{"id":3030,"date":"2010-09-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-08T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/1006\/01\/31\/professorial-dumpster-diving-or-how-to-impress-the-boss\/"},"modified":"2010-09-07T22:04:24","modified_gmt":"2010-09-08T05:04:24","slug":"professorial-dumpster-diving-or-how-to-impress-the-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/08\/professorial-dumpster-diving-or-how-to-impress-the-boss\/","title":{"rendered":"Professorial dumpster diving, or how to impress the boss"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a problem with people thinking I’m down and out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure just why this is.\u00a0 I think it may be that I don’t look enough like what I am, a nerdy musician with techie-tendencies and cargo pockets full of flash drives and iPod cables (not miscellaneous dumpster treasures… really).<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, with some regularity, I seem to give the appearance of economic desperation and general social maladroitness.<\/p>\n

For example, since classes are going to begin soon at my university, I decided it was time to clean my office, something I do at least once each decade.\u00a0 Well, to be honest, I think I may have skipped the last decade’s cleaning…\u00a0 or maybe two.\u00a0 Because among other things, I found an ancient synthesizer module taking up cubic space in my office, of 1985 vintage, a synth module of such dubious character that it didn’t even qualify for a possible Pawn Stars appearance.\u00a0 Everything old and obsolete is not a collector’s item.\u00a0 Seen some rusting farm machinery from the 1930’s lately?\u00a0 Is anyone breaking down the gates to the field where it lies moribund, to beg its owners to sell it to them for their collection?<\/p>\n

This synth module was like that.\u00a0 It was a Roland Planet-P, possibly the worst sounding synth in Roland’s history.\u00a0 And that was before one side of the stereo output burned out.\u00a0 Don’t ask me why I still had it….\u00a0 I have no answer.\u00a0 I had forgotten about it.\u00a0 This thing was huge as synth modules go, consuming three standard audio rack spaces, weighing in at a hefty 25-30 pounds.\u00a0 I think the metal sides must have been made of 1\/2 inch thick leadlined iron or something of similar mass.\u00a0 Maybe it was powered by plutonium or something.<\/p>\n

In any case, I carted this ghost-of-MIDI-past down to the trash can outside my building.\u00a0 It wouldn’t fit in the generous opening in the top of the can’s lid….\u00a0 so I had to lift the large lid itself (which was hinged)\u00a0 and drop it in.\u00a0 So far, so good, I thought.\u00a0 But then I had yet more old stuff to dump in the same can…\u00a0 and discovered when I tried to drop it into the can that the Planet-P had twisted as I dumped it, and its corners had caught part way down into the can, blocking me from putting much more in with it.<\/p>\n

There was nothing to be done but to lift the big lid again, grab the discarded Planet-P, straighten it out so that it would drop all the way in, and then add the next load of techno-refuse.\u00a0 The problem was that dino-synth was too darn heavy and wedged where it was.\u00a0 Holding up the lid with one hand, and grabbing the superannuated synth with the other, I couldn’t budge it.\u00a0 There was nothing to be done but to hold up the trash can’s lid with my head while I reached down into the can with both hands to get a sufficient grasp on the dastardly device to straighten it out so that it would fall straight down into the bottom of the trash container.<\/p>\n

I was in this pedagogically compromised position today when the Executive Vice-President of my university strolled by.\u00a0 This is the number two administrator at my institution….\u00a0 and it is clear that, failing to recognize me from what portions of my anatomy were visible, he had some concern that the neighborhood was deteriorating.\u00a0 Perhaps that’s why he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when I withdrew from my ostrich-like position in the trashcan.\u00a0 He said, rather snappily, I thought, “So, don’t we pay you enough?”<\/p>\n

Hey, it’s not like I came up out of the can holding<\/em> anything.\u00a0 But then I saw where he was looking, at the pile of stuff I’d brought down to put in the can, the pile that I hadn’t been able to fit without adjusting my previous deposit.\u00a0 It was pretty clear that he thought I’d been dragging that stuff out.<\/p>\n

Some things are not improved by a denial, no matter how truthful.\u00a0 So I shrugged, and observed that the stock market had just dropped again.\u00a0 Our veep assumed that mask of professional sympathy worn by skilled adminstrators when dealing with the idiot-savants of the academic world, and moved on, doubtless revising his opinion of the proportion of idiot-to-savant in at least one case.<\/p>\n

Sometime, remind me to tell you about the time another Vice-President (this one for financial matters) walked by as I was lugging a heavy car battery out of the music computer lab.\u00a0 He probably thought I’d been threatening recalcitrant music majors with electric shock.<\/p>\n

I wonder if this stuff happens to other faculty.\u00a0 Somehow, I doubt it.<\/p>\n

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