comedy of errors

A comedy of errors

I get to campus and get to my classroom. I check the schedule outside

the classroom and see that they have me scheduled to teach in that

classroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This was the first sign that

something was wrong. I look in the window and see students with my

assigned text so I walk in anyway. I go up to the front of the class

and try to log into the computer. Since they changed the class

management software, I wanted to show all the students the new

program. My password doesn't work. I try again. And once more. I check

caps lock. I try an alternate password. No luck.

I wander down the hall to our tech people and all the staff are out. I

leave a note asking them to come to my classroom. As I get back to my

classroom, I notice a bunch of students standing in the hall. Someone

asks which class this is, and I tell them. I say that the schedule is

wrong, and I don't know where the English class is going to be held. I

go back into the classroom and tell the students that this is

Political Science, not English. Seven students leave. As they walk out

the door, I see a man in a suit and tie in the hall. Figuring him to

be the professor of the other class, I go out in the hall right as a

staff member walks up and tries to tell me I'm not supposed to be

teaching today. I tell her, politely, that the schedule on the door is

wrong because I have a class room full of registered students sitting

in there waiting for me, so yes, I am teaching today. She put the

English class in the empty room next to mine, and says we'll sort it

out later, but since the English prof is supposed to teach back to

back classes in my classroom, they will probably switch me to the

other class on Wednesday. That's fine with me.

So I go back in the class, the tech guy shows up and can't figure out

why I can't log in, so he gets his boss, and his boss can't figure it

out either, so the boss guy logs me in as him and I promise to not

send email or look at naughty websites. I finally get to start

teaching. After having another group of students leave when I tell

them this is Political Science, I realize that the air conditioning

doesn't work in my class. And I'm wearing my nice, professional,

I'm-a-grownup clothes. So I'm sweaty. As class progresses, students

keep coming in late, most of them for the other class. So I keep

telling them to go next door. What kind of student shows up half an

hour late the first day of class?

Class itself went well. I have about half freshman, a quarter

non-traditional students, and the other quarter is students filling a

GE requirement. They laughed at my jokes. That's always a good sign.

After class, I went and found the scheduling office and they are

changing me to the other classroom. And then I went and found the tech

people. Apparently, the network people reset the network logons for

all the faculty and students. And didn't tell anyone, including the

support people. That's good planning. So I went to the network people

and got a new logon. And then I went to the copy room.

Oh, the copy room. Isn't there some sort of copier etiquette that says

that if you don't know what the heck you are doing, you will not spend

15 minutes making one copy at a time, pull it out, look to see where

the staple is, change the staple location, make another copy,

repeat... while someone else who needs to make 40 single page,

non-stapled, non-anythingfancy copies waits to use the copier? That's

what I thought. Apparently, I need to write an Emily Post's Guide to

Using the Copier and leave it in the faculty workroom.

And then I came home. I'm sipping my favorite relaxing beverage, root

beer on ice with a straw, and holding my baby, who no longer is

running a fever. Things are looking up.