Friday, October 7, 2016

But there was plenty of space there!

From the Department of Not My Job to Think:

We are in the process of getting fancy new alarm systems put into the labs around our place, only a wee bit over a year after we had a major break-in. These things take time!. Anyway, last Friday apparently someone ordered a handyperson to install movement sensors in the labs. The labs were quiet, no one in them. They looked around and found the perfect spot for them:

Right smack dab in the middle of the piece of wall we use to project the beamer picture. Duh.

Of course it's free. We need it to be free (and it would be nice if it got a paint job someday, as colleagues with ink-stained fingers touch the wall to point something out instead of using a laser pointer). We actually TEACH in these rooms. 

We managed to get the people back up to remove the damn things, but now we have holes in the wall and are forbidden from filling them ourselves on account of union rules or something... and they couldn't find anyplace else to install the movement sensors. 

Will the holes get filled by Christmas? I'm not holding my breath.

-- Suzy

20 comments:

  1. Once again, nobody consults the people who actually use the room before totally fucking something up. What's the over/under on St. Patrick's Day?

    Perhaps you can use that 3M Command stuff to hang a 4x8' foam core posterboard or something.

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    1. Or if they do consult you (for instance, via "focus group" before drawing up plans for replacing the whole building), they then completely ignore you (at least so it seems from the notes that followed that focus group meeting; the repeated refrain from people who actually use the building was a desire for visually and aurally private spaces; that was not reflected at all in the notes, which reflect the architects' preexisting preoccupation with "dynamic" activity and interaction and the ability of (somebody, I'm not quite sure who) to observe same.)

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  2. Oh, what hath socialism wrought. Didn’t Terry Gilliam make fun of this, in his film Brazil?

    Another reason this takes me back to the ‘80s is that it reminds me of when we got basic cable. Nothing like having some yokels straight out of Caddyshack come over and vandalize your home, and you have to pay them for it, and they’re NOT cheap. It pains me, with my working-class background, and my family and friends who are still there, living good, hardworking, honest lives. Still, I don’t like anyone telling me what I can’t do, especially when it’s something I need to fix now that is their fault.

    Here’s what I suggest for Suzy: sometime soon between now and Christmas, preferably this weekend, someone quietly go to an office-supply store such as Office Max, Office Depot, or Staples (TWITCH!), or an art-supply store (although that could be more expensive), and buy a large piece of thin (3/16” thick), white foamboard. Foamboard is polystyrene inside, and laminated on both the front and back: it’s lightweight and cheap. It’s great for poster presentations. I use a large piece of it as a light baffle in the Campus Observatory, since I can’t get my Caddyshack crew to install a hood over a street light about 50 feet from the facility. If it comes loose and hits someone on the head, it’s so light it won’t hurt. A 40” x 60” piece should cost only about $10; a 48” x 96” piece should cost only about $20. Alternatively, a large piece of poster board, cardboard, or paper could do.

    Any of these materials are cheap enough so that whomever pays for them can just pay cash-out-of-pocket, and consider the expense an anonymous donation that is so small, it’s not even worth the time to put on your tax returns. Do NOT leave a paper trail with this, especially in the official channels of your academic department.

    Then, in the dead of night when no one is watching, take this large piece of foamboard and a 2-inch-thick roll of blue painter’s tape (which you can get in any hardware store) into the room. Tape the piece of foamboard over the damaged wall. If the Caddyshack crew does get to this repair before Christmas (or ever: our crew installed an elevator for wheelchairs in our main classroom in 2005, and they still haven’t connected the electricity for it), they can very easily remove it. The blue painter’s tape will hold the foam board securely probably for well over a year, and it won’t damage the paint. Even if you instead use duct tape, which does damage the paint, it certainly won’t do so any more than their previous thoughtful repair did. If they give you a hard time about making the repair yourself, play ignorant: I didn’t see who did it, honest, and of course NONE of US could have done it, we’re all-thumbs ACADEMICS! This is all the more feasible since the security system is still NOT operational, is it?

    I’ve long been thinking of a similar guerilla operation in the dead of night over a weekend during the summer to paint over our whiteboards with chalkboard paint. In 2009, our Caddyshack crew insisted we replace out chalkboards with whiteboards. They said the chalk dust would be bad for the electronics technology they were installing in the room. I was serving as department Chair at the time, and told them this was a problem with their electronics, not with our chalkboards, which of course they ignored. They then came in during Christmas break and replaced the chalkboards with whiteboards, for our own good, I suppose, and naturally, sent us the bill. Within a year, the whiteboards started showing scratches and dents: they are so horribly worn out now, it’s nearly impossible to read them from the back row. Chalkboard paint makes any flat surface into a chalkboard. It won’t repair the dents, but it will cover the scratches. The only problem I foresee is getting the job done neatly and quickly enough so that no one notices, until after the paint has dried.

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    1. Here's something even better: with a large enough piece of foamboard and favorable room geometry, you may not even need to tape it: just lean it up against the wall. That way, no one can really accuse you of fixing anything.

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    2. I was thinking that, depending on the size of the hole, a piece of ordinary typing (excuse me, I'm showing my age: copy/printer) paper and some scotch tape might do it. They do make white duct tape, which might do damage; I'm not sure about white painters' tape, which would be handy in this case. Old-fashioned masking tape (age, again) was an off-white/cream color; if that still exists, it might work.

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    3. Gee, Frod, your endorsement of the foam board idea is so lengthy it is almost as if someone else hadn't suggested it 10 hours before ;-)

      You've reminded me of my own experience with the cable TV installer. I took a day off from work, knowing he'd be late; he did not disappoint. I met him at the street as he was offloading supplies from his truck, and when he went back for a second load, I left him to deal with something else. A grinding noise brought me running to the side of the house. I arrived just as he was extracting the drill from the exterior wall.

      "What have you done to my house?" I demanded.

      "Well, I have to run a wire through the wall to the TV," he replied.

      "No you don't. There's coax running to all the TVs, inside the house. If you'd have asked before messing up my house, I'd have shown you the hole over here, with the electric mains and telephone, where you can fish your wire through so you can hook into my wires."

      I didn't bother pressing the issue for him to repair the damage, which I felt I had the right to do. Sometimes, when people declare their irredeemable incompetence, I just want them to finish the bare minimum and get out as soon as possible so I can call in a real craftsman (craftsperson?) or do the rest myself.

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    4. Well, you have to explain this sort of thing carefully to academics, you know. Only now are they starting to gain proficiency at stapling dicks to the floor, despite my many efforts at showing them.

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    5. Regarding the chalkboard paint, we did something similar with the wall of one classroom, except it was whiteboard paint. So far it has stayed fresh enough, and I suppose if it gets too unusable, they could just slap a fresh coat on it. I think it may be too glossy to use as a projection screen.

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    6. And the two of you have now explained why I don't have FIOS, even though my building is wired for it. I detached an amazing amount of shoddily-"installed" (using, yes, staples -- hi, Frod!) cable when I first moved in, and I'm pretty sure that I need to do the apartment-retrofit equivalent of what OPH describes -- drill the holes, run cable raceways along the baseboards or on top of the bookcases -- before I let them anywhere near the place.

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    7. Oh, and experiences with whiteboard paint at my place have been mixed, or so I hear tell. They're mostly springing for actual whiteboards these days. Though they were projecting onto it, I think the main issue was durability/cleanability (or lack thereof).

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    8. At least in my single dwelling, the fiber optic line comes into the building, then plugs into a box about the size of a large briefcase that converts the signal to run through the same coax that CATV uses.

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    9. We have little boxes in our coat closets. The tricky thing is that we never had properly-strung coax, just the mess I removed (I'm currently using a DSL line -- so, the old copper wiring that was installed in either the '50s when the building was built or the '80s when it was renovated). So I need to install the coax, neatly, then let the technician make the connection.

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  3. I totally get that administration would want to discourage potentially unskilled persons from making alterations to the physical structures. I also get that union workers can be frustrated by having to undo such unskilled alterations, and that it's best overall for instructors and workers not to try to do each other's jobs.

    But here's the thing: making the classroom "work" is one of the most fundamental missions of the institution. When one party interferes with that mission, I believe the other party is right to restore functionality in whatever way they deem least disruptive.

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  4. If union workers really are supposed to do the job, then they might as well do it as soon as possible. It shouldn't take months, especially since it's about repairing their own mistake. I think filling the holes yourselves could be one of the little things you can get away with, if doing it discreetly.

    Blanket bans are just there because it is not possible to specify every scenario and what could go wrong, and possibly also because of insurance or union rules. Who knows? If you were allowed to fill the holes, maybe you would want to build your own partition wall, repair the electrical wall outlets, make even larger holes or "restore" a painting the way the Monkey Jesus painting was "restored". You may have common sense, but not everybody does. If you were to specifically ask, a risk-averse administrator would just stick to official policy and to the most prudent solution, which is just saying no. As long as you don't openly defy a direct order, brag about it or create an actual problem, this is one of the small exceptions that may simply get tolerated, or the thing that will finally get the people in charge of the repair (or of ordering the repair) to do their job.

    Just use your best judgment. Don't do what you cannot do properly and safely. For instance, I am still waiting for an electrical outlet to be repaired. Actually, I simply came to understand that it likely won't happen. Of course I'm not going to do it myself. On the other hand, I have provided at my expense a mesh strainer for a deep sink that other people kept clogging with coffee and relatively large pieces of tea leaves. I simply put it there without asking for permission and it was not removed. If I asked for permission, I'm not even sure the guy in charge would have understood what I wanted unless I had the object in my hand and showed to him where I wanted to put it. That kind of simple device is easy to recognize when you see it even if it's not the same model you are familiar with, but not easy to explain to someone with limited English who would have no idea what I'm talking about.

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    1. Almost totally agreed. A small point of contention is that the people who do some things aren't necessarily the ones who undo them. For example, the electrical workers who may take it upon themselves to knock holes in walls to add to the infrastructure might not even be in the same union as the plasterers, carpenters, painters or whoever who patch and paint the walls. So the unexpected repair cannot be assumed to be on the same schedule as the work that precipitated it.

      The suggestions for foamboard, duck tape, or screen are good because they let the show go on whilst being undoable as well as conspicuous enough to remind administration to prioritize a permanent fix.

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    2. If you are forbidden from filling the holes and you just cover them up, such as by placing duct tape on top, you are not even breaking the rules. Filling the holes implies that something is placed inside, and you are not doing that.

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  5. Get a pull-down projector screen and nail it up above the hole...?

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    1. Even a portable one might be good, if it doesn't "walk."

      A wall-mounted, pull-down screen requires a robust attachment so as not to land on the person tugging on it.

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  6. Get a pull-down projector screen and nail it up above the hole...?

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