COLUMN: The London World

From Jamil Smith's "Invisible Man On Assignment," Fall '95 From Jamil Smith's "Invisible Man On Assignment," Fall '95This is the true story?of a few Penn students? accepted to study in London?who've agreed to have this incident documented?to let you all know what happens?when people stop being polite?and start getting real?" In the early evening of September 17, a large number of us traveled to Hampstead Campus, where most of the students in our King's College English program reside. Two in our group had just arrived from Scotland and were ready to move into their rooms. Unfortunately, the staff at Hampstead was not so ready and they were told that they would not be permitted to move in until the next day. There were, at that time, four of us in another residence, Queen Elizabeth Hall, which was about an hour and a half away. The four of us were all planning to go out to dinner and catch a movie. As any friend -- or as any human being with a conscience -- would, we invited our two friends to join us for our activities and then stay with us in Queen Elizabeth Hall. After watching "The Usual Suspects," I took our two friends home while my hallmates went to walk another friend home. Upon entering the hall, it is mandatory that you identify yourself as a resident and sign in any guests at the register -- much like Penn. Taking that for granted, I walked up to the guard at the desk. "These are two of my classmates from the States. They'll be staying with me and the three-" Before I could even finish, the guard replied, "But that's simply not allowed." And so it began. "Why not? They just found out that Hampstead doesn't have their rooms ready and they need a place to stay." "It clearly states in the handbook (which was mailed to each student in the hall) that guests are not allowed in after 12:00." "I'm sorry," I said. "I believe that it states that we are allowed to have guests stay overnight (which it does)." The guard then attempted to make it clear that all Penn students and I were admitted to the residence halls under vacation status until the 20th, meaning that we could not have anyone stay overnight. Not only was this rule never explained in any handbook, but this was a time when there needed to be an exception to the rule. There were two 20-year-old students in a foreign country who had no place to stay. So I continued to state my case to the guard. He phoned the hall manager, Beau Davaz, at home. The guard's expression told me what was coming from the other end. I asked if I could speak to him, but the guard informed me that Mr. Davaz was "very angry" and that he didn't want to speak to me. Apparently, the hall manager did not feel that the prospect of these students sleeping on the streets of London constituted an emergency -- even though it was the fault of his colleagues, not mine. When I realized that the exchange between myself and the guard was getting us nowhere, we began to look for a hostel where my friends could stay. Some might say I gave up. However, when my hallmates came back to find two huge knapsacks on the floor, our two friends on the phone, and me pacing about angrily, it was apparent that the fun was just beginning. Since I was furious, one of my hallmates stepped in and began to offer a calmer, broader perspective on the matter. She really broke it down to the guard, who could do nothing but repeat his orders over and over. After the guard asked Mr. Davaz if these students could sleep in any of the 300 or so empty rooms in the hall for about eight pounds each, the hall manager grew more annoyed with us and refused. I began to suspect that he had a prejudice against Americans, an attitude that I have encountered during my previous stays here in England. If we were British, would we all have been sleeping in our uncomfortable beds a lot sooner? Perhaps that was so, but that didn't seem like the real reason we were being treated in this manner. There was an issue here which, in all reality, had nothing to do with culture. I guess the third call to Mr. Davaz was the charm that night, because he rushed down quickly from his room in the residence. This was initially somewhat of a shock to us all because his refusal to speak to us earlier implied that he wanted to avoid a confrontation. So much for that thought. With his buzzed head shining bright and his eyes bugging out of his head, he questioned us as to why he was "roused in the middle of the night" to deal with something that he described as a "non-emergency" caused by our "stupidity." I couldn't remember the last time I had been called stupid for being generous. He stepped to my hallmate and I, asking us if we had read our handbook. We replied that we had. He then said, in a derogatory tone, "Then you would understand the rules which are written in them." Besides his childish implication that we were not intelligent enough to comprehend those rules, he had the nerve to assert that our friends were also negligent for not planning to stay in a hostel, even though they had made the proper arrangements. At one point, it seemed as if our hall manager was about to get physical with my hallmate. He was getting very close to her and shouting relentlessly in her face. After I stepped in between them, Mr. Davaz remained constant in his shouting. The guard's face was paralyzed with a fear of his boss. Mr. Davaz just would not accept that there were any rules that governed over his own. That night, he was his own God. Everyone else involved -- including the guard, as we found out later -- wanted our two classmates to have a place to sleep in Queen Elizabeth Hall. Mr. Davaz eventually stomped off back to his cage. We all stood there dumfounded -- but certainly not because we had been blessed with the presence of Beau Davaz. All of us were visibly upset and nothing had been resolved. Fortunately, those two Penn students managed to find a roof over their heads that night at a 24-hour hostel. Someone we spoke to the next day said that it was a by-product of different cultures coming together with different expectations and standards. That could be a reasonable explanation. However, respect transcends culture -- here in England or in the United States. I refuse to believe that we were acting like a bunch of spoiled Americans who were demanding something unreasonable. We as students paying to attend and live at this college should have the right to keep our classmates and friends from sleeping on the streets. That night our hall manager had his own set of rules and we had ours. Whose would you have followed?