I had the pleasure of doing a staff interview with Sam Russell. Sam is a first year resident assistant currently working in Forest and in my opinion, one of the best RAs we have here at Indiana University. In the interview I asked Sam a multitude of questions pertaining to the job. These ranged from difficulties he faces on a day to day basis, to things like advice he would give and characteristics he believes are most important to performing this job well. His answers to these questions were very insightful, however certain sentence and phrases he said stuck with me more than others. “Yeah, for me at least it’s walking that line between being friendly and supportive and not being a friend. They need to know that I am your support system but not your friend.” This quote from Sam really hit me whenever I asked about the resident-RA friendship dynamic was like. It basically signifies everything we learned in class, that while RAs are there to be friendly, talk to you when needed and hang out with you if they feel that is the best course of action; they are ultimately there to make sure the needs of every resident is met. This doesn’t mean that you can’t talk to someone on your floor at a personal level, and it doesn’t mean…show more content… And you have to be patient, because if you’re not then you wont do it well.” This was another quote that I thought was significant. In this quote, Sam is saying that while the financial benefits you get as an RA are fantastic, that you shouldn’t get into the position for those reasons solely and if you do, it’s not fair to your residents and yourself. This also brought my attention to the need for patience as being one of the key values. I always knew that that was a huge part of the job, but as Sam told me stories it became more clear as to what this word patience
