You can tell where he’s doing his post-doc
by dixie
PhD never, ever fails to entertain. The only reason I don’t show every single comic to everyone and say “This is the truest thing I have ever read,” is because I figured it would get dull for y’all pretty quickly.
Today I break the streak, not because Jorge has perfectly and succinctly expressed a universal truth about postgrad life, but because he decided to do a comic on a very specific situation happening right here, right now. You can see it here.
There are no fewer than three separate construction projects happening right now, and at least one of them is taking up multiple locations (actual construction site plus staging area). The fences started appearing before Christmas and have been slowly extending their reach across my entire life. No path has been untouched. Every time I need to walk somewhere other than home, I find a new barrier and must devise a different way of getting there.
A few weeks ago, I tried to get to the Chem Engineering building and had to take an academic version of an Indiana Jones route, forging new paths through buildings I’d never been in and hallways long forgotten by all except the skittish postgrads who inhabited them and hadn’t seen the light of day in some time. When I tried again a week later, a new barrier had appeared, preventing access to the building I’d previously trailblazed through.
It’s gotten to the point where I don’t visit other buildings anymore, as it’s too much trouble. Before I read that PhD comic, I’d thought it was just my building that had been effectively ghettoized. I was wrong. Everyone is irritated, and we’re all jumping fences to get where we need to go.
Comments
Same here. Some students have to walk ~ 1 mile to go from their lab to the chemistry stores.
It’s a new employee health program!
Definitely! I found out my key only opens one of the two not-blocked doors in Noyes. I also had to get creative on how to get to the far side of the building. Teaches me to get a snack at the convenience store on the weekend.
TCD forced us to circle a large construction site and take numerous diversions for years. Now, they have moved the main rear entrance from straight across Westland Row around the corner to Pearse St. this means you have to make a more difficult crossing. There are still many people who walked the same route for 30 years left confused and frustrated.
The worst thing about the change in TCD’s back gate is the pointlessness of it.
The gate’s still there (to the best of my knowledge)- and unobstructed. Just padlocked shut.
Lowery, I thought about that one. I used my amazing powers of deduction to determine that the most likely reason is that security don’t want an extra gate to take care of.
it makes sense, doesn’t make it true but…