The Security Guard Dehydration

Being a student at SFU Surrey, you figure you have a certain amount of rights. Especially for me, the transition between high school and university, was very simple because everything was motioned a slow pace and I had a lot more freedom of doing things, there were no rules and no problems EXCEPT for one.

Being around computers, the worst thing someone can do is probably bring food or jucies/pop around it. Computers and anything that is not a technology, do not get along very well. But I figure, these rules can only apply to enivironments where computers are offered to students, incase they forget their laptops, such as the computer lab on the 2nd floor of the SFU Surrey campus.

Okay, it makes sense to not let students to bring food or any other liquids around the computers. It is very clear that if you do not want to harm your computer, treat other computers the same way. But being in the computer lab recently, I noticed something so astonishing that it kind of made me a bit upset and disappointed in our security staff at the campus.

As I was doing my daily check on the facebook, myspace, email etc, I was witnessed a horrible incident that happened to my fellow SFU classmate. Observing this classmate, I noticed she was just really thirsty, and thought "there is no harm in drinking water in the computer lab, and I'm really thirsty, at least it is not pop or anything sticky for that matter". And there she goes, drinking her water, hydrating herself because she felt thirsty.

But NO, that was not the end of my story. My story ends, when the security guard, entered the computer lab, and asked the student to either throw away her bottle of water, or drink it outside the computer lab, because a person is not allowed to drink such a thing near computers, in the computer lab.

I was completely shocked at such attitude from the security guard, and also on the rules. Personally, I had no idea, a student or anyone else that uses the computers in the computer cannot drink WATER in the computer. What kind of rule is that?! I understand, yes, it can be a bit of problem, considering some people may not be very careful with handling their water...but it is not as though some one will purposely spill their water all over the keyboard.

The feelings and words I wanted to express the security guard myself, had to be restrained or else I would definitely not be the greatest student to the security guard community at SFU. But I must say that I felt angry and felt a bit of empathy for the girl that was being interrogated by the security guard because of drinking water, because she just had that urge of relinquish her thirst. I was also a bit disappointed in the tone of the security guard too. I must say, they take real offense of water being drinken in their computer labs.

But I just felt as though, university does not give you all the freedom you want, especially near computers. Hopefully, someday in the future, they will let us drink WATER near the computers, and not feel scare to pull out that water bottle or Dasani bottle infront of them.