Six big boxes

So, an e-mail came out the other day - "Safety" is going to be coming 'round to inspect the fire extinguishers, emergency lights, and other gew-gaws designed to keep us from dying in the event of an emergency. The e-mail said they'd be coming in next week, as a way of cutting down on the disruption to faculty.

(Thank you, "Safety." I know someone on a campus where they started doing the inspections and stuff and some heavy construction DURING exam week. Noise plus students taking exams doesn't work.)

Anyway, I thought, "Could these be the same 'safety' who in past years deemed my office a "hazard" because I had a few stacks of papers* and some things on the bookshelf that allegedly could "hit a student" if they fell off. (No mention of my getting hit; I presume they figure I don't matter as I'm the one who put the stuff there. Never mind that most of it would require a moderate earthquake to dislodge, and if we're experiencing a 5.0, I'm going to be under the desk, rather than standing next to my bookcase)

So anyway. I decided to take today and clean my office, and sort through and get rid of as much paper as I reasonably could. Also, our print shop now has a large, industrial sized shredder - so I don't have to risk the wrath of colleagues by carrying pounds of paper to the dumpster (instead of recycling) or waste hours of my life feeding the sheets into a shredder prior to recycling**. So I merrily boxed stuff up and then loaded it into my car and drove it over there before lunch.

I filled six boxes. The student workers looked at me in alarm when I unloaded them but I explained it had been over a year since I cleaned my office out. (Well, it has.) Also, I had held on to some old student papers far longer than I needed to: they were in the file cabinet and I just didn't see them there. In fact, I found some papers so old I don't even remember the students whose names are on them.

My office feels a lot better now. All bets are off as to whether I can actually FIND anything I put away when I need it (I remember stuff by "WIWL" - Where It Was Last - and if I move too many things it reboots my memory and I forget where I put stuff).

But at least now I think Safety cannot harass me or my chair. I hope. (I could really use another file cabinet except I really have nowhere to put it.)

(*okay, more than a few. But we have little proper storage space here, and we're asked to keep student papers going back at least a year, in case of a grade challenge)

(** in order to recycle office paper here, it must be shredded, for some reason.)