Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Random Rant #6

I am the type of guy that lets the little stuff get to me. Understand that these things don't ruin my day, they just annoy me and piss me off and make me wonder why everyone can't just do things the way that I do them. One such annoyance is the fact that law students cannot grasp the simple concept of passing things around the classroom.

On almost a daily basis, if not more often, professors will hand something out (most often an attendance sheet) that needs to be passed around the room, and on almost a daily basis, if not more often, someone fucks it up.

The easiest way to pass something out to the entire class is to start in the front, pass it all the way down the front row, and then back to the second row. Once the second row has signed in or gotten the handout or whatever it is, they pass it back to the third row, and so on. The biggest cause of these fuck ups is an aisle that seperates sections of the room. All too often, the last person in a row of a particular section of the room will pass the paper back, rather than go across the aisle. This works if the entire section adheres to this method, but inevitably, one person will then pass it across the aisle, leaving the rest of his or her section without the handout.

Other common fuck ups:

* The Stall: One person gets the attendance sheet or pile of handouts, and assuming it has made it's way around the room, stops the passing procedure: They do this despite the fact that half the class has yet to sign in, or there is still a large pile of handouts.

*The Trance: This is the person who is so engrossed in the lecture that they don't see the attendance sheet in front of them. It sits there until someone pokes them and points out the idle sign in sheet.

* The Two-Man Job: This is when someone gets the sign-in sheet and then passes it the wrong way (such as forward, when it needs to go back). The person receiving the sheet then wrongly assumes that because he has already signed in, everyone has. He then keeps the paper, stalling the entire process.

* The Snoop: This occurs when someone signs in, but rather than pass the sheet on, keeps it for several moments, carefully examining the signitures, trying to figure out who is there and who isn't. While this person eventually passes it on, he or she wastes valuable passing time.

So why does this matter? Why do I let this get to me? Because the common result of improper passing procedure is The Cluster Fuck. This is when someone fucked up the pass around, and at the end of class, 40 people have to gather around and try to sign the sheet. Even then, instead of working as a group to sign in quickly, it's every man and women for themselves, making the entire process take that much longer.

You would think that a bunch of people with at least a bachelors degree, if not more,working towards a doctorate (sort of) could figure out a simple thing such as passing a paper around a room. But they can't. And it annoys me to no end.

And to end, allow me to preemptively answer some questions, before you email me or IM me about this:
1) Yes, I realize I put way too much thought into this.
2) No, I don't feel like I should have better things to do than worry about this.
3) Yes, I am the world's foremost expert on paper passing procedure.
4) Yes, I am proud of that fact.
5) Yes, I do discount your intellience level if you cannot properly pass papers around a classroom.
6) No, you go to hell.