Cozy copy corner

The zoop-zoop of paper running through the photocopier puts me in a meditative mood, or maybe it's the heat of the stuffy copy closet or the complete and utter boredom involved in waiting and watching while the big white machine spits out piles of syllabi, assignment sheets, and handouts.

This beginning-of-the-semester photocopying takes a ton of time, but technically I don't have to sit there waiting for my copies. I could walk away from the tiny stuffy copy closet and do something more useful, like watering my neglected plants or putting together a PowerPoint presentation, but I prefer not to. For one thing, the copier is bound to break down or run out of paper the minute I walk out the door, or else someone else will come in to run some copies while I'm gone and will shove my unfinished copy job out of the way and I'll never find it. 

Besides, sitting beside the thrumming copier provides a moment of peace before the chaos of classes resumes. I think of my fraught relationship with copying technology over the years--the blots of black ink leaking through stencils in my junior high newspaper print shop, the copier cover I slammed too hard and broke at a newspaper where I worked,  the sweet and tangy scent of mimeograph stencils at my first grad-school institution, where grad students were forbidden from running the equipment themselves but instead had to hand the typed stencils over to authorized staff well in advance of need.

Things had changed by the time I started my second round of grad school. Photocopying had replaced mimeograph machines, and asking the administrative assistants to make copies was strictly forbidden. Everyone was expected to make their own copies, which was fine when the copier was functioning properly but not so great when it jammed or otherwise malfunctioned, which always happened at the very moment when everyone in the building needed to copy syllabi for every class. Under those circumstances, we were well motivated to make as few copies as possible.

I remember when one of my grad-school profs handed each member of the class a thick accordion file full of photocopied journal articles, and we marveled over the amount of time he must have spent standing over the photocopier. "Oh, I don't do photocopies," he said, and we asked how in the world he managed to persuade the office staff to make all those copies for him. His eyes twinkled as he explained, "I always remember them generously at Christmas," which taught me more about the academic life than several of my classes.

A few years ago I tried to take the next step and go paperless, posting syllabi and handouts on the course management system and trusting students to print what they needed themselves, but the problem is that they don't, which would be fine if they could be counted on to make a habit of actually looking at the course management system regularly, but again, they don't. Well, some do, but not enough, and the rest miss out on too many important requirements and deadlines. 

And so I sit in the copy closet listening to the zoop-zoop of paper zipping through the drums and the sharp click of staples biting into the top left corners, and no matter how much I miss the smell of fresh mimeographs, I'm content to let the copier do its job.