| Adventures in office entry |
[Aug. 6th, 2009|06:01 pm] |
So today was my first Official Day of Work at the new job, very exciting! I'd already come in a few times but today I was scheduled to get my keys, my office door recored so the keys would open it, and my computer. Also the printer/copier in the Math Development Center, which was neither printing nor copying, had allegedly been fixed. You can probably guess that either I'm setting out to make the World's Dullest Post, or things did not go as planned.
After I got out of orientation at 3 pm, I picked up my keys, went to my office, and discovered that my key wouldn't open my office. "Hmm, I guess they didn't recore it." So I went down the hall and upstairs to the Math/Science office. (This trip was repeated many times, so after this I'll abbreviate the trek.) The office manager loaned me the master key. Downstairs. The master key won't open the door either.
Upstairs. The office manager called Security to come open the door. (I couldn't call them because my phone hasn't shown up yet, and I couldn't get into my office to use it if it had.) Downstairs. Security took a while to show up, so I hopped on one of the lab computers to try printing some documents to the "fixed" printer/copier. They disappeared into the void. Maybe it at least would copy now? Nope.
Security arrived. The officer seemed somewhat confounded when none of his keys would open the door. Upstairs. The office manager called Facilities who said it was probably a bad core, and they'd come out and remove it. Downstairs. Send documents up to the Math/Science printer to see if I can get printouts that way.
Facilities arrived. Despite much prying he couldn't get the core out of the door or get the door open. He decided to take the door off the hinges. I go upstairs to pick up my documents which successfully printed (hooray!) and come down to discover that he can't get the hinges off.
He developed a new plan. My office is off the math lab area (the former testing center) and the two rooms share a drop ceiling. He would go up in the ceiling, drop down on the other side of the wall, and open the door. I protested that the ceiling is 12 feet high and that if there was any risk of injury I didn't need to get into my office THAT badly, but he said he'd done it before and it wasn't a problem.
This is probably a good time to note that no Facilities employees were harmed in the making of this story.
He called another Facilities employee to bring over a ladder, took down the ceiling tile, and discovered huge quantities of bags of sound-dampening insulation (because, after all, former testing center). They started hauling down bags and taking out the tiles and cross-bars, and about twenty minutes later, he pulled himself up into the tight crawlspace (I would've gotten stuck) and over the wall, dropped down on the other side, and casually opened the door.
I showered praise on him and went to grab my papers from where I'd been working. Right then, his cell phone rang and he stepped away to answer in -- and I saw the door begin SLOWLY swinging closed. I yelled "NO!" and we both lunged for it -- but not before it had shut and latched. So he had to do that all AGAIN.
Finally in my office, I started up my computer and discovered that I couldn't log in to the network, because they had put it in my office but not connected it to the network port. It was after 5 at this point, so I gave up, went upstairs to regale my boss with the story, and went home.
Tomorrow I'm supposed to get my phone installed. If things continue according to pattern, I expect to have a phone with no cord connecting it to the wall, and to discover the phone installer ignored the sign on the propped-open door and considerately closed it behind him.
For balance, a lot of things about working here look very appealing, but I hope I can reliably get into my office by November. |
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| Toothless |
[Aug. 30th, 2008|11:17 pm] |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) servant_of_clio and I made a particularly delicious peach-and-blackberry cobbler tonight. I sat down to take a bite of it, bit into a blackberry seed, and heard a strange cracking noise. I spit out the blackberry seed - along with about a sixth of a tooth.
This was followed by Highly Capable Me spending some time trying to figure out exactly what one should do when one's tooth is broken. Much reading of the Internet followed, which mostly managed to freak me out. ("Get to your dentist immediately! Root canals are inevitable!" was the general tenor of what I was reading.)
Since my dentist is not in the office at 11:00 pm on a Saturday, I eventually asked servant_of_clio to call and see if there was an emergency dental contact. She got in touch with the answering service and my dentist called back within 5 minutes. Bless her! I described the missing piece of tooth and she said I can wait until Monday, I just shouldn't eat any ice cream (perish the thought).
Not really how I'd planned on spending my evening. |
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| Childhood today |
[May. 31st, 2008|03:54 pm] |
Overheard during a very enjoyable visit to servant_of_clio's relatives, from Becky (Katie's mom):
"Katie! Katie!... Ellie, text your sister and tell her to get down here." |
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| By the way... |
[Aug. 10th, 2006|01:01 pm] |
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Hi everyone! (I just realized that last post was my first in almost a year.) |
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| Things that make my job easier... |
[Aug. 9th, 2006|07:12 pm] |
I'm teaching a summer section of Mathematical Problem Solving. Sometimes, I struggle to put a lesson plan together and to find real-world stories and examples to relate to the material.
And sometimes, I'm browsing and material just falls into my lap.
Tomorrow, among other things, I'm talking about correlation and the fact that "correlation does not imply causation" -- just because two things occur together, you can't conclude that one is caused by the other.
And I run across this:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060807/NEWS07/608070355/1009
P.S. The study itself doesn't seem that bad -- there's at least a sincere effort to isolate and eliminate other variables. The reporting of it in the media, though, has been remarkably uncritical. Probably not a big surprise... |
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| Good column about community colleges |
[Sep. 29th, 2005|07:10 pm] |
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This column gives a good summary of many of the things I found surprising at first about community-college students, as well as a number of the reasons I enjoy teaching there. |
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| Your brain LIES to you |
[Aug. 1st, 2005|01:50 pm] |
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There are some remarkable color-related optical illusions here that I ran across today and thought were worth sharing. |
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| Update |
[Jun. 18th, 2005|01:30 pm] |
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Michelle's mother passed away around 6 am this morning. Many thanks to all of you who've sent notes of sympathy and support. |
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| Sadder Note |
[Jun. 15th, 2005|03:52 pm] |
Typing up with the list of songs was a good, if brief, distraction. Michelle and I are in Wisconsin at her parents' house. Her mom is in the hospital with terminal cancer and the doctors doubt she will last beyond the week. She has gone downhill incredibly quickly -- last week she and Michelle could talk on the phone (though she was getting less cogent) but now she can only lie in bed fighting to breathe, and doesn't seem very aware of her surroundings.
She welcomed me into the family with open arms, and has always shown me kindness. I will miss her. |
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| First post ever! |
[Jun. 15th, 2005|03:25 pm] |
"List five songs that you are currently digging ... it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words or even if they're any good but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artist and the song in your blog along with your five songs. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to."
I was tagged with this meme by naomikritzer right before Michelle and I left on our current road trip, so as we drove across New York I thought through
what my five songs would be. If you're familiar with my musical tastes, you probably won't be surprised by the predominance of somewhat obscure folk musicians.
1) Angel & Delilah by Eliza Gilkyson
2) Preston Miller performed by Tracy Grammer (written by Dave Carter)
3) Waist Deep in the Big Muddy performed by Richard Shindell (written by Pete Seeger)
4) Shirt by Peter Mulvey
5) a sorta fairytale by Tori Amos
I imposed an arbitrary one-song-per-artist limit, or I could have filled the list completely from the albums I've been playing obsessively lately - Tracy Grammer's Flower of Avalon and Eliza Gilkyson's Lost and Found and Hard Times in Babylon. (I might be able to find five songs I've been digging on any one of those albums, for that matter. Good disks.) But I wanted a little more variety.
Picking five more people to tag is pretty easy given the small number of people I know on LJ:
amabaku
jenizie
littleclaypig
rowan_redbeard
wolfgangemilio |
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