Or at least that's what my husband calls it. I kind of refer to it as the 'mistress'. No matter what you call it EVERYONE in residence life knows what I am talking about. THE DUTY PHONE.
Yup, I am going there. It's that thing that you know exists but you really wish there was a way for it not to be there, or ring as much. Unfortunately it comes around to you every year and depending on the size of your department, the rotation you follow and how high you are on the duty phone chain you get it several times a year. Also depending on how high you are on the duty phone chain it will ring more often then you care to answer. Yes when you have the duty phone it might actually ring more then your regular phone. It will ring in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, in the middle of the night. It will ring when you are eating dinner, it will ring when you are sitting at your desk getting work done, it will ring when you are in the shower, it will even ring when you are using the bathroom. Yup, that phone doesn't discriminate when it rings.
What some people don't understand is that this phone will interrupt a person's personal life. I was an RA and had to call the Hall Director duty phone a few times. Thankfully never in the middle of the night, but late at night and had to get the police involved and it took a while. It's one of those things that you know you are pulling them away from their time at home, their relaxation, their sleep but unfortunately it's something you have to do. If you are like my family and the duty phone rings, it means pulling Casey away from his family. Sometimes, if I am at work, the kids get to stay up a little later because bedtime gets interrupted by a phone call. Or I get a nice middle of the night wake up. It's not quite, it has to be a little loud to pull you out of a deep sleep. Only ONCE in the 8 years I have been with my husband have I slept through a duty call. I don't even know how I did it. I didn't find out until the next morning that the phone had rang at 1am and Casey not only answered it in our room, left to go downstairs, came back up to find clothes, left the house and came back into bed. That never happens to me. If you are like me and a light sleeper, I am sorry but you are going to get woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call at least once if not more a year. The middle of the night calls all really depend on the structure they have the duty rotation at your institution. Chances are you, or your significant other started at the bottom of the 'food' chain and got woken up a lot, but as you get higher in res life you might not get called as much.
If you are a hall director, living on campus actually could make duty a little easier. You don't have to travel too far(depending on how big the campus is) so if you need to leave it shouldn't take you that long. If you are like us and live off campus and you have to go to campus it makes that duty call just a little bit longer. But like I said the higher up you are the less you might get called and asked to come to campus.
Also if you have a family like us, it might mean keeping dinner warm until they can get home because they got a call just as they were walking out of the office. If you work in the evenings like I do and have kids, you might have to drive to them to drop the kids off so you aren't late for work.
It's really a juggling act to have a life while you are on duty. You cannot leave the city in which the school is in, you obviously can't have alcoholic drinks. Honestly would you want to go to the movies, because you might be interrupted and have to leave and miss the middle and/or end of the movie. I wouldn't know how you would explain leaving someone while you are on a date to answer a call, unless this person knows your profession and understands. I would say probably safe NOT to do on a first day with someone while you are on duty, unless you want to use that as your 'get out' phone call. ;)
Thankfully, depending on the duty structure of your school, you will only have it for a few nights, and probably at most a week at a time. Then hopefully you have a nice long break where you are down to just one phone. Although those duty weeks sneak up on you. My heart always drops a little when i see that second phone come out of his pocket. I just pray that it never rings in the middle of the night, or that he has to wake the kids to go to campus while I am still at work.
Hope all your duties are uneventful and pass quickly.
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