The Spooky Clock

Our school is haunted.

It all started last year (the first year we were in our new building) when a new set of classroom clocks arrived. Professors were finally able to discretely check the time without wasting a moment to glance at their watches and inadvertently give an extra minute to a poor student suffering from the Socratic method of questioning on a case or legal issue.

"What do you think Judge Fluffy meant when he wrote that contractual consideration is not to be conflated with an offer and acceptance?"

"Uh...ummm...gahh"

"WHAT WAS HIS REASONING?" (evil eyebrow arch)

"Ehhh...could I have a moment?"

And so a professor could conveniently measure the silence in the room via the brand new clock hanging on the wall in an area where he wasn't forced him to shift his eyes too much so as to give the sense that he was unguarded. Well at some point, Prof. So and So decided to do a double-take and reconfirm the time on the clock with his watch (thereby prolonging anxiety of the student-victim, still subject to interrogation) and realized the clock was five minutes fast. So he walked over, pulled the clock off the wall and turned back the five minutes.

Each day passed, and each day we witnessed our professor going through the same routine. The stupid time-suck was always five minutes fast! The absurdity of the situation was equally due to the disturbing object and the professor wasting an additional five minutes to turn it back. It reached a boiling point when one day he stormed up to the clock, yanked it off the wall and tossed it to the front of the room. No joke.

Today in my Trusts&Estates class, which is in a different room of the building, Prof. Diab began making the same observations of the clock in that room. In this case, it is seven minutes fast. I could see in the tone and manner of his voice that he too would soon obsess over the time discrepancy...

I don't know what our school means by purchasing deficient classroom merchandise. If they wanted to drive our faculty to maniacal heights, I think they've succeeded.