20080424

Two Offices

by Too Young

Dean Richardson has two offices in the Dean’s suite on the eighth floor of the Wolfe Hall building on central campus. One office is the kind of office one might expect a Dean to have; a large corner office, one wall made entirely of windows, overlooking the bulk of the rest of the campus, with discouraging oversized antique furniture, as if inviting the guests to be intimidated by "The Dean." The other office is tiny, messy, has no windows, and contains all of the most important parts of his job, including the phone and his computer. He spends most of his time in the smaller office, I think, to make a statement to the rest of the department that nothing he does is really all that different from what the rest of us do. Everyone in this department knows, however, when he does wander over into his larger office — usually with a blank stare, deep in thought and lost to all of the rest of the world — that something different is in fact going on. The last time I caught him in there, eyes glazed over, hands clasped holding up his chin, was the day before he announced that he would be leaving the school after twenty-seven years as Dean.

6S

Too Young is an aspiring business woman, slowly rising to the top and learning what the business world is all about. She’s been writing since she can remember, and hopes to one day make known (to more than just family) her secret passion for the art.