Keepin' it "on lock"

"Whatever you do, don't tell 'em to 'shut up'."

This is my mantra as I walk down the hallway from a comfortable office with a big, leather chair towards towards the sound of laughter and mirth. As I hear a high-pitched laugh, I start to cringe. I must put an end to this. No one is going to have a good time. Not on my watch.

As The Graduate Assistant for Student-Athlete Services working in the Study Hall, I am the stamp-outer of fun --or at least any fun that requires or produces noise. I am a Nazi. "Surfing the net" will get you removed from the computer lab. Using a cell phone will get you signed out and sent home and talking back will get a note to the coaches. I don't play.

When I hear people enjoying themselves, it is my job to put an end to it. I am paid to be unpopular.

Such was not always the case. Once it was my job --nay, my vocation-- to not only allow people to have fun, but to contribute to it. At one point in time, my job was composed nearly completely of talking, "dialogues of difference" and discussions about spirituality, socialism, racism or communism. Name an "ism" and I've discussed it.

But no longer is that the case for this wanderer of the academy. Mine is now to stop the buck. And though I do it, at times, with a heavy heart, I have to remember that it is a heart that's getting free tuition and $750 a month.

If that's what heavy is, then pile it on.