I went to meet a colleague on site and while I was waiting (turns out I got the day wrong), I noticed a very distressed student kocking on the doors to the building. I had seen him come down from his car a few minutes earlier, dressed in a t-shirt, ripped jeans and no shoes (it's 6 degrees C outside). A couple of his fellow students had gone in a few minutes earlier without a problem, so I figured he was just trying to get their attention. He banged on the door a few times... then went around to another door. When he came back to the first door, he was markedly more upset. It was only when I got out of my car that I noticed that he was SCREAMING at the top of his lungs, calling everyone inside the building 'stupid fuckers'. When he took a break from pounding the woodwork and hollering obscenities, I said... 'Can I help?' He replied - 'Yeah, you can get me in this fucking building. I've got an exam and the fuckers have locked the door!!. I started to say 'OK, I'll just go get a porter...', but only got to 'OK, I'll...' when he returned to beating the door down and screaming (I think to me, though he wasn't looking in my direction), 'I just went to get my medication!!!'. Naturally a few questions popped into my brain... is he mentally unwell? What medication did he need? Was it the one that allowed him to look outside and see that it was freezing outside and therefore to put on shoes? I guessed it was probably more serious, as he also appeared to have some food and an epipen of some kind.
'OK... let me just go get the porter so he can let you in. Don't worry, I'll only be a few minutes'. I jogged off, looking back to see that he was still screaming at the door and pounding away. I got back a few minutes later, having contacted the porter and asked him to come let the poor guy in. 'Someone is coming now. He won't be long,' I said, in my best Cesar Millan voice. I was tempted to make hypnotising steer horns with my pinky and thumb, but I resisted.
When I got back to the distressed student, I could see that he'd cut his hand from the knocking. 'This is seriously going to affect my grades,' he said. 'They did it on purpose, the fuckers'.
I tried to soothe him: 'OK, I'm sorry... we'll get you in, don't worry. Someone will be here in just a minute.'
'They locked the door on purpose to keep me out,' he said - apparently unsoothed.
'Oh, I don't think it's that... see, the door is on a numeric keypad,' I said - again, trying to abate his conspiracy theories (although secretly I suspected the Locker-Outers might be in cahoots with the Shoe Stealers).
'I KNOW!! I just forgot the code!! LET ME IN YOU FUCKERS!!!' (He'd returned to frantically thrashing the door frame).
At this point, I probably could have been more compassionate but I just couldn't resist asking, 'Wait, so you know the code?'
'No, I don't know it! I forgot it!'
'So you USED TO KNOW the code?'
'Yeah, but we always prop open the door with a chair.'
Thankfully (for me and for him), the porter then ambled up the path and said 'Would you like the code?'.
'Yes please!' we both said, with the same degree - though I suspect different sources - of desperation.
The porter gave us the code. The student tried it. Twice. Then he resorted to calling the lock a fucker. I tried the code and the door opened. The student raced off without even so much as a 'Thank you, fucker'.
Don't get me wrong, I feel for the guy. Sitting an exam is never nice, and it can't be much better when you spend the first 20 minutes of it beating your knuckles bloody on the door to the building. I really hope he calmed down enough to do his best on that exam. If not, I hope the invigilator is able to grant him mitigating circumstances and allow him to resit. Either way, maybe he should watch this clip and remember that it's almost Christmas. After all, if he's been good, maybe Santa will bring him some fucking shoes.
