Your unusual worklife

[SteveDallas]

I was getting ready to say that I haven't done a single interesting thing at work, ever. (At least, not interesting to non-computer geeks.) But I was wrong.

My last job was at a college. Among other things, I ran the public computer labs. It being a somewhat peculiar college, all exams were unproctored and students were allowed to take them whenever they wanted within the designated exam week. So there were lots of take-home exams and papers in lieu of exams.

The exam week ended at a specific date and time (usually noon on a Friday), and the Dean of Students was adamant that all work was to be handed in at that time.

What this arrangement meant was that a student who had kept up with their work all semester and was on top of things could finish exams at the start of the week and head home. Any student who was still hanging around trying to finish something at 11:00AM the last day of exam week was therefore seriously behind the 8 ball.

Since the Dean wanted exam week to end at the designated time, she requested that the computer center close the public labs at that time. So I had the privilege of going around and closing the labs at noon. This always involved 3 or 4 students who were feverishly (but unsuccessfully) trying to finish. I'd be lying if I said I didn't take a certain amount of pleasure in removing them from the lab with their half-finished papers in hand (I only had to threaten to call campus security once). They were usually quite crestfallen when I told them that if they wanted more time to finish, they could petition the Dean for an extension.