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Feb. 24th, 2003
A thermostat war of one's own
Feb. 24th, 2003 04:43 pmThis started as a reply to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dancer.
The topic of co-workers complaining about the thermostat reminds me vaguely of my third month here (in 1995!) when we hosted an academic conference. A friend and I were manning the slide projector for one large auditorium nearby on campus, and all day this one professor of art history from somewhere or other kept coming back and complaining to us that it was either too hot or too cold, whereupon he'd give us a withering look and then change the setting on the thermostat to hypercorrect the situation. A little later he'd come back with the opposite complaint, "fix" the thermostat again, glare at us, and return to his seat.
And so on, probably six times in all, but perhaps time and memory have increased the number a little.
No one touched the thermostat all day except him. You may not be surprised to hear that he was not at all receptive to having this pointed out.
We wondered if his behavior had something to do with the fact that he had an enormous gauze bandage on the top of his balding head like some square white yarmulke. But there were other other academic weirdos around who did not show any signs of recent head injury, so maybe not.
dancer.The topic of co-workers complaining about the thermostat reminds me vaguely of my third month here (in 1995!) when we hosted an academic conference. A friend and I were manning the slide projector for one large auditorium nearby on campus, and all day this one professor of art history from somewhere or other kept coming back and complaining to us that it was either too hot or too cold, whereupon he'd give us a withering look and then change the setting on the thermostat to hypercorrect the situation. A little later he'd come back with the opposite complaint, "fix" the thermostat again, glare at us, and return to his seat.
And so on, probably six times in all, but perhaps time and memory have increased the number a little.
No one touched the thermostat all day except him. You may not be surprised to hear that he was not at all receptive to having this pointed out.
We wondered if his behavior had something to do with the fact that he had an enormous gauze bandage on the top of his balding head like some square white yarmulke. But there were other other academic weirdos around who did not show any signs of recent head injury, so maybe not.
Yet another update!
Feb. 24th, 2003 05:07 pmAka, quislibet can't keep his mind on his work.
In this particular case, because it IS interesting, and I just wanted to share the cast of characters I'm coming across in a book review of a biography of Cambridge classical scholar Jane Harrison (1850-1928):
Herr (Professor, I assume; possibly even Herr. Prof. Dr.) Adolf Furtwängler (the eminent scholar of Graeco-Roman sculpture)
Professor G.C.W. Warr (who adapted the Trojan War for the stage, with songs)
Sir Charles Freake (the real estate magnate who owned the private theater Warr's war was sung in)
Okay. Back to work; maybe I can even sustain a solid onslaught for the whole 45 minutes until I leave.
In this particular case, because it IS interesting, and I just wanted to share the cast of characters I'm coming across in a book review of a biography of Cambridge classical scholar Jane Harrison (1850-1928):
Herr (Professor, I assume; possibly even Herr. Prof. Dr.) Adolf Furtwängler (the eminent scholar of Graeco-Roman sculpture)
Professor G.C.W. Warr (who adapted the Trojan War for the stage, with songs)
Sir Charles Freake (the real estate magnate who owned the private theater Warr's war was sung in)
Okay. Back to work; maybe I can even sustain a solid onslaught for the whole 45 minutes until I leave.