Don't Be A Victim!

Monday night, I was working in the Darkroom for my class, and there was this lady from another class in with ours. I didn't mind that she was there, although she was carrying a timer that would beep everytime she had to move her prints into the next chemical, so that was kind of annoying. If we all carried timers with us instead of just counting on the clock like we are supposed to, there would always be timers going off and no one would ever know when to move anything. Anyways, this lady really got on my nerves when it was time for her to leave. When we our washing our prints, after all the developing process, we have a big bin big enough to put two 8x10 sheets side by side, and about 40-50 deep. In between each row is a little see-through plastic sheet to keep each row separate. Coming out of that is a hose that runs into a big open bin for the smaller sheets so nothing gets stuck in the huge thing. This lady is in Alternate Photography, which is something that I tried to sign up for but hadn't completed all of the pre-requisites. So, this lady should know more about being in the darkroom than I do, but she decided to put her little 4x6 and 4x4 pieces of paper into the huge bin with me and my 20-odd class mates all working on 8x10 paper. Needless to say, when she was ready to leave, she was having a problem finding her prints. She was complaining to anyone that would listen to her. She even got a couple of people from my class to help her find some of them.

Maybe, ten or fifteen minutes later, when I was coming out of the darkroom to look at one of my prints in the light, she was out on her phone sobbing to one of her friends that she could find the last two of her prints and that she couldn't leave until she did. Then when she came into the darkroom again, she was just kind of mopping around and starring at the bin helplessly. It drove me crazy! There are so many different ways to solve that problem. Any of which wouldn't take nearly as long as she was taking pouting about it! I think if you let the problem overwhelm you, then you aren't really looking for solutions as much as just dwelling on the problem. I finally stepped up and offered to help her since her helpless attitude was driving me nuts and I just wanted her to leave! I decided that most likely, her prints were behind someone else's because they were too small for anyone else to notice that they were there. So, I actually found it within the first minute just by pulling out other prints and looking on the back of them. The second one was smaller, so it was a lot hard to find. However, the case is clear, so I started pulling up other prints and looking to see what wasn't coming up with the rest of the normal sized ones. There were enough, though, that I was having a hard time trying to hold them all and look through the bottom of the bin, so I started handing prints to the sobbing, mopping, pathetic lady. I am actually proud of myself for not punching her or something, because she did NOT want to help me hold prints or anything else. I seriously just wanted to yell at her and tell her to find it her damn self if she was going to be that un-helpful when I was trying to help her. Anyways, with that system going, it didn't take me too much longer to find it. The hardest problem was then deciding which little two plastic things it was between, because even though I can see it, it doesn't really help tell me which small thing its in. So, I just had to stick my hand down a bunch of them. (Not very comfortable, by the way!) My hand was actually really hurting by the time I was able to get ahold of the stupid thing and pull it out. Even though the lady said thank you, she practically shoved all of the other prints at me as she took off. She didn't even help put them back into the bin!

I know, I know. Some of you are going to be reading this and be thinking that I just had to save her since she was in trouble, but really, I did it more for me than for her. She was bugging me to death and I figured the best way to get her to leave was to find her stupid prints. A couple of other people in my class even commented that they were impressed with my patience with her since she wasn't being very nice about it. One girl said, "I wasn't going to help her, but I was impressed that you did." Also, I really enjoy using my head to solve problems. It makes me feel really smart when I can come up with solutions to problems that other people see as impossible.

Another example of that quality in me, is my resourcefulness in my job. Like when I worked at the bountiful store and had to make cakes out of quarts and other cakes, and make circles into squares to get all of my orders done for the day. I think that is another reason my boss wants my help down in Sandy. That store really needs a lot of work. After working there on Monday, I can tell it is going to be a lot of work.