(no subject)

[eponymousarchon]

Well, things have been busy around here, while the university is wound-down and currently between semesters, it would seem that the conferences office has been working its hardest to sell the use of our facilities during the vacation.

As this mostly involves the lecture theatres on the other half of the ground floor of our building, this means a steady stream of confused conference delegates who mistake our happy litte helpdesk for a building reception (there isn't one) and make unreasonable demands of us. (Well, mostly.)

So far this year we've had: 

1. Guildford area Sixth-form Universities day.
   
   Egad. Lots of different universities from around the country hawking their pitch to billions of bloody local school kids and sixth-formers. We gained the worst of  the schoolyard noise and carping, all the bravado and delinquent behaviour that currently passes for 'cool' and a top-up of the level of unoriginal, unwitty graffiti in the toilets. And to  top it all, none of the little shits had the grace to drown in the pond either!
    
   
   
2. The Grand Launch of Coca-Cola ZERO, (apparently the all-new Diet Coke)
   
   Attended by 100s of bloody Coke employees, all in matching red polo shirts, and all trying to crib the answers to 'scavenger hunt' quizzes from us as well as playing football over lunch and consquently making our toilets smell like a tropical rainforest (albeit one that is very, very, unwell.)
   
   The scavenger hunters who knew what they wanted and just needed certain obscure details googling for (and asked nicely) -- and who gave us some freebie drinks after as a thankyou, now that I think of it --  were reasonably well received.  The numpty who seemed to expect us to give him the answer to the 'local' questions, without any effort on his part seemed a bit miffed when we (Oh alright, I) pointed out that  the answers to the questions he was asking were all within a hundred metre radius of this office, that we'd pointed him in the right directions and that he was expected to 'go forth' and actually put in some legwork.
   
   
   
3. The Guildford Dioces - 'Growing with God'
   
   Now admittedly they were generally polite and less raucus than the previous lots, a few hundred folks with a high-than average number of people wearing dog collars really cluttered the place up, and tended to eat the nearest cafe out of the usual yummy lunchtime fare.
   
   However, that's without mentioning my being taken for a delegate by one of the speakers (I assume) in the toilet of all places -- Now, I'm at work, so I'm dressed-down a little, but I'm still all in black with short spiky hair, nary a dog collar in evidence and wearing *really* big stompy rock boots. Perhaps I need to try a little harder...
   
   
   And currently:
   
   
   
4. The Autodesk Users' Group International's CAD CAMP (No, really!)
   
   Well, thank heavens for geeks! They've been the best to date. Quiet, polite, not asking stupid questions, cluttering the place up least of all so far... But it's an AutoCAD gathering. Now, I know I do geeky things myself, but AutoCAD? *shudder*
   
   

Of course, in the middle of all this, we've had one or two graduations, with millions of clueless parents parking in the wrong places, blocking the building entrance *completely* and asking clueless questions repeatedly, but the graduations are kind of what it's all about, so strangely it's easier to put up with. 

And of course the graduating students shine and bounce and bubble with energy and happiness. If there was such a thing as 'Positive vibes' you really could bottle it and sell it at such times. 

And after all that, it's still only June...

Comments

Graduation

[villagecretin.livejournal.com]

Having computing students and the network go down due to a critical bit of hardware failing, which took out AP meaning no one could log in proper until 10 a.m., "but I want to print off the email stating I've hired my robes dam you!" - very embarrassing I can tell you, I was doing the lab checks with no-one else around with a lot of grumpy students.

It was a case of hide in the back office and do something else for a while, until more information came through as to what had happened.