Heather, the same age and both airheads. PERFECT. Our room had immediately turned into a Jr High cafeteria table occupied by gossipy cheerleaders. Terrrrr- rific.

Ellen and I are both nightshift workers, meaning we sleep during the day. Heather and Casey have yet to grasp this concept. Meaning, IF they need to come into the room while we’re sleeping, they make as little noise as possible and don’t talk. Heather will make phone calls home while I’m sleeping, but when she hears me awake, she will whisper to whoever’s in the room. She is completely oblivious and not so bright. I’m hoping to get her trained in the next week or two. It’s like paper training a puppy- too bad I don’t have a rolled up newspaper to smack her nose when she wakes me up.