To my colleague next door (yes, I know it's YOU, because I see you skulking back to your office clutching a sheaf of cantaloupe orange paper):
When you've finished making copies, take the fucking cantaloupe orange paper out of the paper drawer, or learn how to use the bypass tray. It's a bypass tray, not a Smart Board; you lay the paper on it. That's IT. You don't even have to try to figure out if "lay" is a transitive or intransitive verb. No possible reason exists for you to pull out the paper tray to fill it with your festive intentions.
(We also all know who leaves the copier jammed when you use the colored paper because no one else in the department touches that stuff.)
In fact, stop using colored copies altogether! Your students don't care if your handouts are colorful. They just want to know if you'll post them online, because as soon as they leave, they'll lose your splendiferously colored handouts, but our copy machine will still have colorful paper in the drawer, leaving me with copies of cantaloupe orange grant proposals that I cannot possibly use.
I hear you Cynic, though you may be missing out on some fun. Our copier has a dedicated colored-paper drawer, and we all just pile whatever color we want on top of what's already in there. Sometimes I don't even look in the drawer, I just hit the "color" button like I'm pulling the arm on a slot machine. Then I haul the crazy rainbow pile to class to administer a test and watch the students have little mini freak-outs because they think the different colors mean something. Of course most of them lack either the wattage or imagination to figure out what it might mean, but they're pretty sure it means something bad for them. It just brightens my day a little, and you have to take your fun where you can get it.
ReplyDeleteLove this. Maybe I'll do this on the final... random colored paper.
DeleteI have often thought of doing this, but then I have to load colored paper. We do not have a tray of random colors. But handing out exams printed on random colors would be a riot!
DeleteThis is brilliant (in the metaphorical as well as the literal sense). I can also imagine printing the same test on 2-3 non-random colors, and carefully distributing them so that adjacent students get different colors. A bit fiddly, but considerably less work than actually writing more than one test (and dealing with the complaints that the versions weren't equally hard, though it would be hard to defend yourself without revealing the secret).
DeleteI teach high school, and I always have 2 versions of each test, printed on different colors of paper, with the same questions but with the answers in different orders. On the essay portions of my test, I either rearrange the questions, or use a different graphic for them to analyze. It takes me maybe 10 minutes to rearrange the test.
DeleteAnd every year I get some students who copy from their neighbor anyway.
To clarify: I don't care if people want to use color paper as long as they don't leave it in the copier for me to copy things. Our copier doubles as our printer, and we only have one functioning drawer (something's broken in the second drawer, so it jams from that one). When we are up for new equipment, I'm requesting a four-drawer copier so we can designate one a "colorful" drawer.
DeleteCopy Machine meddlers belong one ring higher in hell than those who were messing with the Academic's coffee the other day.
ReplyDeleteI can't quite relate the severity of the crimes: one is against personal goods; the other committed on public ground.
At least Herr Docktor Fancy-Paper didn't (1) leave the copier sans all paper altogether or (2) use up all the toner and slink into his/her cave.
Oh, this particular professor is guilty of those offenses, too, but the color paper one is the one that bugged me yesterday.
DeleteOh I hate to say this, but I occasionally use colored paper, especially when I have something I don't want students to lose. I say, "Look, you're getting something on goldenrod today. Don't lose it. It ain't your History proffie's handout on treaties. THIS is really important." (That's a joke. One of my colleagues teaches History and recently started reading the page.)
ReplyDeleteThe point is, judicious use of colored copies I can put up with.
Photocopying the handouts and then posting them online? Why not just post them online? Sounds to me like your colleague is creating way too much work for hirself.
ReplyDeleteAh, said colleague refuses to use our LMS, so no online posting is done. Ever.
DeleteI was severely taken to task by a student with migraines for using colored paper in the way that Darla does, for Really Important Handouts. Okay, then.
ReplyDeleteCan I take them to task for giving me a perpetual migraine?
DeleteCynic, along with placing the paper in the Bypass Tray he also has to choose that option on the Control Panel. That may be the part he hasn't figured out yet.
ReplyDeleteActually, our copier senses the papers in the Bypass Tray and automatically selects that option.
Delete