Well here I sit, already well over a week into my job. So far it has been a pleasant experience but I have had one problem. I feel "my people" are being held back compared to others because the (most likely) out-of-touch elderly committee that makes up the Housing staff who make policies for everyone have no idea how those "modern hand held gadgets" work. A night staff is held high compared to the other workers at the dorms because apparently changing your sleep schedule is an amazingly hard and stressful thing. Personally I do not let the position of the sun rule when I sleep - but I digress.

So with this special title we get benefits that the other workers do not get. We are allowed to do many things on the job, these include: Drawing, coloring, playing board games, listening to the radio sitting at the desk, doing homework, talk to a friend if they are in the room with us, and reading. However, on the flip side we are not allowed to: Bring any form of electronic device to the job, specifically MP3 players with headphones, cell phones, and laptops. I understand the rationale behind most of this, but as a "hardcore gamer" I am offended greatly. Not allowing the use of portable game systems (DS and PSP specifically) is a slap in the face since we are allowed to bring a book and read it. I asked one of my bosses about it and there was no rationale behind portable game systems specifically - just laptops.

Apparently a few years back a kid got killed because a night clerk had his nose stuffed in a laptop as the kid showed him his ID card that was not his own (the kid was not even a student on campus). So see, I can understand the rationale behind not having a laptop on campus as in a lot of cases (especially depending on how social you are) there can be a lot going on keeping you from working. A handheld game though is an entirely different story.

Now see, before you (possibly) bite my head off, claiming I am just saying the following because I am a gamer - I am not. What I am going to propose to these people (at my Boss' suggestion) is to make the rule fair. There is little difference in reading on the job and playing a DS/PSP. If you are on the job and you must stop reading to do something specific, what do you do? You simply put in the bookmark, and lay the book down, or lay the book down with it open. Pretend for a second you were playing a DS, what would you do? The same thing really. You would close the DS and then lay it on the desk and do whatever the person needed you to do. In a lot of these cases (especially if you are using a bookmark) putting a DS in sleep mode is faster than closing a book and lying it down.

So, through simple logic, I find this policy really out of touch with modern times through sheer lack of knowledge on the policy maker part. My role in this is to propose something to them in hopes of getting it changed. As a "hardcore gamer" as I consider myself I will 100% see this through until the end. Thank god my area of interest in school is writing too...

Hmm, *closing stuff*. That is all for this, figured I would share my thoughts on it. I am actually curious about some feedback on what other people think. I see the logic here pretty straight forward and believe a lack of knowledge is putting me at an unfair advantage to people that do enjoy reading (sorry, its a topic for another time but I really do not like reading books save the occasional Manga).