Gate Woes

Saturday. Closing time. The desk students tell me that the gate doesn't seem to want to go down. I amble toward the locks mounted on the wall and insert my key. Nothing. Not a sound, not a click, not a buzz, not a hum. That's strange. The other gate went down just fine.

I can sense the students' impatience. Of course, they are eager to be on their way. I tell them to leave. I will call security and figure out what to do. Security comes. They can't get it to work either. Strange. There is no help for it. We will have to close the 24 hour area and lock the entire building until Monday when facilities can take a look.

There are students in the 24 hour area trying to work on papers. Most of them are good natured about being booted out. One poor gentleman, not a native speaker of English, was troubled. He really needed to complete his paper. I feel badly. I hate to kick him out, but I can't leave him in there with the whole building undone. We lock up. I go home after sending emails to everyone who will need to know over the next few days.

Fortunately, one of the people I emailed had a solution, called security, it worked, and within 2 hours we were back in business. Hurrah! Would that everything could be fixed as quickly. I just hope that student came back and was able to finish. I hate tripping other people up!