The true
working drones of the
collegiate system. They are
overworked,
underpaid, and often used as targets for random attacks of
anger or
hatred. Y'know, the whole "
authority" thing ...
As for underpaid ... even though free room and board seems like a pretty sweet deal to the poor minions of the residence hall life, in actually, even that pay is pathetic compared to the number of hours worked.
For example, I had a friend who was an RA - she got room and board paid for one year (about $4000) and a small reimbursement (about $300 per semester). Doesn't sound bad, huh? But she also had to be on duty something like 24 hours a week, plus off-duty, on call duty for around 30 hours. She ended up making about $.10 an hour, if I remember correctly.
Not a horrible job, but it people are going into it for the perks, they will instead find themselves cleaning up freshman hall vomit at 3 a.m. every Saturday and constantly remembering that there are slave labor wages that pay more than this.