Today I took the first tiny step toward moving out of my office: I cleared my bulletin board and put away all the cartoons, weird news items, and bits of poetry. The board itself, rarely noticed beneath the welter of stuff stuck to it, looks like a giant Shredded Wheat biscuit nailed to the wall. "Cover me!" it cries out, but I won't do it. It's time to ignore its pleas and move on.
My new office (aka The Big Office) won't have a bulletin board right outside the door, and this worries me. My current office (soon to be my old office) is small and cosy and welcoming, and students and colleagues seem to enjoy stopping by to chat. The Big Office is like a cave complete with a guard stationed just outside the door: the English department secretary. She's not a particularly scary secretary, but still, no one will get to my door without walking past her desk. I'm not sure this is entirely a good thing.
And then there is the bulletin board issue. My bulletin board is like an external blog, except I post new things up there only once a week on Friday mornings. It has developed a loyal following; if it's 10 a.m. Friday and I haven't taken down the old stuff and replaced it with new, students start hovering outside my door like starving hounds waiting to be tossed chunks of raw meat. The bolder ones ask whether I need some help changing the board, and sometimes I do.
I'm trying not to envision what will happen next fall when a newly hired prof will take over my office. He's a wonderful guy and we're happy to have him but I don't know his policy re: bulletin boards. Will he be hounded every Friday by a horde of salivating students? Or will they hunt me down instead? How disappointed will they be when they see that my office is set back into a corner, protected by a secretary, and suffering from a lack of bulletin boards? There is a great big bulletin board out in the hall, but it's for official departmental notices and not for frivolous New Yorker cartoons or news stories about stupid criminals or poems about professors who fall on their faces. What will happen to my adoring fans?
Meanwhile, my naked bulletin board seems to be looking at me reproachfully. "Take me with you," it pleads, and I'd like to comply but it's just not possible. When a relationship is over, it's best to just turn and walk away; long break-ups just prolong the pain. Someday I'll walk by and see my bulletin board covered with someone else's scraps of paper and then I'll know that the healing has begun. Until then, I avert my eyes and cover my ears and move on.
5 comments:
So, I mean, like, why did you move?
I've been having a long-term affair with that board while you were engaged in your relationship; if you like, I shall acquire a board for you, and you can prop it up somewhere prominent. After all, the salivating hordes need somewhere to focus their (our) attention. =)
Why am I moving my office? Noblesse oblige. The department chair doesn't wear a tiara or ermine robes, but I do get to inhabit the Big Office in the Corner.
Doesn't noblesse oblige also mean that you're obliged to take care of the little people? Like me, and the other board-fanatics? Honestly, I'm trying to make puppy-dog eyes over here, but it doesn't translate well through the screen.
You're absolutely right in this, Bev. I know it is difficult to end such a long-running relationship, but you'll just have to be firm with the board. Look it squarely in the pin-holes and just let it know that things have changed . . . you have to move on. You can do this! Be strong.
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