Much like all of my readers, I encounter various forms of idiocy on a daily basis. Some might argue that the forms of idiocy that I encounter is magnified due to my living in the great Garden State, but I would argue that they’re wrong. What I’ve come to understand is that idiots are just idiots and it doesn’t matter where they live or what they do for a living! Case in point – the idiot at the local college’s bookstore.
As some of you may remember, I teach at the local college. Well, two weeks ago was the first day of class and I just took over the teaching assignment for this class at the end of August. The problem with switching teaching assignments so close to the beginning of the school year is that the previous professor’s books are still the ones that are listed as the required texts – and I use different books. Thus, we have a problem.
My students came to class on the first day and most of them had the wrong textbook with them. No problem, I thought. I told the students to go back to the bookstore and explain the issue and that it shouldn’t be a problem to get a refund and switch out the book that they bought with the correct one. I’ve worked with the bookstore before and they’re typically a good, easy-going bunch.
However, I decided that since I was on vacation from my day job that after class that day I would walk over to the bookstore and just double check to be sure that the right books were assigned to my class section (they were). When I arrived at the bookstore, I noticed some of my students switching out their books, which was good. I asked one of the runners (they have students that run to the back to check on questions when they come up) if she could go and check my book assignments. By the response on this young girl’s face, you would have thought that I asked her to do high end calculus using nothing but an abacus. She responded with something like, “Oh… I don’t think I can do that, but let me ask my supervisor.” And before I could tell her not to worry about it, she was gone.
Folks, the last thing I want to do as an adjunct professor on the first day of school is bother a supervisor in the bookstore. If you’ve ever been to a college bookstore on the first day of classes, it’s mayhem. The young girl came running back and said to follow her to the back. Immediately, I put my guard up because not only was this completely unnecessary, but I knew that whoever I was going to speak with was going to be irate at my presence.