Skip The Budgie

They come in thick and fast. The marks fly in, the lecturers look at me questioningly, pleadingly. I point at the red tray, beneath the sign that says INSERT MARKS HERE. Generally it is okay. It is the people who have been here for years that pretend they don't know what's going on that really wind me up. You WERE here in the summer, weren't you? I ask, as someone asks me where he is supposed to sign. It was only a couple of months ago, after all.

I arrange a few exams overseas for some of our students. It is a nightmarish process, primarily because there is no clear directive on what I am supposed to do, let alone how much I am supposed to charge. I talk to the British Councils in Bahrain and Khazkstan, send off the exams, it all goes smoothly... In Bahrain, the student is caught sneaking furtive looks at bits of tissue paper. He begs the invigilators to ignore the incident, but they confiscate them and send them to me. I am only mildly surprised that I am not sent a hand as well.

Three new people start work this week and I'm in charge of two of them, such timing! We struggle to find them things to do, the office is getting more and more organised as we direct them to all the piles of crap we've been ignoring for years. There's stuff lying around from the 90's that we just keep for the hell of it. We are all so busy and you couldn't ask a new person to check people's results! I have two more days of boards starting today, the new girl in my office will be doing this with me next year, but for now it's just me. I have in fact been doing more than half her job since I took over, because we just haven't had anyone we can trust doing it. No-one who is capable of more than one thing at a time, anyway.

A lecturer dies suddenly over the weekend. Rumours of suicide abound, until a heartfelt email goes out from one of his friends. Now we all believe it's just a tragic accident. Too early for jokes, thanks.

Tonight I am going to a gig for the first time in like, forever. It will be awesome, presuming the world doesn't end...

One of our temps quits. There is a some muted rejoicing, although he was going to be replaced by this latest round of interviews anyway. His replacement will be one of our own students, with next to no experience, which is ideal really and hopefully she will be much easier to get along with. Just weird, is all.¹

He quits under a cloud of minor controversy, discovering that I am his boss the moment after he tells me to fsck off! in a jokey sort of way. He quits that same evening in tears (of the crocodile variety I suspect), even though it was taken in the spirit in which it was intended (like I give a fsck). My boss says that she wishes she had set me on him before, we've had to put up with a lot of crap for quite a while now.²

The other annoying temp is coming to the end of his tenure, surprising us all by not causing complete chaos as he is the one who is packing all the exam papers together. A little bit stressed but life goes on... HIS replacement starts on Monday (thank God!) and we might actually have some people who work and care about what they do, rather than talk about films all day or wind me up by just being. Perhaps I am too hopeful?

He is very grumpy today, has been for a while, perhaps it's that I keep asking / telling him to get on and do mundane jobs for me. There is a lot more to his role, but I have been doing most of it for the last few months as he can't cope / be trusted with more than one thing at a time. There is one thing I've been trying to get him to do for weeks, it involves going through a load of boxes, taking out old stuff, putting in new stuff. I suspect that I'll be doing it myself when work finishes because it has to be done by tomorrow.

The string tightens, and frays.

Amazingly, I'm not at all angry. I am in work and I am soaking wet. My trainers squelch when I walk and my jeans have a tell-tale dark tide mark, which is slowly moving down my legs as the water evaporates. I get in to work at 10:30 and all I can think is how ridiculous it all is. I mean farcically ridiculous.

The morning begins innocently enough, I get up with a Plan, to put the last coat of gloss on the kitchen windowsill and go to the bank. The painting goes well and I venture out into the rain on my bike. The task is simple: go to the bank, pay in some money, then buy a paintbrush.

I arrive at the bank. Then I get back on my bike and go home again, to pick up the credit cards one generally requires when visiting the bank. It is raining pretty hard now. When I arrive at work it has been an hour cycling in the pouring rain and I'm pretty wet through.

Never mind I think to myself, At least you had the good sense to wrap your change of clothes in a couple of plastic bags, you'll be nice and dry in no time. Well think again. I first realise something is wrong when, after having thoroughly rung out my socks into the sink, the jeans appear to be a little tight...

Hot Tip for a Rainy Day Number One: DON'T pack your girlfriends jeans to wear at work.

But I am not in the slightest bit angry or annoyed. Perhaps this is part of the whole why isn't Dave panicking thing. But I think that it is a result of years of realising that you just can't get upset about this stuff. There's just no point. In India, we had to wait an entire day for a train. Nobody over there cares, it's all just a big excuse for a party on the platform.

So we all have a good laugh about it, I am offered a skirt to wear, but I prefer to stay in my damp clothes, squelching along the corridors. It brightens up an otherwise dull day, if not for me.

The worst thing about all of this is that we are interviewing this week, to replace our difficult Temp Period and today it is my turn to greet the interviewees and lock them in a little side room for the obligatory admin test. This time the test consists of prioritising a load of random stuff and explaining why.

It is the usual crop of eager, nervous young females.¹ you always think you have to impress everybody with how wonderfully efficient you are and ask lots of questions, even of the person escorting you up the stairs. I'm probably the wrong sort of person for that particular job, wet or no. I mean, I just don't really care about your journey in, where you live, how precise and punctual you are.

I am beginning to smell. So first impressions last hey?

I take a well-earned holiday during which I manage to finish off our dining room and paint the extension. It DOES count as a holiday, because I am not running around panicking and being at work until 9pm trying to get the little bastards’ results out on time.

That’s all over now.

I return to the usual piles of paper work and hundreds of emails inviting me to this retirement party and that pile of cakes in the kitchen. One of the good temps has moved out of my office and one of the bad temps has moved in. At least there will be plenty of entertainment as I slowly pick apart his misplaced confidence and try to teach him how human beings are supposed to behave.¹

Towards the end, there are hysterics and tears and tempers soar. After we surface and realise that nobody actually died my boss says that she is very pleased with my efforts and that I have really borne out her confidence that I could do the job. Aww. So pleased in fact, that they are considering swapping me into doing enrollment in September because I’m so laid back about everything – there is no pay rise for this you understand, just a satisfied feeling that I (probably) won’t have to worry about resit exam boards.

The big boss tells me I should take up bell ringing, which is incidentally where she buggers off to on Thursday night while the rest of us scream bloody murder in her absence.²

Today I am required to produce a detailed statistical report³ on all the students we have had this year. How many were under five, black, blue green, you know the score. Normally this takes me about two weeks. Normally I’m not asked to do it when there are 50 employers screaming at me for references and 500 students after certificates and a nice stack of minutes to write. Normally I say it’ll take two weeks and then play on the internet.

That’s all over now, too.

I do it in one day. Next week, I will probably have to do it again, but I might just get away with it so I figure it’s worth the gamble.

A complaint wings its way across the office. The foolish temp who was filling in before I took on my current job (see this story for more details) is still receiving emails and forwarding them to me. This is a Good Thing and yet it reminds us of what an insufferable idiot the man is, and how bitter and twisted people can become for no apparent reason. He isn't in the meeting this morning. He writes:

Due to some nonsensical management in the faculty I don't work for [them] any more, you need to talk to [dash] (who now has my old job) about this, if you can prise him away from Facebook and Module timetabling

So naturally I demand a Court Marshall, how dare he besmirch my Good Name? I am only on Facebook at lunchtimes these days!

Out of the kindness of my heart I visit an Exam Officers' Meeting, in which the exploits of our students over the recent exam period are celebrated. We have more incidents of insolence, cheating and mobile phone rings than ever before. Calculators are too clever these days and one of the invigilators is assaulted by a student who refuses to put his pen down when the exam is over. Students are caught in the toilets with crib sheets or on the phone and they are aggressive and upset when challenged.

Is it that cool to cheat so much? Are you so addicted to your iPods and mobile phones that you don't 'understand' when or why you're asked to switch them off? Yes, someone even hid his headphone wire inside one of his dreadlocks and his iPod inside a big hat! Are you really that selfish and or stupid?

I am 13. I am sitting a history exam about which I know nothing. I need a poo about half an hour in. Does the teacher let me go? You should have gone before he says as he puts me on Punishment Squad for distracting the other kids with my squirming. I swear my bowel could have ruptured and he would still have punished me. One of the other students writes the story of WWII as if it were a football match, with the countries being the players. Or so he claims.

The highest mark in the year is 17% and this is a Public School.

We suggest having a bucket of water by the door for your phones, or perhaps a magnetic field round the door that nukes them anyway. We suggest providing calculators so that no-one brings any of them Pocket PC thingies. We decide that it is cheating to have a scribe that speaks German for your German exam. We think that perhaps students should be taught bladder control, tie a knot in it for goodness sake, are you that pathetic?

Ah society, how we lament thee.