Twisting the Knife?

[Broomjockey]

For the most part, this job's awesome. But there's a couple things I can do without.

Like this: When a student locks him/herself out of his/her room, the first time is free. Every time they lock themselves out of their room after that, it's a $25 charge to be let back in. It doesn't take $25 worth of time for me to get the keys, or for the student to use the keys, or for the keys to be made or stored. Even if you take it all together it's a grossly inflated charge, as the student merely has to come down, sign the book, I get the spare keys from the cabinet, they go open their door, and come back 5 minutes later to give me the spare keys back. Even in the rare case where there are no spare keys, then I just grab the master key for the floor and let them in myself (or get an RA to do it if I'm here alone).

Why is it $25? It just feels more than is properly punitive for locking your keys in your room, when you're probably feeling dumb enough locking your keys in your room for the second time in 4 months. I feel crappy doing it, but the bosses decree it so, so I do it. Some of the other desk staff will let it slide from time to time, and just not note it, and depending on circumstances I may do that eventually, but even then, probably 5 or 6 people get locked out of their room every day, so that's still going to be a lot of people I'm having to ding for something stupid.

Anyway, I've gotten that out and I still don't feel better about charging that person the $25 so they can get back into their room. Thanks for reading

[Gravekeeper]

I have a few companies that do that too. However its more like $50 and thats only on the graveyard shift. But these are property management companies so in order to let someone in I have to wake up the property manager who then has to either try and wake up a resident manager ( if the building has one ) or drive down to the building himself to let the twit in.

But yes, it is more like a penalty fee then anything else. I'd say its justified in the case of my clients who may have to get out of bed at 3am and drive half an hour just to let some drunk moron in.

But in your case it sounds like its just a penalty fee since its not even remotely a hassle for you. -.-

[ds_36]

It's a penalty fee, simply designed to discourage the students from forgetting their keys. Besides if opening the door did actually require $25 worth of labor, everybody would be much more upset because it would take much longer and you would probably have to get somebody to come in from outside

[Gurndigarn]

Like this: When a student locks him/herself out of his/her room, the first time is free. Every time they lock themselves out of their room after that, it's a $25 charge to be let back in. It doesn't take $25 worth of time for me to get the keys, or for the student to use the keys, or for the keys to be made or stored.
<snip>
but even then, probably 5 or 6 people get locked out of their room every day, so that's still going to be a lot of people I'm having to ding for something stupid.

That's five or six people per day ready to pony up at $25 per hit. Just think how many it would be if there was no penalty fee.

(Allowing once per semester might work... but remember that you're training these people how to live in the world. Learning things like common sense, personal responsibility, and things like that are more important than a lot of what they'll pick up in class. And there's no better teacher than the School of Hard Knocks.)

[ds_36]

That's five or six people per day ready to pony up at $25 per hit. Just think how many it would be if there was no penalty fee.

My dad owns a locksmith building which is right across the street from the building we live in. In the past people in the building always were asking him for some type of free work, frequently one guy would forget his keys and not want to wait for his wife to get home so he'd annoy us. Although my dad was smart and never actually did this, I think he offered to send out a technician at the normal price...if he had done that "emergency" job think about how regular the "emergency" probably would become.
Although he usually is nice to people if they wanted work done during normal business hours and gives them a discount.

[Dreamstalker]

Like this: When a student locks him/herself out of his/her room, the first time is free. Every time they lock themselves out of their room after that, it's a $25 charge to be let back in. It doesn't take $25 worth of time for me to get the keys, or for the student to use the keys, or for the keys to be made or stored.

That's why I always got rooms on the ground floor. In most cases I could just wiggle my hand in and snag my keys, but once or twice I had to climb through the window.

The head of security actually used my stunts as exhibits to the admin critters why our campus wasn't as buttoned-up as they thought it was (homeless people wandering onto the grounds in the winter, if a student could pop a window screen from the outside without being noticed...) and until graduation I was able to easily test whether or not they had done anything to fix it (which they hadn't).

[blas]

My current landlords will come and not charge you a penny the first time you accidently lock yourself out. I feel so good that they are such nice people.

My old landlords claimed to charge $25 per time, but having told the stories I have, it wouldn't surprise me if it were actually $50 or more. They were so money hungry.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

That's why I always got rooms on the ground floor. In most cases I could just wiggle my hand in and snag my keys, but once or twice I had to climb through the window.

This reminds me of a story from college that I may have posted here before but if I did I have no idea where to find it to link, so I'll post it here:

This was in the fall of my junior year and I had an first-floor on-campus apartment with 3 roommates. The door to the apartment had a nasty habit of sticking. This becomes important later.

One night I got in at about 1 in the morning after hanging with my friends all night and went to bed. Some time later one of my roommates came in, waking me up, but then I dropped off to sleep again.

Not long after that I got woken up by somebody thrusting open the bedroom door and shouting "POLICE! LEMME SEE YOUR HANDS!"

Yes, dear friends, I had a police officer in my bedroom. He then asked to see my ID, but then told me to forget it; he'd just get it out of my wallet on the nightstand (He must've thought I reached too fast and was reaching for a weapon).

The officer then escorted me to the living room. My roommate was outside in handcuffs.

It turned out that while I was gone that night, an apartment close to mine was broken into and expensive items such as a digital camera and laptop computer stolen. When my roommate returned to the apartment, the door stuck and wouldn't open so he decided to climb in through the living room window. Somebody must've saw him doing that and called 911 to report a burglary in progress.

Fortunately the cops understood it was a misunderstanding and nobody got arrested. And yet somehow we never got around to having the door fixed.

[BookstoreEscapee]

My college charged after a certain number of lockouts, too, but I think they gave you more than one. The master key was kept locked in a box in the dorm office, so if it was during the day (when there wasn't an RA on duty in the office) they would have to go down to get the key and unlock the door and then go back to put the key away.

When I was with my ex, we got locked out of the apartment one evening, like 9pm. The key got stuck in the doorknob lock and it turned partway, and then wouldn't turn back and I couldn't get the key out at all or turn it all the way to unlock it. The lock had been getting more and more difficult over the previous weeks and we ended up having to call a locksmith to open it, since the office was closed (I had to call my dad to find me one, too). It cost us $85...he used something like a large flat screwdriver to force the bolt (which made me a little at how easy it was) and had to take the doorknob off and take the lock apart and reset it to fit the key again. We didn't have enough cash between us and he didn't take credit cards, so I paid with a check and the building manager said I would get reimbursed because it was a maintenance issue that they would have taken care of. Never did get my money back .

[myswtghst]

I do think it's mostly a penalty to try to keep students from doing it too often, or every time they misplace their keys. In the real world, as BSE pointed out, it could cost considerably more to have to call a locksmith, so in comparison it doesn't seem too bad.

On the subject of B&E stories... My junior year, I lived in a little building just off campus, which was three stories high and housed 17 1 or 2-BR apartments (some of each) and an office for the owner. Our side of the building faced out over the woods, and on our third floor apartment, we had a super-sweet and huge balcony. During the time we lived there, me and the 2 girls I lived with made friends with the 3 guys next door, who often locked themselves out/forgot keys. Rather than waiting for a roommate with keys to get home, one of the guys would knock on our door, climb out off the balcony, and break in through their balcony door, which never really locked. Made us feel real safe, ya know? I mean, we trusted these guys, but it did prove how easy it would be.

[Broomjockey]

Okay, well I'm feeling a little less knotted about it, especially after reading how much it can cost for lockouts other places. And I never really seriously considered how many people would take advantage if it was cheaper/free. Then again, considering the number of people I see wanting to leave cards/wallets/etc behind when they head out for "a night," I'm thinking those same people would decide to "forget" their keys, for one less thing to carry.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Okay, well I'm feeling a little less knotted about it, especially after reading how much it can cost for lockouts other places. And I never really seriously considered how many people would take advantage if it was cheaper/free. Then again, considering the number of people I see wanting to leave cards/wallets/etc behind when they head out for "a night," I'm thinking those same people would decide to "forget" their keys, for one less thing to carry.

I'm all for not having to carry crap around with me, but my license and keys go with me no matter what. I will sometimes just bring my license and some money, and assuming I'm not drinking I will just leave my license in the car, but I never leave without that stuff...and I'm not gonna leave the keys in the car just so I don't have to carry them, or leave the door unlocked. Never had a problem in the dorm with breakins or anything like that, and we would usually leave the door unlocked while in the shower/laundry room/somewhere on the hall, but if I was leaving the dorm I wouldn't leave it unlocked.

[Bandit]

Being a cheap-assed single (for now), I triple check the keys and the wallet every time before I walk out the door.

And I know there's the Idiot tax if I need the property managers unlock the unit.

Mind you when I go to do the laundry and anything inside the building, I just let the 4-legged burger alarm take over the security.

His bark is much worse than his lick.

B

[Gurndigarn]

After locking myself out of my work van once, I decided to keep a spare key in my wallet. Just in case.

[Geek King]

You could try what one of my apartments did to cut back on lockouts. Remove the knob-locks and replace them with deadbolts that require you have the key in-hand to lock the door. This seems to do the trick for everything except losing the key while you're out.