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This term, two mornings a week I have a 9 o'clock lecture in one building and a 10 o'clock lecture in another half a mile away. This being this university, naturally the 9 o'clock finishes at 9:55 and the 10 o'clock begins at 10:05 - giving me ten minutes to cover the necessary ground.
In theory, this is fine.
In practice, it really, really isn't.
This is what my morning was like: I arrived at the first building at around ten to nine, got myself onto the wheelchair lift, closed the gate behind me, pressed the "up" button, and... went nowhere. I stopped pressing the button. The alarm of "the gate is not properly shut" went off. I tried opening the gate and shutting it again. This repeated. Until I ended up unable to open the gate.
The estate manager for the building spotted this going on, came over, and started a conversation on whether I was "slamming" the gate, because he'd had to repair it four times due to the pin getting bent. I gave him A Look, and said that I hadn't been "slamming" it beyond the fact that it's quite difficult to twist around behind myself, get my hand up to above my head height to reach the top bar of the unsprung open gate, and pull it to. (I note that I have to grab the top bar: it's a pretty standard four-bar style, but the attached glass screen makes it damn near impossible to get a grip on the bars at a less painful height).
Please remember that my lecture was approaching and I couldn't open the bottom gate.
He proceeded to walk over to his car, get out a pair of pliers, and fiddle with the bent top pin - blocking my exit and continuing to talk at me about how it was bent.
Eventually, after several failed attempts to get the damn thing working, he generously allowed that the gate perhaps was not sitting completely right on its hinges and this might be contributing to the problem. He then went up to the top of the steps, pressed the button, and... the lift moved.
I would like to note for the record that it would have taken me much less time and stress to just get out of the damn lift and carry my 30kg chair up the steps (there's only about 4 of them, and they're quite shallow).
In I went to my lecture. (The lecturer requested that if we hadn't been in the Thursday lecture to sign up for supervisions, we come down to the front at the end to write ourselves down. This is accessed only via steps. I am not exactly hard to spot. I ended up asking a friend to sign me up, only to discover I was already there. This is, for the record, a side-rant.) Out I came again, fifty minutes later, to find a team of workmen attacking the sodding wheelchair lift. The lower gate was not attached. They were kicking the hydraulics. I looked at them in despair and very faint rage, then went through the (closed) museum and looked sadly at the museum receptionists until they unlocked the (locked, heavy, double) front doors so I could use the museum's lift.
THANK GOODNESS, I thought, and whizzed off in the direction of my second lecture.
... and got all of a fifth of a mile, possibly less, before I ended up sat seething gently at a car pulled up on the kerb, hazards blinking, on a double yellow, empty, against a wall, with no dropped kerbs nearby.
I only ended up seething for about 45 seconds before the driver showed up and moved it. So far, so good. And indeed when I got to my department and unlocked the south-wing door, the (heavy) internal double doors were propped open - which was convenient, because the keyhole's at head height, needs relocking after opening, needs me to open the double doors in order to turn enough to be able to lock it behind me, etc. That was a small mercy.
On the downside, my lecture was on the third floor. I summoned the (small) lift and it eventually trundled its poor way down from the fourth; and the doors opened to reveal a large pile of empty cardboard boxes in precisely the location that meant I couldn't fit into the lift at all without moving it. I need to reverse into the lift in any case, because I can't quite turn in it even without cardboard boxes, and I can't reach the buttons unless I'm facing the door.
I ended up reaching down behind me and moving them without being able to see what I was sodding doing. I only just fit. Shockingly, I was late.
Both of these departments know I exist, because I had detailed discussions with them about access requirements and which lecture courses I'd be taking well before term started.
I am so, so unimpressed.
In theory, this is fine.
In practice, it really, really isn't.
This is what my morning was like: I arrived at the first building at around ten to nine, got myself onto the wheelchair lift, closed the gate behind me, pressed the "up" button, and... went nowhere. I stopped pressing the button. The alarm of "the gate is not properly shut" went off. I tried opening the gate and shutting it again. This repeated. Until I ended up unable to open the gate.
The estate manager for the building spotted this going on, came over, and started a conversation on whether I was "slamming" the gate, because he'd had to repair it four times due to the pin getting bent. I gave him A Look, and said that I hadn't been "slamming" it beyond the fact that it's quite difficult to twist around behind myself, get my hand up to above my head height to reach the top bar of the unsprung open gate, and pull it to. (I note that I have to grab the top bar: it's a pretty standard four-bar style, but the attached glass screen makes it damn near impossible to get a grip on the bars at a less painful height).
Please remember that my lecture was approaching and I couldn't open the bottom gate.
He proceeded to walk over to his car, get out a pair of pliers, and fiddle with the bent top pin - blocking my exit and continuing to talk at me about how it was bent.
Eventually, after several failed attempts to get the damn thing working, he generously allowed that the gate perhaps was not sitting completely right on its hinges and this might be contributing to the problem. He then went up to the top of the steps, pressed the button, and... the lift moved.
I would like to note for the record that it would have taken me much less time and stress to just get out of the damn lift and carry my 30kg chair up the steps (there's only about 4 of them, and they're quite shallow).
In I went to my lecture. (The lecturer requested that if we hadn't been in the Thursday lecture to sign up for supervisions, we come down to the front at the end to write ourselves down. This is accessed only via steps. I am not exactly hard to spot. I ended up asking a friend to sign me up, only to discover I was already there. This is, for the record, a side-rant.) Out I came again, fifty minutes later, to find a team of workmen attacking the sodding wheelchair lift. The lower gate was not attached. They were kicking the hydraulics. I looked at them in despair and very faint rage, then went through the (closed) museum and looked sadly at the museum receptionists until they unlocked the (locked, heavy, double) front doors so I could use the museum's lift.
THANK GOODNESS, I thought, and whizzed off in the direction of my second lecture.
... and got all of a fifth of a mile, possibly less, before I ended up sat seething gently at a car pulled up on the kerb, hazards blinking, on a double yellow, empty, against a wall, with no dropped kerbs nearby.
I only ended up seething for about 45 seconds before the driver showed up and moved it. So far, so good. And indeed when I got to my department and unlocked the south-wing door, the (heavy) internal double doors were propped open - which was convenient, because the keyhole's at head height, needs relocking after opening, needs me to open the double doors in order to turn enough to be able to lock it behind me, etc. That was a small mercy.
On the downside, my lecture was on the third floor. I summoned the (small) lift and it eventually trundled its poor way down from the fourth; and the doors opened to reveal a large pile of empty cardboard boxes in precisely the location that meant I couldn't fit into the lift at all without moving it. I need to reverse into the lift in any case, because I can't quite turn in it even without cardboard boxes, and I can't reach the buttons unless I'm facing the door.
I ended up reaching down behind me and moving them without being able to see what I was sodding doing. I only just fit. Shockingly, I was late.
Both of these departments know I exist, because I had detailed discussions with them about access requirements and which lecture courses I'd be taking well before term started.
I am so, so unimpressed.