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epitome of incomprehensibility
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A note to myself and Concordia Security: you both need to chill.
This evening I left my library-table seat to go to the bathroom. When I came back, a paper notice was left on top of my stuff, saying not to leave belongings unattended and that I could go to the security desk to retrieve the thing I'd left.
Hm? My laptop was still there, my earphones, my homemade "Kirsten's non-hidden agenda." So they hadn't taken anything, just threatened to.
I got irritated and then questioned why. Based on today's Sociolinguistics lecture, I concluded I'd perceived the note as a "face-threatening act." Fine. I put aside the paper, literally, and tried to concentrate on my work.
But that wasn't completely successful. I started daydreaming about writing in the meager space afforded on the paper: "Dear Whoever, I left my desk to pee and came back to this ridiculous notice. I do not agree with your idea of security. If someone takes one of my things, they probably need it more than I do. In that spirit, I'm leaving $20. Whoever wants it can take it." I would put the bill under the note and go.
But I was still waiting for the Socioling. prof to send me something, so I needed internet access. Where would I go? Leaving the library with a flourish would only work, I imagined, if I actually left and didn't just move seats. So I decided not to do the dramatic, satisfying thing. Instead I sensibly marked a paper, the last of the current bunch.
Half an hour later, a security worker walked by. I said, "Excuse me, you left this here but didn't take anything to security."
He went, "Hmm. Did you leave your laptop unattended?"
Direct questions. Putting me on the defense. I said, "Well, not now. But someone put this here before."
And he said it was just a note not to leave laptops unattended because there had been thefts.
"Right, but if I go to the bathroom and ask someone to watch it..."
"But what's if THAT person steals it? That happened here once. Someone asked this guy to watch a laptop, guy ran away with it."
"Oh, okay, sorry." Meek, I handed him the card so he could use it again.
But when he left I muttered to the air - or to the student sitting in front of me who didn't care - "That's a little extreme, like you can't trust anyone."
In my head, defiance and half-lies: So I major in statistics and I estimate the risk to be very low. And then questions: what's if a security staffer steals a student's laptop? What's to stop them? They have more power; they might be more likely to get away with it.
It wasn't until I left to catch the train that I reasoned, "Okay, it's his job. It's in his interest that people don't get things stolen and then complain to him, because it's now a problem he or his colleagues need to solve."
But I still see no reason to suspect a) Average Library-Goer more than b) Security as a potential laptop-stealer. If anything, it's Security I fear more, because they threatened to temporarily take mine. (Not my security. My laptop. But sort of my security.)
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