Almost lost it

 One thing I've learned during this injury is I am a LOT less tolerant. 

We recently had the paper towel dispensers replaced with snazzy new motion-sensor ones - you wave your hand in front, and they spit out towels. They're pretty awesome - when they work.

Except, the one in my teaching lab is broken. The catch on it is bad and it randomly flops open. I can't remember if I complained on here about finding a broken sedimentation cylinder one day and blaming it on a careless student? Well, it probably wasn't, it was probably the $%&*($ broken dispenser.

Because it happened today. I did the soils lab with my ecology class and when we got done I dumped out the "blank" (the one they test their hydrometers against to see if they read true) and left the cylinder in front of the dispenser because there was no more room on the drying rack. (These cylinders are maybe 18" tall and are of fairly thick glass)

I was stepping away when the dispenser fell open, knocked the cylinder over, and it shattered

I ALMOST said a bad word. I was mostly startled by it, and I'm also hurting (have been on my feet a LOT today). I clenched my fists and took a couple steps away (with my back to it) and calmed down, and sighed, and said "okay, we need to clean this up" and dragged the broken glass box over there.

Then realized the broom was in my RESEARCH lab, a long way away. One of the students volunteered to get down and use the whisk broom to get the glass up off the floor (I still can't kneel down and be sure I'll be able to get back up). I shouldn't have let her - it's a cut hazard and I could have gotten in trouble - but at that point I was REALLY close to crying, so I just thanked her, and cleaned the glass off the counter myself, and then griped about broken things that don't get fixed.

I did send a message to the physical plant. it may be the first time it's been reported; there's allegedly a custodian in this building but I never see him. (Our OLD custodian, he would have either reported it right away or fixed it himself, but he got promoted to the admin building - because of course)

But anyway. I guess I managed to get self control back fast enough (I feel bad when I lose my temper in front of a class) and they knew my irritation was not aimed at them - if anything, it was my fault for putting the cylinder where it was, but also too darn many things on this campus are broken.

And most of them are pretty good kids; they helped me clean up including one guy washing down the tables before I could even ask because he knows I teach a lab in there tomorrow that requires clean tables. 

But yeah, I need to run to the store, gonna get more milk and I might see if there's some small easily prepared thing for dinner, or maybe get a pint of ice cream because it's been a WEEK.

 

("But Captain, it's only Wednesday!" says Tintin)