BG Idol Auditions

Because Lee and I share childcare responsibilities and use daycare and babysitters minimally (daycare two days a week, sitters on an ad hoc basis), we often break up the work day so that she gets to do academic stuff while the sun is out, and I get to do academic stuff when it's dark. (Yes, it's about that precise.) Consequently, I am frequently in my office when the maintenance staff of East Hall are hard at work, which means I am regularly treated to enthusiastic performances of whatever happens to be coursing through the earphones of the woman who usually works on the fourth floor.

What I couldn't have predicted is how difficult it is, even with my door closed, to concentrate on composing a simple email while listening to an uncaccompanied, atonal rendition of "Like a Virgin." Or, at least, I couldn't have predicted that I would have to try.

Still, though, this only seems new to me because, at Elon (where tuition is high and labor is cheap), they made the maintenance staff come in at, like, 5:00 a.m. Better for me, but I suspect much worse for the staff.

[Update: I'm going home now, to the (approximate) tune of "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart."]