"Come On In!"
This morning, I cut work and went straight to school. I don't have class on Wednesday, but I needed a letter from a professor whose office hours are 9-11 on Wednesdays. The plan was to get to school by 9:30, get the letter, and leave for work and/or just go take care of other things I had to do.
I took the elevator to the eighth floor and found myself dying of dehydration on the hot, dry floor before even reaching this professor's office door. By the time I got there, my scarf and jacket were shoved into my bag and I had my sleeves rolled up. I knocked twice on the open door. When no one answered, I poked my head in and gave a little, "knock, knock?" There was still no response. I peeked into the messy office only to be greeted by a maze of bookshelves filled with Biology books, journals of science, and chairs hidden under piles of paper. Resigning myself to waiting in the overheated hall, I looked around for clues of the professor's whereabouts. The professor across the hall had a permanent note on his door stating, "I have no idea about where Professor ____ is nor do I know when he'll be back." Clearly, this professor has a habit of not being around during his office hours, I thought.
I kept myself entertained by studying the pictures the professor had hanging on the wall, reading the article about Touro Synagogue the professor across the hall hung on his wall, and calling five friends--none of whom answered their phones. All of that only managed to fill ten minutes. I found a chair in the hall and tried sitting down. The chair was either too high or too slippery or too high and too slippery because every time I tried settling myself into it, I went sliding off. It took me two minutes to fully anchor myself down. There was a large poster across the hall with information about a study a few professors did together and I tried reading it. All I understood was that there were two spelling errors. Another five minutes down. I turned to the second large poster but was too distracted by the 112* air to even understand the objective, so I just concentrated on balancing myself in the chair in the hall for the next fifteen minutes.
A short girl passed me by and knocked twice on the professor's door. At about the same time I said to her, "oh, he's not here," a loud, "come on in!" came from inside the empty, cluttered office. Apparently, the office wasn't very empty. Another fifteen minutes of battling gravity to stay put in the impossibly tall, shiny chair, the student was finished with her meeting and I got my turn.
And the moral of this story is that professors should keep their offices more clean.
I took the elevator to the eighth floor and found myself dying of dehydration on the hot, dry floor before even reaching this professor's office door. By the time I got there, my scarf and jacket were shoved into my bag and I had my sleeves rolled up. I knocked twice on the open door. When no one answered, I poked my head in and gave a little, "knock, knock?" There was still no response. I peeked into the messy office only to be greeted by a maze of bookshelves filled with Biology books, journals of science, and chairs hidden under piles of paper. Resigning myself to waiting in the overheated hall, I looked around for clues of the professor's whereabouts. The professor across the hall had a permanent note on his door stating, "I have no idea about where Professor ____ is nor do I know when he'll be back." Clearly, this professor has a habit of not being around during his office hours, I thought.
I kept myself entertained by studying the pictures the professor had hanging on the wall, reading the article about Touro Synagogue the professor across the hall hung on his wall, and calling five friends--none of whom answered their phones. All of that only managed to fill ten minutes. I found a chair in the hall and tried sitting down. The chair was either too high or too slippery or too high and too slippery because every time I tried settling myself into it, I went sliding off. It took me two minutes to fully anchor myself down. There was a large poster across the hall with information about a study a few professors did together and I tried reading it. All I understood was that there were two spelling errors. Another five minutes down. I turned to the second large poster but was too distracted by the 112* air to even understand the objective, so I just concentrated on balancing myself in the chair in the hall for the next fifteen minutes.
A short girl passed me by and knocked twice on the professor's door. At about the same time I said to her, "oh, he's not here," a loud, "come on in!" came from inside the empty, cluttered office. Apparently, the office wasn't very empty. Another fifteen minutes of battling gravity to stay put in the impossibly tall, shiny chair, the student was finished with her meeting and I got my turn.
And the moral of this story is that professors should keep their offices more clean.
posted by BrownsvilleGirl at 10:23 PM
o so frustrating!
Yeah and my day got worse from there. But I'm alright now. :)
Grreat blog post