The home office.
I used to work in an office doing curriculum editing and development for a certain test preparation company, specifically for the MCAT. The MCAT is the big daddy of all standardized admissions tests. It makes the SAT look like a summer breeze and the GRE look like your differently-abled neighbor.
It is the longest, it is the hardest, and golly, it’s the only one that actually tests science.
Anyhoo, I used to do all this stuff for it, and I used to have to do it in an office, an office located in Times Square, which, although it is in the best city in the world (New York) is just about the worst place in the world.
Unless you are an obese couple from Iowa, or a Japanese tourist. Then it’s a dream-cum-laude.
Anyways.
Now I set students straight. They contact me, and I tell them how it is via email, and I get paid for this. It is great, it is incredible, and it keeps my head full of all this stuff, some of which is pretty interesting. Don’t ever tell me the Krebs Cycle is lame. It is not. It’s awesome, and you love it. If you don’t, send me an email, and I’ll get paid to tell you why the Krebs Cycle rules.
So, as a teacher, I used to have to teach in person. It was no fun, I get anxiety, I turn red, I sweat, and so on. Though all this is on the inside. On the outside I look fine, a little awkward, but otherwise together. But I don’t want an ulcer. So, e-teaching is the way to go. Either way, all the teaching materials are online, and we have a monthly password to access them. My buddy T makes the password. I used to be able to walk down the hall and see him. Now he doesn’t even have a facebook picture, just a question mark, and so my only contact is a monthly email telling me the new password. And lately they’ve all been internal marketing codes. T’s creative flair gets overridden and I can feel him hurting a tiny, but unimportant bit.
I mean, he’s made such passwords as zamb0n1, during the winter! It seems like a lame way to get kicks. But after dozens of log-ons, every day of every week, something like zamb0n1 can make me smile more than a cryptic marketing code. We already work there, so marketing to the worker bees is well … subliminally … mean. Besides, there’s nothing funny about marketing codes — yet. But zamb0n1, that one’s still my favorite. Like a little Christmas present from T.
And now, I just got another little gift. No more marketing codes, just raw T.
But this password is current, so I can’t tell.
Best believe it’s a T classic.