I am in the TMAC (Teaching Associate) office, where 13 people and I share six desks. The TMAC office is in a random corner of a random wing of a random building. This is standard at universities for teaching associates, whose pay is also so criminally low we make our lunches out of pilfered office supplies. (“More paper-and-WiteOut sandwich, Dan?” “Don’t mind if I do.”) The best part of this scenario is, we compete to BE teaching associates, and we consider ourselves lucky. (“Please. Use me. I have been thoroughly brainwashed by the coded messages in my Norton Anthology.”) But these conditions comprise the standard hazing/dues-paying of one in the beginnings of her career as an academic. I’m grateful to those in the English department who fought—and, I’m sure, have to fight every year—to get a line in the university budget for “TMAC” funding at all.

So the random building in which the TMAC office is situated is actually not a building at all, but a part of the library with a separate entrance, as in, there is an impenetrable wall between us and the rest of the library. Or, there WAS, until they started the library renovations this summer.

The first step in renovating the library was to find temporary offices elsewhere on campus for anyone in this random wing of the building who mattered. This did not include teaching associates. OUR office remains intact. The “environment” in which this office is situated has changed somewhat, however. Instead of other cubicles being across from ours, we now have giant stacks of desks and other furniture from the former offices of those relocated people-who-matter. Behind the stacks of furniture, there is a giant wall of translucent plastic-tarp taped from ceiling to floor. From behind this tarp come many sounds (and sometimes little arrows of spark from welding projects). The sounds include the following:

“This won’t work. There’s no fucking way this is going to work.”

“Look at this. I keep tellin’ them about this shit. This is just shit.” “Whose fucking shit is this?” “I don’t know, I don’t fuckin’ know.” “Shit.”

[Large chunks of debris falling and hitting the ground, for hours]

[Jackhammer noise, for hours]

[Cell phone ringing to a hip-hop tune I recognize but can't identify] “Yeah? Uh huh. I fuckin’ told her. I gotta go.”

[Two guys coming through slit in the tarp-curtain to exit the building via our wing and spotting us at our desks] “Oh my God, there’s still PEOPLE over here? I didn’t know there were any people still over here!”

Just try conferencing in this office with a student—who mind you, has had to follow the directions you’ve given her to GET to your office that include the instruction, “Turn left at the crane”—at whatever desk is free in the TMAC cubicle while all of this sound is coming from behind the tarp. It’s difficult to do. Doing it and appearing to that student to be a “legitimate” faculty member: Impossible.

But I don’t mean to just complain. It’s nice not having the other offices over there anymore. They were always having meetings that started with the agenda item, “Recognitions and Kudos” (“Oh, I have one! Sandy helped me carry my slide projector to the presentation last week. Thanks, Sandy!”). I’m not sure why, but I prefer these construction guys. I AM starting to get a little worried about the library project, though. Here’s the one I heard this morning:

“No, this isn’t a wall.”
“Yes, it is. This is a wall.”
“There’s no wall here.”
“Yes, there is. It’s right here. THIS is a wall.”
“I don’t think this is a wall.”

Yes. A little worried …