Warning, Warning: User Approaching

Most of the gear works fine. It works well. The projector, a bad-ass Christie LW650, can read almost any resolution you throw at it, and with 6,500 ANSI lumens it projects a splendid image. I've installed a compliment of standard, durable Shure wireless microphones run straight into the Soundcraft Spirit8 and when the speaker stands on the stage and wears the microphone where he is supposed to, the sounds great. The only anomaly to the system is, as always, the user.

Most of the presenters in the room are lecturers teaching a class of 500 students, most of whom are using their laptops to simultaneously surf The Facebook, watch YouTube, and chat with their neighbors. The good lecturers proceed, ignoring the dull-eyed herd and concentrating on the subject matter and the 15% that is playing attention. The bad lecturers try to control the crowd, making rules and regulations - "Absolutely no laptops!" - having their teaching assistants patrol the isles, and inventing a hundred hoops for the kids to jump through. Student Response Systems measure attendance, and everyone knows that. It is easy to cheat. Apparently Cnut's attempt to control the tide has been forgotten by the vast majority of contemporary academia.

The current user, the dude in front right now, isn't necessarily a bad lecturer, but he sure is high maintenance. Because he turns his head away from the clip-on lavaliere microphone when he speaks, going "off mic" as we say in the biz, he wants me to buy him a headset mic, one worn about the head like a pair of glasses. "Sure thing, Madonna." First I tell him to buy it, but then thinking of all the problems involved if he shows up with only a mic, I wince. I'll buy it and connect it to a spare transmitter pack with the right frequency and try to keep it separate from the mix of microphones that is good enough for everybody else. That was Monday and today (Wednesday) he asked where his new mic was. His new mic? Oh brother.

So he sets up his laptop and his uses his remote controller for his laptop and it doesn't work. He asks me why. How should I know? It's his remote. He asks me if I have spare batteries for him. It is not my responsibility to supply batteries for every yahoo that wonders in with dead batteries. I have batteries for the room's gear, not batteries for everyone.

This might be harsh. I was told that this lecturer was "a nice guy". I haven't seen that yet. I've met a whinny, spastic, needy guy, who wants a lot more out of me than the vocational contract I have with the university. I'm sorry to say, "That's not my job," but dude, that's not my job.

Rereading this, I sound pretty pissy. Must have been a bad day. The lecturer I mentioned is high maintenance, but that is okay. The reason I am here is to help lecturers. Most of the people I work with are nice, and even the high maintenance ones aren't bad. They just need more hand-holding. Good thing I have huge hands.