Three Events

1) I am in the Clinic until late tonight answering student e-mails. Their final exam is in the morning. So far, the e-mails I have received have included things like: "I was not there on the week that we covered ___________. Please tell me what questions you will ask about that topic." or "Hi!!!!!! So, I was looking at the essay options, and I was hoping that you would write the essays out for me so that I can see what you're looking for." I had to stop and have a cup of tea so that I was reasonably polite in my responses. ("Dear student....Google it.")

2) We had a fire drill at work today. No big deal, right? We have them once a month and you simply evacuate briefly. Well, no. They set off the alarm. We all dutifully walked towards our specified staircases. We noted that if we opened the door, we would propel a man on a ladder down the stairs. We turned around and went to the next closest stairwell and were yelled at for not following the plan. We all go outside and wait. I was standing with some of the people I know from the psychosis drop-in center. They were telling eachother that they imagined that they hadn't thought ahead to how they would turn the alarm back off. We all laughed. Well, yup....that's what happened. We stood in the cold for an hour while the administrators cursed and struggled to turn off the screeching alarm. One of the heads of the unit began to scream at everyone when people mistakenly thought it was okay to go back in. One man turned to another and said: "Wow. He's an angry dude." The other one said back: "Yeah. Just be happy he's not your shrink. I have panic attacks." They never did manage to turn off the strobe effect. And now I have a headache.

3) I was talking to another grad student and this undergraduate walked into the room. He asked me if I knew where Dr. _______ was. I said that I could show him to her office, but that she had gone home. He told me that his class was supposed to have a final with her but that she wasn't there. I walked over to her office, and sure enough...not there. Now I had a small crowd with me. I decided to call her at home: "Umm, hi, so...I'm up in the Clinic and a bunch of your students are here, and...umm....they thought that they had an exam tonight...." She swore profusely while I smiled professionally at her students. I eventually courteously told them that she's very sorry indeed, and that she will e-mail them when she's figured out what to do!