Shut up in the labs
Steven VanderVelde
Issue date: 1/12/09 Section: Opinion
Idiot talk in the computer lab. Nothing makes the keyboards at the computers look more like a blunt weapon than some loud and obnoxious talkers sitting directly behind you while you're trying to work. After almost four years of sitting through it, I think I've had enough.
Last semester I had the displeasure of sitting through a particularly annoying episode of what I like to call "idiot talk." I was just sitting at a computer, minding my own business, trying to take an online quiz for class; when two "students" in the row behind me began talking at full volume about absolutely nothing.
One was actually bragging he could bench press 120 pounds, which isn't an impressive amount. If you're going to brag, at least make yourself seem less pathetic than you actually are. I can lift a can of paint with my tongue; but you don't see me telling the whole darn computer lab.
Then they went on to use the computers to play games and talk loudly about high scores. I felt myself getting stupider just listening to them. Luckily for me I had my headphones with so I just drowned them out with some Queens of the Stone Age. Take that.
What bothers me most is that people like this are tolerated in the computer lab. It is made quite clear students must keep their voices down and their cell phones silent in consideration for other students who are actually trying to work.
Yet, my experience has been these rules are not enforced. There are many students at PUC who rely on the computer lab to do most, if not all, of their work. They should be protected from a couple of goof-offs who just come in to talk, play some online poker and just be a regular pain in the neck. The computer lab staff should be more intolerant of such behavior in the lab. They should give out warnings to people who are bothering others and even kick them out if they do not heed the warnings.
Also, people who come in just to play games and distract themselves are not being very fair to students who actually need to do work and find all the computers on campus to be in use.
Now I would be a hypocrite if I did not regard my own ranting. So, I swear to make an effort to put the needs of others before my own need for distraction. I also swear to never talk above a whisper or discuss anything that drags down the intelligence of the people around me. Why don't you guys join me in my efforts?
Last semester I had the displeasure of sitting through a particularly annoying episode of what I like to call "idiot talk." I was just sitting at a computer, minding my own business, trying to take an online quiz for class; when two "students" in the row behind me began talking at full volume about absolutely nothing.
One was actually bragging he could bench press 120 pounds, which isn't an impressive amount. If you're going to brag, at least make yourself seem less pathetic than you actually are. I can lift a can of paint with my tongue; but you don't see me telling the whole darn computer lab.
Then they went on to use the computers to play games and talk loudly about high scores. I felt myself getting stupider just listening to them. Luckily for me I had my headphones with so I just drowned them out with some Queens of the Stone Age. Take that.
What bothers me most is that people like this are tolerated in the computer lab. It is made quite clear students must keep their voices down and their cell phones silent in consideration for other students who are actually trying to work.
Yet, my experience has been these rules are not enforced. There are many students at PUC who rely on the computer lab to do most, if not all, of their work. They should be protected from a couple of goof-offs who just come in to talk, play some online poker and just be a regular pain in the neck. The computer lab staff should be more intolerant of such behavior in the lab. They should give out warnings to people who are bothering others and even kick them out if they do not heed the warnings.
Also, people who come in just to play games and distract themselves are not being very fair to students who actually need to do work and find all the computers on campus to be in use.
Now I would be a hypocrite if I did not regard my own ranting. So, I swear to make an effort to put the needs of others before my own need for distraction. I also swear to never talk above a whisper or discuss anything that drags down the intelligence of the people around me. Why don't you guys join me in my efforts?
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