Policy Police

In this article I’m going to give a story regarding my dealings with the policy police at my school, and the dangers of blindly following rules just because it’s written down by some bureaucratic committee.

Let me start with some background information: I’m an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley and currently living in one of the dorms.

Halloween Weekend, around midnight, I came back to my dorm from a party with my girlfriend. The UC Berkeley Policy is to check-in guests using photo identification. This is where all of my problems started.

She didn’t have her I.D. on her. She asks if she can use her debit card since it has her name on it, the Security Monitor says no, she then asks if she can use Facebook to confirm her identity, Security Monitor says no.

At this point, I’m frustrated because I had checked her in earlier that day, Security Monitor doesn’t care, it’s policy that’s to blame, nothing the Security Monitor can do. I decide that I’m going up to my room, I tell the Security Monitor to call the police if she’s so concerned that my 120 pound girlfriend is a threat. About twenty minutes later, I get a loud knock on my door with the infamous “RA on Duty” phrase. My girlfriend opens the door, the RA demands I go downstairs and check her in. When I explain to the RA that my girlfriend doesn’t have the I.D. necessary to do so, she brings up that policy is making the RA do this and the policy says she CANNOT accept the debit card nor social media. She said that people can fake social media so it can’t be accepted, guess fake I.D.’s don’t matter to them though. I refuse to go downstairs, this leads me to get written up and to meet with the Resident Director.

Two weeks later, I have my meeting with the Resident Director (RD). She informs that I’ve violated policy, and again, repeats the narrative that policy is an omnipotent power that no one can ever disobey. She then says that no I.D. means no entry, that’s it, there’s no debate and it can never be broken. I explain to her that it was midnight, and I’m not going to let my girlfriend stay out in the street. When I tell her that my girlfriend’s debit card had worked before, the RD tells me that I should be graceful that she isn’t writing me up for those aforementioned policy violations. I explain how I see the situation, that she thinks I should be grateful to her for not writing me up for information that was helpful to her, at which point she got triggered and told me not to have an attitude with her.

I told her that this entire situation could have been avoided if policy wasn’t followed so strictly. This idea seemed to be completely alien to her, how could it be that someone doesn’t follow policy?

She didn’t understand that this entire situation which was clearly a waste of everyone’s time involved and could have been avoided if people used their own reason rather than blindly put their faith in policy.
Furthermore, it’s dangerous to have a system where the only real justification/answer one offers is “It’s Policy”. I believe that individuals should be able to use their own discretion as to when policies are appropriate, but I guess Berkeley doesn’t want to encourage this type of freedom, because it could put their precious policy at risk.