Ingvill looked confused, and I wondered if this might be one of her hard-liner tactics, dragging the process out no matter what, even if it made her seem crazy.
The ergonomics, occupational safety, and regulatory compliance guy was rummaging around in a stack of paperwork, and I took that opportunity to make eye contact with Peter. I raised my eyebrows to check if we were still following the game plan or if we were abandoning it, but he just gestured that he had no idea what my eyebrows were trying to say.
“Well, at any rate that’s not the subject of today’s meeting,” the chair said. “So . . .”
The ergonomics guy cleared his throat and raised two fingers to indicate he wanted to say something.
“You’re right,” he confirmed. “Ingvill already has an adjustable-height desk.”
Then Frank exploded.
“I can’t believe she got an adjustable-height desk when I have a very obvious back injury as a result of—”
“Fine,” the chair said. “Fine, fine, fine. We’ll send you to occupational health and then we’ll take it from there. Good?”
Frank raised his hands to show that in a pinch this course of action could be considered “passable,” but that there was no way it could be characterized as “good.”
“Good,” the chair said. “Then let’s get down to business. The reason we’re here is to discuss the course revision, and perhaps Ingrid could tell us a little about how the work is coming.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “I didn’t have much of a chance to prepare, but I have reviewed all our course offerings and at a minimum I can say that we’re going to have to cut out two undergraduate courses. So, I suggest we get rid of Lexicology with Didactics. That class has been unpopular with students for a long time, and the material could easily be integrated elsewhere. As for the second class, I suggest World Lit. It’s popular, but we can’t get rid of any of the other literature classes. This is the only class we have that’s not introductory.”
I looked around the table for nods of approval or smiles. As far as I could tell, this solution was a little stroke of genius, since it didn’t result in any redundancies or across-the-board modifications.
But the meeting table was surrounded by poker faces.
The chair was poking intently at her iPad and hardly seemed to have heard what I said. The only one who nodded was the ergonomics, occupational safety, and regulatory compliance officer, but since he was staring straight at the wall, it seemed more like he was having some kind of attack.
I was opening my mouth to add a comment about how great my suggestion was and at the same time introduce the plans for the graduate level, when a note was plunked down hard in front of me. It said, “BAD COP!!!” I glanced up and found Ingvill, Frank, and Peter all glaring at me. Peter even started nodding his head demonstratively toward the administration.
I shook my head.
“No,” I whispered. “No!”
All three nodded vigorously, and Ingvill made some motion with her hand that clearly depicted decapitation. Was she threatening my life?
“Was there anything else, Ingrid?” wondered the chair.
“No, I . . .”
I had thought out what I was going to say. I was going to present my whole solution and explain how it ensured full workloads for everyone in the department while at the same time benefiting the students, but I couldn’t stop looking at Ingvill, who had proceeded to plunge an imaginary knife into her stomach while pointing at me.
My phone also started vibrating on the table in front of me right then, and when I glanced at the display, I saw that it was the Swedish serial killer.
I gulped and glanced down at the sheet of paper where I had meticulously written out all the details about how we could do this efficiently and without costs. Then I took a deep breath.
“I want one of those adjustable-height desks, too,” I said.
“What?”
“Yeah, if everyone else is getting one, I want one, too, one of those adjustable-height desks. I’ve been having some back pain, you see. Quite a bit of back pain, actually.”
The chair of the department pushed her chair back, regarding me with a look that was at least as stony as the ones I’d received from the rest of my colleagues a few seconds earlier.
“So you want a special desk,” she repeated slowly.
“Yup.”
“How about a special chair, then? Would you like one of those?”
I cleared my throat inaudibly.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Maybe so.”
“One of those chairs with no back support?”
Her eyes were narrow and confrontational. Out of the corner of my eye, I could just barely see Ingvill smiling triumphantly in the background.
“Dunno,” I said quietly and then gulped.
“I want a chair,” Peter interjected. “One of those special chairs.”
“Me, too,” Frank chimed in.
“Me, three,” Ingvill said before adding, “well, another one.”
A complete silence fell over the room. The chair jotted something down on a piece of paper before raising her head and giving me a look. It was a look that said I was about five minutes away from being reassigned to the preschool-teacher education program and the only thing that could save me now was a complete course reversal.
Teamwork, I thought to myself, teamwork.
I don’t remember much of what happened after that, but I’m quite sure I was the one who started pounding my fist on the table. Up and down my fists moved, first softly and then harder and harder. Eventually I started chanting, first quietly and then louder and louder.
“Desk, desk, desk, desk, desk, DESK, DESK, DESK.”
Everyone joined in. Louder and louder we repeated our demand until the word desk lost its meaning and was transformed into an absurd demand that surged through the room in protest and anger.
“DESK, DESK, DESK, DESK!”
“FINE!”