Dear You,
Every graduate student who is not lucky enough to get any kind of assistanship has to work for earning his living in the US. I am no exception. I work for Electronic Classroom support services known better as ECSS. It works to serve all the electronic classrooms at the University of Cincinnati. During the Quarters, the job is pretty simple. We sit in the shop during our work hours which is usually 4 hours a day for 4 days and 3.5 on the 5th day to sum up to 19.5 hours per week. If these 4 odd hours happen to be in the mornings and noons, we just have to attend calls from professors who come up with ingenious and brilliant queries like "Hello..The monitor is not switching ON..Could you please suggest a solution?" for which one of the ECSS guys would reply "Have u tried turning ON the monitor with the ON button" and more often do we hear the other end saying "Oh..thanks so much..it works now!". Well, this is not the limit!
There are questions enquiring why the overhead projector wouldnt project on the screen for which the technical reply from our side would be to make the professor press the PROJECT NOW button on the touch screen! Days pass by with such thought provoking questions and mind boggling answers!! At times, for similar queries, we even land up in the class in person to "Solve" the "Technical Snag"!
Evenings are different but still fun! During the 4 hours we work, we are totally free for atleast 3 hours and for the remaining one hour, we are alloted a set of rooms in a different building everyday. We need to go those rooms, check all the equipments like Computer,VHS and DVD player,Document Camera,Display screens,Window shades,Slide projector and stuff. We at times also check the microphone for battery power and the overhead projectors for remaining Lamp Hours. And also, we sometime check all the TVs and VHS players and Document Cameras inside the closet in every building. It is from this closet do we deliver equipments to the professor when they request for them for their class. Its a very easy job for us, though not for the crew leaders and our employer who have to schedule everything.
We all are given what are called KEY PEGS with unique numbers that are used to take Keys, be it for the classrooms or closets or auditorium. Pegs look like pencils with half the length and they look bright orange in color with the number written on it. We need to insert the pegs in the slots near the key we want to take, twist it and the key chain in the same direnction, and LO, the peg gets stuck and the key is freed! So, anyone looking at the board will know which peg has been used to take what key and the unique number on the peg would point to the particular person. A simple and easy way to keep track!! All classrooms at UC have the same keys and this justifies the sign reading on the board from which the keys hang. It says "LOSE KEYS, LOSE JOB"!!
20 hours a week is actually a lot. Its almost next to acadz for grad students or some even debate this coz I have seen many students being more sincere for jobs than classes. Of course, job pays you and lets you live your life without any dependance. Something anyone in the world would love! But above everything, be it money or whatever, ECSS has something more to it. It is filled with Indians and almost all are my friends. Few my room mates, few others my apartment mates, few are classmates and few others are good friends. Every day, we meet at this place and ECSS seems to make our meeting more frequent and helps us get in touch with all of our buddies, which we would not do, especially when the acads are so demanding. Few weeks at ECSS was enough to teach me that ECSS was not just a pay place but more fun associated with it.
Nowadays, after a day full of hectic classes and assignemts, ECSS has become something I look forward to. Firstly becoz I am gonna see my friends! Secondly coz it takes my mind out of acads temporarily and gives me the much needed break. It substitutes for the TV I would have watched had I been in India or the chatting I would have done had I been in a computer lab. There have been days when I thought working on-campus is going to be time consuming and its going to spoil my acads and what not. But today, as any day, I realise everything happens with a purpose.
I typed this entire blog during one of my ECSS sessions to make it more meaningful! :)
Definitely,
Me.
Every graduate student who is not lucky enough to get any kind of assistanship has to work for earning his living in the US. I am no exception. I work for Electronic Classroom support services known better as ECSS. It works to serve all the electronic classrooms at the University of Cincinnati. During the Quarters, the job is pretty simple. We sit in the shop during our work hours which is usually 4 hours a day for 4 days and 3.5 on the 5th day to sum up to 19.5 hours per week. If these 4 odd hours happen to be in the mornings and noons, we just have to attend calls from professors who come up with ingenious and brilliant queries like "Hello..The monitor is not switching ON..Could you please suggest a solution?" for which one of the ECSS guys would reply "Have u tried turning ON the monitor with the ON button" and more often do we hear the other end saying "Oh..thanks so much..it works now!". Well, this is not the limit!
There are questions enquiring why the overhead projector wouldnt project on the screen for which the technical reply from our side would be to make the professor press the PROJECT NOW button on the touch screen! Days pass by with such thought provoking questions and mind boggling answers!! At times, for similar queries, we even land up in the class in person to "Solve" the "Technical Snag"!
Evenings are different but still fun! During the 4 hours we work, we are totally free for atleast 3 hours and for the remaining one hour, we are alloted a set of rooms in a different building everyday. We need to go those rooms, check all the equipments like Computer,VHS and DVD player,Document Camera,Display screens,Window shades,Slide projector and stuff. We at times also check the microphone for battery power and the overhead projectors for remaining Lamp Hours. And also, we sometime check all the TVs and VHS players and Document Cameras inside the closet in every building. It is from this closet do we deliver equipments to the professor when they request for them for their class. Its a very easy job for us, though not for the crew leaders and our employer who have to schedule everything.
We all are given what are called KEY PEGS with unique numbers that are used to take Keys, be it for the classrooms or closets or auditorium. Pegs look like pencils with half the length and they look bright orange in color with the number written on it. We need to insert the pegs in the slots near the key we want to take, twist it and the key chain in the same direnction, and LO, the peg gets stuck and the key is freed! So, anyone looking at the board will know which peg has been used to take what key and the unique number on the peg would point to the particular person. A simple and easy way to keep track!! All classrooms at UC have the same keys and this justifies the sign reading on the board from which the keys hang. It says "LOSE KEYS, LOSE JOB"!!
20 hours a week is actually a lot. Its almost next to acadz for grad students or some even debate this coz I have seen many students being more sincere for jobs than classes. Of course, job pays you and lets you live your life without any dependance. Something anyone in the world would love! But above everything, be it money or whatever, ECSS has something more to it. It is filled with Indians and almost all are my friends. Few my room mates, few others my apartment mates, few are classmates and few others are good friends. Every day, we meet at this place and ECSS seems to make our meeting more frequent and helps us get in touch with all of our buddies, which we would not do, especially when the acads are so demanding. Few weeks at ECSS was enough to teach me that ECSS was not just a pay place but more fun associated with it.
Nowadays, after a day full of hectic classes and assignemts, ECSS has become something I look forward to. Firstly becoz I am gonna see my friends! Secondly coz it takes my mind out of acads temporarily and gives me the much needed break. It substitutes for the TV I would have watched had I been in India or the chatting I would have done had I been in a computer lab. There have been days when I thought working on-campus is going to be time consuming and its going to spoil my acads and what not. But today, as any day, I realise everything happens with a purpose.
I typed this entire blog during one of my ECSS sessions to make it more meaningful! :)
Definitely,
Me.
2 comments:
Interesting, I must say!
best regards, nice info » »
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