Aunty At Photocopy Shop
Tuesday, 03/10/2006
Woke up rather early today since had to rush to IMU to print PowerPoint for PBL later today. Reached IMU at 7 something but eLab 1 was still close so just hang around until about 8.05 a.m. Went up to 3rd floor and printed the slides. Unfortunately the aunty in the photostate shop hasn’t come yet so can’t photocopy for my PBLers. From past experience, she’d normally open shop close to 8.30 a.m. so I thought I’d just wait it out for her and hopefully I can get it ready before Dr Er enters the PBL room.
Waited till 8.29 a.m. but the aunty hasn’t arrive yet (Or perhaps she was hiding in the dark having breakfast at the back of the shop Hehe…Xp). Anyway, I just thought that I’ll have to give the hard copies to my PBLers tomorrow instead. As I was walking to the Room 34, Dr Er was just walking down the stairs towards our room. I noticed that Ying Wa was still photocopying in the library, so I thought I’d give it another try with the aunty (Maybe she had opened her shop, who knows?) So I excused myself from the class (Dr Er was already in the room) and headed towards the shop downstairs…
My heart leaped when I saw light emating from the shop. When I reached the shop, Alen and Joanna were also waiting to photocopy their presentations. Since there were only the 3 of us, I thought I could get mine done without my PBLers having to wait too long for me. To my dismay, the aunty walked ever so slowly from 1 photocopier to another, taking her own sweet time (Hello!!! I’m kinda in a hurry here!!!) She passed Alen his and I handed mine to her (Time: 8.38a.m. Never mind, I was still early, I can still make it on time) She put my notes into the copier. It churned once and then made FUNNY sounds and the paper "seems" like had jammed. Grr-ee-aat! Just what I needed at that time.
I asked the aunty whether my paper had jammed or what, and was told that the copier had run out of paper (Phew!!! But there’s more…) She "glided" slowly back into the back room to grab a new stack of A4 papers. I thought she would put it directly into the feeder (Don’t we always, when we worked part time in offices back in Form 5?) but NO, she rustled the paper left, right, right, left (Time: 8.42a.m.) straightened it back into a stack and repeated the process. Then I thought that she would put it into the feeder but to my dismay, she turned the paper the other side, made a FAN out of the stack of paper and proceeded to left, right, right, left AGAIN!!! Being trained in BPharm to treat obstacles as an "ice cream treat", I took many, many deep breaths but didn’t rush the aunty (I don’t wanna make her waste even more time. Time: 8.43a.m.)
She FINALLY placed them into the feeder and I could hear the reassuring noise of the papers being stamped with ink. (I wished that Canon would invent a copier that can photocopy faster). Anyway, when she had finished making 8 copies, I was thinking "Surely her staples would have enough staplers in them, now wouldn’t she? I can’t be that UNLUCKY right?" But guess what, when she was halfway stapling my notes together, her staples ran out of staplers!!!! As she "glided" ever so slowly back to get fresh ones, I was already rolling my eyes in disbelieve. Of all times! Of all days!!! (Time: 8.44a.m.) I handed her the money, took the notes and sprinted at top speed back into the PBL Room 34. Halfway running, one of the IMU cleaners couldn’t resist smiling as I zoomed past her.
Went into PBl room out of breath. Everyone was already waiting for me, seated at their own places, looking at their notes with me turning red in the face. I looked at my watch: 8.45a.m. Haha, damn Pai Seh man…My tie was too long, so I adjusted it while Swee Ting presented her slides but found out that my tag had caught in between my tie. I wanted to just leave it initially but my name tag was so obviously lopsided, so I had to redo it all over again which was rather distracting since I was the only fella who was moving around so much during people’s presentation…Haha…
I think being able to monopolise all photocopying rights among IMU students had made that aunty very complacent. Someone should really start another photocopying business there and start slashing prices (Hint, hint Tou San). Then only would she wake up and work faster. Can you imagine how much she earns per day???
