Knock me down, step on my face, slander my name all over the place. You can even step on my blue suede shoes. But don't separate me from the apple of my eye, the sunshine of my life, that smooth, sexy Xerox machine that sits in the office, covered with various warnings that students may not touch it under penalty of death (or worse).
We're making progress, though. That sign did not use to apply only to students.
In 1986, I got a job teaching English in summer school. Copying machines were not nearly as ubiquitous as they are now, and in our school, they were strictly reserved for the upper echelons of management.
As a newbie, the aforementioned echelons assigned me the reading class. The school, however, had not a single textbook for reading. I told the kids to buy (the now defunct) NY Newsday daily (selling then for only 25 cents) and incurred the eternal wrath of the summer school AP by demanding access to his precious copying machine. There he'd find me day after day, copying pages from a review book for the Reading competency test my kids were then required to pass.
You could see the steam coming out of his ears as I stood there day after day (Or perhaps the steam came from the radiator, as the custodians burned oil so they'd ensure sufficient budget to buy more next year).
I got an excellent observation from a roving English AP, but the school supervisor rated me D for doubtful. I'd arrived late on several occasions (he expunged the latenesses of every teacher on staff but me), I continued to wear Hawaiian shirts to work despite his admonitions, and most egregiously, I refused to take his repeated hints to stay away from his beloved copying machine.
Now that there are more copying machines, even lowly teachers can use them. But mess with our copying machines and we'll all revert to the personality of my ex-supervisor (or worse).
You have been warned.
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