1. ACCRED STRING ALONGITUDE. Weeks ago, the Accreds said they’d send us drafts of their reports—i.e., their responses to the two colleges’ responses to the Accreds’ recommendations. It was Accred maven Deborah Blue, I think, who said the drafts would arrive by Nov. 17. Well, the 17th came and went, and nothin’ materialized. Jeepers! Then Blue, or somebody, promised to have the drafts to us by this week. As far as I know, that hasn’t happened. Dang!
2. PRESS ZERO, GET ZERO. This morning, a friend wanted to contact Rebel Girl here at IVC, but he couldn’t remember her phone number on campus, so he called information, which yielded a pleasant recorded voice that yammered a while about menus and such.
The yammerage ended with: “To reach the operator, please press zero now.”
So he did that, but then he got another recorded voice, this time a man’s voice, and it yammered a while too. At the end of the yammerage, the voice said to hold on and “an operator will be with you momentarily.”
But no operator got with ‘im. The line just went dead.
He tried this twice. Nothin’.
I was with Rebel Girl when she heard about this—hours later—and so I went to my office and tried the “info” number myself. In the meantime, Rebel Girl headed to the information desk in A100 to see what was up over there.
Naturally, my attempts to get to a real person yielded squat. Like Reb’s friend, I spent a good while expiating my sins during two courses of menu yammerage purgatory, and then, finally, I was told to hold:
“An operator will be with you momentarily.”
But, again, the line just went dead. It was like a joke or something.
Right about then, the Reb returned and reported that there was nobody at the “info” desk.
“Jesus,” I said, “squirrels run this college.” (I'm not blaming Kathy. I'm sure the problem lies elsewhere.)
3. SH*THOUSES AND TORNADOES. Also, today, Rebel Girl insisted on giving me a tour of the interior of the notorious “Community Ed” Building, which is better known as “the Sh*thouse” for reasons having to do with leaf eruptions, dilapidation, and general metaphorical stinkitude.
So we went over there and opened a fun-house door—all twisty and disconcerting. The Twilight Zone theme played in my head.In one room, we found a window with a big gap between the pane and the wood (balsa, I think). The gap was filled with three old beach towels.
Festive!
The floor outside of the distorted entry doors was pretty holey and rotten—a litigation magnet. In general, the building interior matches its exterior re crapulence and decrapitude, er, decrepitude.
Plus you wouldn’t want to be in it during a tornado. It would just explode into splinters and cows.
That reminds me. I once saw a tornado at IVC. This was years ago. I was sitting at the bus stop waiting for the bus—I did a lot of that in those days—and I saw this tornado over to the north, maybe a quarter-mile or a half-mile away. It wasn’t huge, but it was definitely a tornado, and I could barely believe my eyes.
I remember looking around to get somebody else to witness it, cuz I figured right away I’d be telling this story and getting lots of dubitude 'n' peevitude, but, in those days, I was the only guy in Irvine who took the bus, and so there I was, alone, looking at a gosh-darn tornado here in Irvine.
It was pretty special, like getting’ in your car, turnin’ the key, and then suddenly finding yourself in a pumpkin.
Later, I told people about it, and, sure enough, everybody thought I was tellin' a yarn or something. “No,” I said, “I really saw a tornado.”
“There are no tornados in Irvine,” they asserted.
Then, a few days later, I read a story in the Irvine “World” News about a tornado, yes a TORNADO, that had done some real damage on the roofs of a few homes—not far from where I saw the dang thing.
So when I tell you something, you’d best believe it. I’m not makin' stuff up. I don’t do that, and neither does the Reb. And we’re saying that the Community Ed building is a real sh*thouse, like those flimsy shacks ‘n’ sheds they used to stick those Marines in over in El Toro and Tustin. I used to feel sorry for those guys, cuz I taught philosophy classes over there, and it used to get hot and humid and noisy and stinky in those lurid buildings that we would teach in, and you kinda hoped that a tornado would come along and take you out of your misery, or send you back to Kansas.
Well, the "community ed" building isn't quite that bad. Have a nice weekend. —Chunk
6 comments:
OK, I'm heading for those floorboards on Monday and do some seriously profitable tripping!
"A litigation magnet"--oh, sweet music to my ears! It may be your occasional use of phrases of this melodious kind that explains the odd "fixes" that occur upon you and the Reb publishing your lurid tales of leaf explosions, mold invasions, rodent visitations, and multifarious stenches. Keep it up, you guys! It gets results.
p.s. The whole L.A. region has a history of referring to tornadoes as "freakish," "unprecedented," "unheard-of," and so on--even in such (formerly) reputable vehicles as the L.A. Times. Yet we've *always* had 'em! The truth only "outs" when you make it.
Your ardent admirer, Rita
For the record, those "temporary" classrooms may boast signs that read "Community Education" but I have taught a number of classes in them over the years - classes that appear in the class schedule at IVC.
How bad are the facilties?
I have had student come to the sad conclusion that their class was "put" out there because they were "dumb."
That's how bad they are.
Comme see!
that's hwo bad they are.
Hey you people. I've taught in that building too, though not recently, and it isn't that bad. Leave it to Bauer and his crowd to focus on the negatibve
No, not bad at all. Cozy. Comfy. Inviting. Inspiring.
Let's move the Honors Program in there.
Or perhaps when the next Accrediting Team visits they can make the building their headquarters for the week. As long as they bring their own towels to stuff in the windows they should be fine.
Rebel Girl here.
For the record, my friend called three times on Friday only to be disconnected in the manner so described by Chunk: two recorded voices encouraging the telephonee to hang on the line and then - click - disconnection.
Now, I know the telephones are generally staffed by hardworking classified staff - THIS IS NOT MEANT TO CRITICIZE THEM - I think probelm (who kanow, maybe management doesn't think it is a problem - maybe this is what you get when you dial up other colleges--)this relates to some kind of technological snafu plus some shortsightedness on managment - what do we do when one of our staff members is ill or out on a sanctioned break? Let the phones ring? Disconnect? I mean, what's the plan here?
The same goes for the state of facilities. I know people are out there every day working hard, very hard. But I also know that we are understaffed and there are insufficient resources available to maintain the facilities we do have with the good staff we do have - what's going to happen to the new buildings as they come on line if we can't maintain what we do have?
But enough for a Sunday morning. Back to French toast and the NY Times.
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