what do you think of narcing someone out? (don't know if i was in the wrong)

[Fudgie]

So I was chatting on the phone today and somehow we got onto the topic of "narcing" people out. (Getting those in trouble for using drugs). She got mad at me when I told her a story and told me I was a terrible narc for I did. I'm not sure. Want your opinions on this!

 

Last year, I was in the dorm. My roommate and I kept to ourselves and didn't get to know anyone in the hall. One night (school night) I went to bed at 10ish because I had an early class. Around 1ish, I woke up feeling sick. The WHOLE room reeked of pot. My roommate does not smoke. She wakes up and says "ugh...what IS that??"

 

I get out into the hallway and find that the girl in the room next to us (she has no roommate) is smoking a ton. She's playing music loud too and just being a pothead. The smell is only coming from her room and going into ours (there are some vents and I couldn't close them).

 

Now I get VERY sick when I am around pot smoke. I vomit. I was about to vomit and I couldn't sleep for my class so I contacted the CA (above an RA, cause our RA was a druggie) and I reported her. He caught her in the act and she got dragged to security and got a citation or something. Yikes. (I found that out later...I finally went to sleep once he took her)

 

I don't feel bad at all.

 

My philosophy? I don't do drugs...but I don't care if someone does it at a party or whatever. They can smoke all they want. If I'm at a party and pot shows up, I can leave so I don't care what they do. I can remove myself and I don't care..

 

But if others' drug use affects my study time or sleep time or endangers me, I WILL report them. No exceptions. If I normally smelled it in my dorm but I wasn't sleeping, I'd just leave. But if it was nighttime and I felt nauseous and couldn't sleep, I'd call the CA again. Same goes for crazy drunks making noise til 2am on schoolnights. I try my expensive, noise-cancelling headphones and if it doesn't work, I call Security.

(One time in freshman year, we had drunk males in the female bathroom trying to break into occupied stalls. I was trying to shower and they wouldn't leave when I swore at them. Needless to say, I called Security and they were dragged out in handcuffs)

 

My friend feels that it's "college" and it's in my better interests to let some person do illegal drugs and "be free", even if it negatively affects me and I don't have "right" to do anything. Huh?

 

I thought I was there to learn.

[Fudgie]

BTW, I had tried knocking the door but she did not answer.

 

She's a real piece of work anyway and hates me and my roommate because we have asked her in the past to "tone down" the music so we could sleep at 1am on a school night. *eyeroll*

[DN]

You did the right thing. Why should you have your health affected and sleep disturbed by someone so oblivious to others?

[Sanesoul]

You were right. Nothing worse than getting your sleep interrupted by crap like that.

[perplunk]

What was the reason of going above the RA to the CA? Did you think that the RA would not have gotten her to stop that night?

[The Archer]

I think your being completely reasonable.

 

I also understand you feeling sick with the smell of pot. It used to be the same for me. I seem to be ok now but I still don’t like the smell of any kind of smoke.

[Lovelace]

I'm the same way. If it affects me and mine, then I will 'narc'. You did what you needed to do.

[Godless_Heathen]

I have a very low opinion of drugs. I saw a lot of people using in college, but never reported it, since I don't feel it's something that should be illegal. I may think drug use is stupid, but that's really none of my business.

 

However, you had someone who was screwing with your health and your sleep. Since you tried to contact them and they didn't respond, what you did is perfectly reasonable. It's really no different than the loud music - playing loud music isn't a crime by itself and shouldn't be, but that doesn't mean you get to blast it in a dorm at 1 AM.

[Fudgie]

My RA (a guy in a girls hall) was a total druggie and was never around. I've tried to go to him before for problems and he totally blew me off. Most of the time he was never there anyway.

 

Thanks for the opinions

[Snowy]

I support what you did.

 

That girl is so stupid, it amazes me.

[annie24]

i did report people in college when they were too loud. on one hand, yes, it is college, you're going to have a lot of people in a tiny environment and you should get used to noises. true. on the other hand, i am sure that illegal drugs are against the rules, and if she is blaring the music and smoking pot on a school night, you had every right to report her. i was going to suggest knocking on her door first to ask her yourself to please turn down the music, etc.... of course, if she didn't answer the door, you went to the next option.

[dragon lady]

I think it depends on the consequences. If she could get kicked out school or lose her scholarship or something like that for smoking pot, then I'd try to talk to her before I got anyone else involved. One night of lost sleep sucks, but for some people the consequences of telling are far worse. Sure, she should know what they are and she shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but people do make some poor decisions every now and then. Not everyone is perfect 100% of the time.

 

I used to have a roommate who smoked pot all day (breakfast, lunch and dinner bongs) in our apartment and looking back I should have reported her, at least to our landlord. She continued despite me nagging at her to stop or go somewhere else.

 

In your case, I think that you were a bit unfair for not giving her your own warning first.

[Cognitive_Canine]

I did report people when they were being too loud.

 

I always confronted them first. Unfortunately my RA was the biggest drunkard on our floor and lived directly accross from my room. So, I had to go to the hall director after our talks didn't seem to resonate with her.

 

Pot smoking resulted in expulsion. If you're caught with pot, you were done. So, I wouldn't report the pot.

 

Dorm life was awful. I'm glad I only had to be in a dorm for one year.

[Fudgie]

I tried to talk to her but she doesn't listen. Like I said, she wouldn't answer her door and she hates my roomie and I. I had to take an English class with her and I can tell you personally, she's a total b*

 

Cog Can, I know what it feels like to have a drunken RA my RA half the time was drunk. Sometimes I heard banging and I'd come out and find him drunk in the hallway, banging on random doors. Other times, he'd use his keys to take OTHER drunk people on the roof and let them run around on it.

 

Pot = expulsion? Yikes. At my school, you don't get expelled. Just a nice citation. And a fine. And they might tell your parents.

 

For me, I didn't care if she got a fine. I was hoping she would just learn and cut it out. Maybe smoke pot somewhere else.

[Philos]

That girls an idiot. She can be expelled for that.

[perplunk]

Fudgie, I'm going to go against what everyone here is saying and play the contrarian. It won't make me popular but I think this could be a great learning experience.

 

You're concerned about how others think of how you treated this person. And you've come up with justifications for it. Why? Who cares if this person was a b**** to you? Does it matter that they got in trouble? Does it matter that /you/ got /them/ in trouble?

 

Lets put this in a real world scenario that you /will/ face: This person is your coworker. Now what are you going to do? Lets say your RA is your direct manager. Do you do a run-around and whine to his or her boss?

 

I can pretty much guarantee you that you will face this scenario later in life (it may be your neighbor and the city and not your employer) and it won't be in such a comfortable situation. This is a /huge/ learning curve for most people when they leave school, and few really pass over it without getting pretty banged up.

 

It sounds like this person is still your neighbor and you still will have to deal with them. What steps can you think of to avoid all-out war?

 

I can also guarantee you that if you handle this situation well, than you can use it when you are actually facing this question during your interviews for whatever job your are looking at.

[Fudgie]

Yeah, I kind of have to deal with her a little (not neighbors anymore) but it's a small campus, I don't really care.

 

I don't have a real sense of loyalty to "not snitch" just because someone is my age, etc. If something is wrong and affect other people badly, I'm going to do something about it. I always have. I know how to pick my battles too. I'm not going to do it for every little thing.

 

And yeah, I'd have no trouble seeing a co-worker go down for something if what they did was bad enough. And I HAVE gotten a girl expelled from my college. We have a strict honor code but unproctored exams and I saw her cheat not once but 3 times on 3 huge tests with my own eyes. I wrote the teacher an anonymous note and he kept an "eye" out and caught her himself. She was expelled. I have no regrets. I was upholding the integrity of my college's degree.

(I knew the girl too. She was nice. I didn't care.)

 

I've also gotten people kicked out of hospice programs because I found that they were mistreating patients (forgetting meds, harassing) and I reported them so they were eventually caught.

 

I'm careful not to let "biases" affect me. As you can see, the girl that got expelled was nice. But I didn't let that stop my reporting her.

 

It earns me respect with the people who matter and others dislike me. All of my professors and doctors that I have worked for like me and trust my judgment. The people who really want my head on a platter are those who I have spurned (and I feel rightly so) for things they have done and they are angry. Hm.

(I work well with others my age and they like working with me too. ) I just don't get along well with people who don't work well or hard and just want me to "overlook" it. Right. Not happening.

 

I just wanted people's thoughts on this. I sort of come up against my friend and I was wondering how common her attitude is.

[perplunk]

Fudgie the point I was trying to make, is that good people skills go way beyond knowing when it is "right" to report someone to the appropriate authority. You will find as you advance that even knowing who the right authority is is often ambiguous or undesirable. Or you may even be the authority. How do you keep things going when there isn't an authority figure to turn to?

 

I would really encourage you to challenge yourself in this area. People and project management skills are highly important and seriously lacking almost everywhere. You WILL run into it. You can't control who you run into, but you can control how you react to them.

 

The first reference is Dale Carnegie's classic How to Win Friends and Influence People.

[Fudgie]

Easy. I become an authority figure myself when there is none.

 

I've dealt with unpleasant professors (authority figures) and I know what to say and do so they are "on my side" and we both benefit. They are more willing to listen/help when you are calm and stoke their ego than when you fight to prove that you are "right".

 

I'm not out to make friends. It's about making "connections" with people, especially those who can help you and you can benefit from. This is why I get along very well with authority figures and they trust me judgment because that's my priority, not sucking up to my classmates.

 

Of course, I try to be on good terms with people. People generally respect me and listen to me. I don't abuse the power that I do get so it's all good.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I aim to be respectful, vigilant, trustworthy, and reliable. As a result, people turn to me. I'm just not uber friendly or get attached to people so if I need to sever myself from someone, I have no problems doing that if I need to.

[annie24]

i think what perplunk is trying to say is that eventually you will get into a situation where someone is doing something that is bothering you, and you can't just get rid of them so easily. you will have to deal with them for a good long time. so figuring out a way to talk to them and sort things out without bringing any 'officials' into it can be good and can avoid a mess for everyone.

 

actually, in my workplace, we have a rule amongst ourselves to settle our disputes on our own without going to the boss. and actually, we are able to do this quite well. i think our boss would appreciate it too because she has better things to do than to settle our squabbles.

 

i think that the anonymous note to the professor was a good way to go. once he was vigilant, he caught her on his own.

[perplunk]

Thank you annie24, that is basically what I'm trying to say.

 

Fudgie, this sort of conflict-resolution skill is something that is highly-desirable in the workplace and also in short supply. If you can learn more about these skills then you will benefit.

[Fudgie]

You're right, I am still young and have a lot to learn.

[DN]

I still think you did the right thing. This was someone with whom you don't have a good relationship in the first place and would not answer the door when you knocked. Someone that ignorant and high would be unlikely to be cooperative.

[annie24]

I agree with DN. You did try to knock. And what she did was really dumb. I remember in my college dorm, just the way it was laid out and all of the people walking by, someone would find out if you were smoking, drinking, etc.... such close quarters!

 

I remember one time, people in the hall were complaining of the awful smell and couldn't figure out what it was. My roommate and I didn't say, but her parents brought her some traditional Korean food that was in our fridge. It was delicious though!!!

[DN]

Most workplace policies about disputes with co-workers require you to first attempt to resolve the dispute directly in an amicable manner. If that doesn't work, then you take it to a supervisor who then takes appropriate action.

 

You attempted to resolve this issue by knocking on the door - to no result.