Thursday afternoon, Newmentia
released the pupils early for parent conferences. Visitors are few and far
between at the secondary level. So Mrs. HM decided to make hay while the sun
shone. Actually, that’s a lot of backbreaking sweaty work. So no, technically,
she didn’t make hay. But she gathered up her two units that she plans to feed
the pupils next week, and tromped off to the teacher workroom to make copies.
Mrs. HM had a plan. She would run
her two-sided copies on the lesser Kyocera, and her multi-paged, staple-needing
copies on the greater Kyocera. Nobody was around. A tumbleweed could have
rolled across the workroom landscape. If Mrs. HM had fallen victim to an
industrial accident, nobody would have been there to save her before she succumbed
to blood loss. It might as well have been space, with such a lack of somebodies
to hear her scream.
She got a rhythm going. Put on a set
of papers for Lesser Kyocera. He’s lesser, because he jams up staple jobs. We
treat him like he’s simple. Then a set for Greater Kyocera. Back and forth,
like a well-oiled machine, Mrs. HM darted, gathering her sets of papers in
order, stacking them on the table by the faculty women’s restroom. In fact, the
process was running so smoothly that she was on her last two sets of 70 double-sided
when it happened.
Pinky strode in with a sheaf of
papers in her hand, and gave Mrs. HM the look. “Oh. Are you using both
copiers?”
“Yes. But I’m done as soon as each one shoots out my stack
of 70. Nobody was around, so I used both of them.” Let the record show that we had from 12:45 until 6:00 to
get those copies done while waiting for parents to show up.
“That’s okay. I’m not in a hurry.”
Within a millisecond, Jewels dashed
in, past Mrs. HM standing at LK, and began rifling through the papers coming out
of GK.
“Go ahead and rifle through all my papers. That’s the last
set.” Which was not so much an
invitation, as a way of shaming Jewels for her nosiness. Shame which went right
over the head of Jewels, because she dug up a set of copies and waved them.
“These are done.”
“They’re not my last set. Somewhere, I have 70 copies
waiting to get out.”
“Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is using both
copiers, I think.” Said Pinky. For no particular reason other than to shame
Mrs. HM, most likely.
“There was nobody here! So I used both copiers. Geez. You
guys are like vultures standing around waiting to pounce.”
“I’m in no hurry.” Said Pinky.
Standing impatiently.
“I just printed some things from my
room. That’s what’s coming out now.” Let the record show that the thickness of that stack was roughly comparable to the thickness of the unabridged hardback edition of The Stand.
“Oh. I thought I was done. Now I'm just waiting for
mine to come out of the machine.”
Here’s the thing. What did they
expect me to do, take twice as long by only using one copier? Call every room
to see if somebody was going to need one? I was running my copies, standing
right there tending the machines. Unlike Jewels, who sent a considerable print
job from her room even though when you do that, your screen tells you if the
copier is idle, or is running a job. And who’s supposed to unjam that print job
if it gums up the Kyocera’s works? Or fill its gullet with paper if it digests
the 6 reams which Ms. Ventricle put in it that morning?
So Mrs. Hillbilly Mom let herself
act just as entitled as the copy-jumpers. She spoke up this time. Long gone are
the days when Mrs. HM would apologize and gather up her stuff and sit patiently
for her copy job that was interrupted and delayed by 10 minutes. No. She
defended herself, and even let her nose get out of joint. She let her B-flag
fly.
She’s mad as not-heaven, and she’s
not going to take it very much longer.
3 comments:
Don't burn the bridges with your colleagues just yet. You might want to network with them at some point...
Sioux,
No bridges burnt. Who do you think I AM, Farmer H? I have not even left embers unattended that could possibly start an accidental bridge-incineration.
I am merely NOT meekly allowing them to tromp all over me like Sweet Alabama Beige would do, such as apologizing for daring to use both copiers when no one else was around, or yanking my papers out of the way to let them go ahead of me.
The bridge inferno would begin with me confronting Pinky about her snarky poster board signage at the potluck so many years ago, and asking Jewels why she printed that pile when she was that the copier was in the middle of a job.
Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has not yet begun to burn.
Sor-ry.
I had trouble working "network" into my comment. I think you should rant and rave, since it's your last few months.
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