Academics and Clean Offices

Frances Woolley again raises a compelling academic issue, clean offices. As she opens her post with the morally provoking dictum:

It happens at universities across the country. Professors do it. Administrative staff do it. Some sneak onto campus on evenings or weekends, and quietly do it when no one is around. Others are bold enough to do it during regular office hours. I'm talking about cleaning. Dusting. Vacuuming. Sweeping. And, for the truly bold: Painting. Unblocking drains. Retrieving and repairing discarded furniture.  

Now the above little guy was as close to a cleaner of my office at MIT that I could remember. Got him a beaker, do not worry, I released him in the park down the street.  But back in the 60s at MIT my office was in Building 20, the old Radiation Lab buildings from WW II. Wooden, loaded with asbestos, riddled with mice, and I do not think anyone cleaned anything anytime. My desk and chairs were left over from WW II as well, undoubtedly having some historic value. The green leather cover with grey handles and legs and a grey linoleum top metal desk, and if one placed their lunch in the drawers the fellow above or his relatives would find it before lunch and take their share.

The walls were unpainted since 1944 and the windows in Winter were as windy as the Grand Canyon in January. Snow would blow in and accumulate on the ledges and the pigeons would on a sunny day sit there and make a racket when one was trying to assist some student.

But the building had character, or at least that is what we told ourselves, how lucky and honored we were to have been housed in such an historic site. I only later found it to be in error, there just was no room in the building with the AC in the summer time.

So as usual with Frances, you are not alone in having the burden of self reliance, but perhaps you have not yet had the opportunity to meet my many friends shown above. Remember, things can only get worse!