Ding! School is back in session. It's funny how a month away can make you forget how incredibly annoying people are. And by "people" I mean my fellow students.
You see, when you're in college you're so hungover that you don't realize how irritating people are. You're sleeping in the back of a lecture hall, or you're passing notes (remember, I went to college before the Millenium. The people who invented facebook IM'ing probably weren't even born yet.), or you're thinking about where to go for $1 Pitcher Night.
However, I have attended business school free of said haze. As a result I feel the annoyeur (my word) of my classmates intensely. It may be like the "if a tree falls" question, but do irritating people KNOW how irritating they are? I have a friend who likes to ask if people who are a 2 (ie. on a looks scale of 1-2) KNOW that they're a 2. The same friend wonders (aloud) if the 2s view other 2s as a 10. How true are people's assessments of their own attractiveness?
But back to the issue at hand, I've categorized these Annoyeurs into a few:
1) Secretary General.
This is the girl (in our class, anyhow) who constantly emails the professor and cc's the entire class (again, annoying habits that didn't exist when I went to college in '95. They were just teaching us how to use "electronic mail" and we were overwhelmed).
Anyhow, this girl not only repeatedly will email the professor, but she will then nudge them when they don't respond.
"Dear Professor X,
Our exam is tomorrow and we haven't yet heard from you whether you would like us to arrive with our #2 pencils sharpened or still in the box. Please advise.
Sincerely and with great respect for your infinite wisdom,
Miss X."
So basically this person is the grad-school version of a hall monitor. Sadly for me, her email address at school is misleading and I kept thinking they were official school emails. I was debating sending an "Unsubscribe" email when finals rolled around.
2) The Stupid Echo.
We've already spotted this guy. You know him too. He's the one who listens intently to the professor, probably nodding, and then waits a little lag time before repeating exactly what they said, albeit less eloquently.
Example-
Prof: "When we talk about money, it's important to distinguish present value of a dollar from its future value."
*two minutes later*
TSE: "So, Professor, it seems like it's probably useful for us to consider that money has a different value right now than it does later on. We should probably calculate that, right?"
Sadly this, guy will go on to get perfect class participation (you find me a professor who doesn't like to hear his own ideas and I'll find you a woman who doesn't like Sawyer).
This personality spawned a new business idea for me: an anonymous email address a la "shutthehellup@yahoo.com". It would send "courtesy notices" to people.
From: Shutthehellup@yahoo.com
To: So-and-so@sdsu.edu
Subject: Courtesy reminder
Dear So-and-so,
This note is an automatically-generated request for you to shut the hell up in class. Someone thinks you should know :)
Have a nice day!
-The Shutthehellup Team
I'd pay a pretty penny for the use of that service, lemme tell you.
3) The Undercover Genius. aka "that guy"
I can't stand this one, and yet I befriend them in every class. While I'm wearing my fingers to the bone (or my eyes, reading), they breeze through. We come back on Monday and I'll hear about their wild partying weekend, the crazy story that is absolutely incomprehensible and only apparently happens to Barney on How I Met Your Mother... and this guy. During class discussion, he'll be fiddling with his iPhone or text messaging, and then look up and say something brilliant so the professor is short of kissing his hand. And it's not even the filler comment (see below), but a solid one.
The exam will creep up and This Guy has yet to buy the books. (In one case he borrowed mine and left me a yellow-highlightered rendering of a penis, thanks man.) And then grades come out. This Guy KILLS it, leaves all of us in the dust. It's just a magical thing. You have it or you don't.
4) Bingo Guy.
Some people earn a bingo card. What I mean is, every class has a guy/girl who needs to get their two cents in. Daily. This person can't seem to breathe through a day without contributing something to the class. Maybe it's a question, maybe it's a stupid comment (The Echo is often a Bingo Guy hybrid), but they'll get their moment to talk talk talk.
There's a girl in my new class like this. She knew she *needed* to make her daily comment, so she stuck her hand up. Prof called on her. "um, I, hm. What I was thinking was... um. Wait, lost my train of thought..."
At that point, a normal, merciful human being would just shut the hell up and let us move on with our lives. But she didn't! She didn't say "come back to me." She was terrified by the thought of conversation rolling past her inane observation. So it went on and on. "Um, wait, just a second... ugh!"
We have one guy like this in our class, but he's a triple threat. He almost deserves his own subcategory. If I had to name the subcategory I might call it "I DIDN'T THINK PEOPLE LIKE THIS EXISTED IN REAL LIFE." I mean, by looks he's a Monchichi. By design (read: the stickers on his laptop) he's a Dungeons and Dragons fan. By fashion --- well, fashion doesn't play into it. Let's just say that no one deserves to see plumber crack AND a santa hat with goofy ears in the same day.
Not ONLY does he comment every single class, not ONLY does he get up to pee every single class (it's only an hour and half long lecture), but one day he fell asleep... sucking his thumb. Yowzers. The next day a friend showed up with a betting board, so at least we could bet on what he'd do that day. You'd place a wager on a certain time slot of the day (3 minute increments) as to whether he'd "potty", "question" or "sleep" (thumbsucking optional). It was a great way to make money on the side. I had his bladder capacity timer DOWN!
I'm sure I'll have additional species of graduate student to contribute to this soon, but I wanted to notate my thoughts from the field. Jane Goodall's got nothing on me. I've got these people pegged. That said, it's gonna be a looooong semester.
And if you wanted to know which girl I am, I'm the one who is in the back looking up thoughtfully at the professor and then down... under her desk, to the cell phone in her hand. Where her email and Twitter are active. Sometimes I'm texting with someone sitting right next to me (Hi Tina!), sometimes I'm making notes of what I need to get done that day. Once in a while I break to do a crossword puzzle (i'm getting really good, thank you Daily Aztec!) or a sudoku. Then it's back to my phone. Worth every penny of its price.
Thank God for the digital age. Seriously, how did I get two degrees without it?!
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