Hokay, so I’m in the door at 6:50, all set up with equipment checks on the new camera by 6:55. 7 am sees me up on 7th floor Mott, outside the conference room for the 7:15 lecture. I know it’s the right room ‘cos there’s a little pink index card on the door saying, “Leave unlocked for EARLY lecture!”
\n
\nThe door, of course, is locked.<\/p>\n
7:15 comes and goes. I wait.<\/p>\n
Nobody.<\/p>\n
Ok, so they reserved the room for earlier than the needed it. I can see that. I’ll wait it out.<\/p>\n
7:20. Nobody.<\/p>\n
But that’s ok! Five minutes later (7:25, for those of you who are slow at math at this early hour), a secretary comes in! She’s here early to avoid the student move-in traffic and to get some paperwork done. And, more importantly from my perspective, she’s got a key to the conference room door. So I’m in and set up and happy, with a great view of the lectern and a comfy chair to sit in for the next five minutes.<\/p>\n
Possibly more, because by 7:30 the lecturer hasn’t arrived yet.<\/p>\n
And neither have any of the students.<\/p>\n
7:35, the secretary pokes her head in and looks around, all confused. “So, where is everybody?” she asks.<\/p>\n
“That’s a good question. I was expecting at least one person besides me by now.”<\/p>\n
“Huh.”<\/p>\n
She goes and checks her day planner. The room reservation is there, for 7:15. She checks the on-line calendar. Room reservation. 7:15. She calls the contact number for the department. There’s no one there. She gets sent to voicemail, which tells her that the offices don’t open until 8:00.<\/p>\n
It’s now 7:40.<\/p>\n
At this point, if there is a lecture, it has been going for 25 minutes. Either they cancelled it and didn’t tell us, or they moved it to a different room and, again, didn’t tell us.<\/p>\n
Either way, it’s far too late to track them down. Even if I could find them, I’d be taping the lecture from the half-way point, which is less than useless.<\/p>\n
So back to the office I go. It’s now 7:45 and I’ve blown an hour of my morning waiting for Dr. Godot. On the other hand, I was able to write this up while loitering, so it wasn’t a TOTAL waste of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hokay, so I’m in the door at 6:50, all set up with equipment checks on the new camera by 6:55. 7 am sees me up on 7th floor Mott, outside the conference room for the 7:15 lecture. I know it’s … Continue reading