The Dance of the Computer Suite

[lokifan_import]

I'm currently sitting in my university library waiting for an essay to print. This has given me a wonderful view of one of the most hilarious dances to watch ever: The Dance of the Computer Suite. It's only available to watch every six weeks or so, when a big week for deadlines rolls round. But it is awesome.

You see, there are around one hundred computers in what's quaintly referred to as our "ICT suite". And on Thursday of reading week, with thousands of undergrads needing to print our essays, that is simply not enough.

So you end up with a dozen or so students, looking a bit scruffy and dazed and smelling of sweat and curry, stalking the computers, waiting for one to be free. (They're glaring at me right now. LJ's interface isn't half so recognisable as Facebook but my typing is clearly not-work-related. Seriously, HI BLOND GIRL, YOU ARE LESS THAN TWO FEET AWAY I SEE YOU PEERING.

LOL she's gone.)

So these dozen people wander round, eyeing everyone up, waiting to see who's about to get up and leave their computer free. Semi-regularly they catch sight of someone in the process of logging off and getting up, and then the best part of the dance begins.

You see, we are largely English and we are polite. It's not nice to hover over someone waiting for them to leave, and it's not nice to try to intimidate people with the glare of IT'S MINE, GET YOUR OWN: we are neither hyenas nor Americans. So you get the three or so people who notice in time hovering in a sort of star, five feet or so from the computer that's about to be free. They carefully don't look at each other, because then there'll be some terrible canine hierarchy-establishment-via-eye-contact thing. And besides nobody actually wants to claim the computer explicitly at someone's expense. So they hover until the person using the computer gets up, and then all rush to be first to get a hand on the mouse.

And the others stop like they ran into a wall, and slink faux-casually away.

It is hilarious, if you're not the one dancing it.

It's especially funny if someone rude, or just less British about queuing, arrives: they'll brush through the line of hoverers and say "can I use this next?" Then they stand there, waiting for the person to log off and REFUSING TO MOVE while all the polite people give them the glare of the impotent.

No wonder we all drink so much.

Comments

[meredyth-13.livejournal.com]

Oh hell, I feel so much racial love right now it almost hurts.

*glomps*

[lokifan]

D'awww. SOON YOU WILL BE WITH US.

*is glomped*

[melusinahp.livejournal.com]

AH HAH HAHAHA!

(I am totally the rude American barger.)

[lokifan]

YOU TOTALLY ARE. But having you and Danya around is useful for that on occasion, even as we English folk go 'oh my God, what is she doing, I do not understand' in the background :D

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

... this is where you buy your own laptop, lol.

[lokifan]

I have my own laptop! I do not have my own printer, and my postgrad friend with an office just quit his PhD. So I finish the essay elsewhere and go there to print :)

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

I got a printer for about sixty euro at the start of college. Best investment I ever made, but then again I was there for five years and also I hate humanity, so. :P

[lokifan]

Heh. My housemate has one, actually, but she's at her girlfriend's for reading week so I didn't want to barge into her room and use it... Sixty euro is a good deal for avoidance of these things!

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

I don't know about that politeness thing you are talking about. When I was in the UK and queuing up for the buses, the Brits would rudely push past me - when I was clearly in line to get on before them. It didn't happen just one time but often.

And while I really like you, I'm not fond of being compared to a hyena. Some Americans are pushy and some are not. Some Brits are polite and some are not. I know you were trying to be funny at the expense of Americans but is that really where you wanted to go?

[lokifan]

Fair enough.

I wouldn't describe it as trying to be funny at the expense of Americans, precisely, since it's one line from a post that's meant to be tongue-in-cheek; I mean, it's accurate about what Brit students do, but what we do is very silly!

Also: It's not nice to hover over someone waiting for them to leave, and it's not nice to try to intimidate people with the glare of IT'S MINE, GET YOUR OWN: we are neither hyenas nor Americans

Hyenas: intimidating people with the glare of IT'S MINE, GET YOUR OWN, ie scavengers
Americans: the close hoverers

I mean, I can see you might not be happy about that either, but I wanted to be clear since I wasn't in the post that the idea isn't Americans = hyenas :)

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

Okay, I must have read it wrong then. I apologize. I'd say that a lot of Americans are hoverers, not all but a lot. I hover on occasion, too.

Actually, while I have you here, could you explain why the Brits would push past me for the buses? Was there something I missed? I've been to the UK many times and the bus queues (at least in London) seem to be a free-for-all. Is that normal?

[lokifan]

No worries, I totally get it :) I'm sorry it bothered you; this is what comes of me writing posts on four-hours-in-forty-eight of sleep.

I think that was London-ness, tbh. The Tube does not foster good manners on public transport in general, because if you wait for there to be space for you you will wait forever. Usually people can behave like people in bus queues (leaving aside buses outside secondary schools ;))

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

Ah, that would explain it then. I don't do the buses outside of London so I thought it might be that there was something I missed in the bus situation in general. Yes, bigger cities seem to have their own way of doing things. Thanks for the info!

[dora-the-nymph.livejournal.com]

I have lived in London most of my life and the concept of 'bus queues' was alien to me until quite recently. It is general, in most of London that the bus come and people just get on it as they can, while there is a British reputation for queuing it does not really apply to most of London's transport. I got told off massively when getting a bus on the London/Kent border and skipping the queue that I a) had not noticed and b) would never even slightly expect to be there and I try to be more careful now.

[lokifan]

*feels vindicated* Oh good! I'd noticed it in London vs everywhere else but I wasn't sute if it was Just Me.

LOL you poor thing. Culture clash! I hate being told off about bus stuff. This driver once had a go at me for putting my fiver done 'rudely' and I spent the whole ride fuming.

[melusinahp.livejournal.com]

Don't forget that London is full of foreigners like me. ;) Clearly we are a bad influence.

[lokifan]

*ded of lol* Yep, you damn foreigners, taking our jobs, marrying our Welshmen...

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it. I thought it was just me and being a tourist and not knowing the rules.

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

No wonder we all drink so much.
That explains a lot, indeed ... ;)

[lokifan]

It's hard work, hovering! Particularly since we're short of sleep and not particularly well-mannered but we all know how to wait our turn, so the room is full of under-the-breath swearing.

[nenne.livejournal.com]

I can clearly picture this. Great describtion. :D

[lokifan]

:D Thank you!

[deathlydragon.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to say that I ♥ your icon. Can I throw it at my German prof, please? :D

[lokifan]

LOL. Go for it :D I love it muchly.

[thepretender501.livejournal.com]

Bwahaha! This is very amusing :D Thanks for sharing!

[lokifan]

:D Thanks! It's so hard to know what's funny to other people as well as you when you're running on that little sleep... But it is so funny to watch.

[lokifan]

That is the best approach! Writing this really emphasised that the English? Not especially polite. Just good at waiting their turn.

[talekayler.livejournal.com]

HAHHA, I'd probably fit in with you there then. I'm much to shy to just go up and 'pull the American'.

Although, it would be funny just to go there and watch, even if you had nothing to do. :)

[lokifan]

:D It'd be nice to have someone to wait with! I tried wryly catching a couple of people's eyes so we could chat but they all avoided me stubbornly!

It's v funny to watch, that's definitely true... once you've got access to a printer, anyway. ;)

[ships-harry.livejournal.com]

Hah, see, this is why I would always make sure to get to the labs at arse-o-clock, and never had to wait for one :).

(Though this was ten plus years ago, and handwritten essays were not *that* uncommon, so that probably had something to do with it)

[ships-harry.livejournal.com]

But also, fucking hilarious, the image of the dance.

[lokifan]

:D Thanks!

[lokifan]

LOL. I wouldn't have written this post if my deadline hadn't been 3pm :) You had the right idea!

Ah, see we're not allowed to write handwritten essays any more, even if we wanted to!

[secretlypadfoot.livejournal.com]

That is hilarious. Have to be grateful for owning your own laptop, of course. :}

[lokifan]

Absolutely! We all do by this stage, or we'd go mad :)

[hailsta.livejournal.com]

I've never read something more painfully/hilariously accurate in my life :p

[lokifan]

Hee, thanks!

[klashfor.livejournal.com]

As I also am lacking a printer I know this dance well. The key to successful computer snagging is to wear a long billowy coat and skulk around enough that people think you're so dramatic and intense they HAVE to give you their computer.


This is the best description of British-ness ever.

[lokifan]

LOL. That is a great technique!

:DDD I am amused by us...

[klashfor.livejournal.com]

BUT BB WE ARE SO AMUSING. Also I think this comic accurately describes the level of evil swoopy intensity I wish to obtain.

APPARENTLY MY LIFE REVOLVES AROUND SHERLOCK NOW. AND WEBCOMICS.

[lokifan]

*ded*

[klashfor.livejournal.com]

*revives*

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

I adore this description of computer!hovering.

...Especially since it's something that I would never, ever notice. I'm about as subtle as a blow to the head. Really. My natural bluntness and IT'S SO MY TURN RIGHT NOW!-ness is such that other Americans are deeply impressed and/or terrified by it. (Which is part of why I'm an excellent person to ask for help when one has to sort out difficulties with the university. I am never ashamed to ask for directions when relentlessly hunting some poor bastard down, I will interrogate innocent employees, and have no problems terrifying some poor stranger into minioning for me.)

So I'd see someone logging off, stride up and ask if this computer is about to be free, and then be oblivious to the death glares thrown my way. Or wonder what is wrong with all the odd people hovering about and cursing.

[lokifan]

Ahahaha. That is actually a very good way to be! And makes the whole computer!hovering dance far funnier :)