Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The Office Dorm?

There are many great things about going to college.  The all night parties. Locking people in the communal bathrooms. Undercover FBI stings to bust fake ID rings...

But nothing is better about college than the time honored tradition of having a dry erase board affixed to your dorm room door.

For those of you who didn't go to college let me explain: Practically the first thing you do when you move into a dorm, before you unpack you clothes and that illegal hot pot you had to have to make ramen, you got out your double sided tape and hung up your dry erase board.  You then took some colorful markers and wrote you and your roommates names on it and perhaps added something classy, like a a Keystone light sticker some guy handed you at Freshman orientation.

The main* purpose of the dry erase board was so that people could leave you messages while you were shacked up in someone else's room at class  It was pretty genius.  Which is why I think we need them around my office.

Right now, we have a ton of meetings and training sessions so no one is ever at their desks when you need them.  And yes, you could leave a post it note, but chances are there would be so many that when you got back your desk would look like a Midwestern yard in the fall.  (Because Post Its look like leaves).  Hence the need for a dry erase board.  That way when you are away from your desk people could just jot you a quick note to say they stopped by.  Or leave a funny saying.  Or draw an inappropriate picture which gets them reported to HR.

I bet we could even get them cheap through our office supply connections.

This will be my new pet project, you know, once I finally get back to my desk...

~ The Office Scribe

* Other reason include, but aren't limited to - accusing someone of stealing your boyfriend, telling your roommate she owes you money, drawing pictures of genitals, writing the answers for biology tests, reminding someone that they need to figure out what that smell is, etc, etc, etc.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I went to a Christian, liberal arts college where alcohol was prohibited (doesn't mean it wasn't there, hidden in the closet, not that I would know ;) ). They didn't hand out beer stickers at freshman orientation. I think they handed out Chick tracts. http://www.chick.com/catalog/tractlist.asp in case you've never heard of them. They're hilarious in a "WTF? Are these people for real?" kind of way.

Anonymous said...

I went to a private school for my undergraduate degree and was shocked to find out the dorm was for both men and women. I was also shocked to see a sign in the bathroom that read, "If you puke, you clean it up." What kind of a welcome was that? I left my study lamp on one evening too close to the bunk bed post and it caught on fire. The story of the near fire in the dorm room spread like urban legend all the way to Whitman College in eastern Washington. I was chastised by the school administration for writing a snarky article about the replacement of some perfectly fine dishes in the dining hall and when told to never be critical of the administration again, I wrote an article about that and contacted the daily to assert our free speech rights were being thwarted at the campus newspaper. I attended snobby cheese and wine tastings because I was hungry, not interested in learning fine wines. I had a mega financial aid package that was not quite enough one year so I went and begged for more and they forked it over. By my senior year, I did not have enough money for textbooks so some professors lent me some. I ran out of food at one point but did not know about food banks. I lived off campus with no telephone at one point. I rode a bicylce. While my fellow students went on spendy vacations, I would stay on campus and pilfer through the bags of clothing left behind by rich girls who discarded high end merchandise like water. I loved my undergraduate school. It remains one of the most gorgeous places in Tacoma. The University of Puget Sound. Tuition and room and board came to 10K back then. Today it is up to 47K. Oy! That's part of my story and I am sticking to it. -Alison Whiteman

Bryan G. Robinson said...

I went to the same no-drinking college that ye ole firste poster went to, (he's my husband), and when I spent a weekend at a heathen drinking-and-ice-hockey-allowed college with my best friend I realized there was another entertainment to be had with the white boards; walking down the hall on a Sunday morning trying to decipher the messages left the night before by drunk friends. They usually start off okay, then trail off to illegibility at a downward slant.

Shieldmaiden96 said...

Sorry, apparently if you don't sign into Gmail before you go a-posting it mis-identifies you. Didn't mean to post AS my beloved.

Ed said...

I was a non-traditional student.

No dorm life for me. But I have been in a few dorms.

And the Midwestern leaves reference was not lost on me.

Joey Polanski said...

In college, it's hard to afford

A really good dry-erase board,

Because, I suppose,

The best ones are those

On which exam answers are stored.

The Office Scribe said...

Wow - a poem in my comments. I am honored!

Joey Polanski said...

Joey Polanski cares enough to send the very best. ;)