I spent a couple of semesters helping my Spanish professor for my college’s work-study program. Among other tasks, I was allowed to grade assignments as long as there were no judgment calls involved. That included essays since this was a low-level class and the essays were only graded on spelling and grammar, not content or style. I was going through a stack of essays when I noticed something odd.

Me: “Hey, [Professor], check out these two essays. Not only are they word-for-word identical, including all the same mistakes—” *and there were a LOT of mistakes* “—but they’re in the same handwriting and the same pink glitter pen. And they must have turned them in at the same time because they’re right next to each other in the stack.”

Professor: “Wow. What were they thinking?”

Me: “I know! So, anyway, should I bother with grading them or do you want to just give them zeroes?”

The school policy at the time was that teachers COULD give a score of zero for any assignment that a student cheated on, not that they had to.

Professor: “We’ll be nice this time. Go ahead and grade one. Then, since that’s how many points they earned between them, divide the grade by two and give them each that.”

I think each student ended up with a grade somewhere in the twenties. It WAS better than getting zeroes… slightly.

I work for the university’s support department. Each class has a dedicated online forum to discuss appropriate topics.

Caller: “I’d like to report someone posting porn in the classroom!”

Me: “Let me take a look. What class?”

Caller: “[Class number] with Dr. [Teacher].”

Me: “What thread?”

Caller: “It’s in [discussion].”

Me: “I’m looking through it, but I’m finding nothing.”

Caller: “But I click this message, then click the attachment ‘coolpic.jpg’, and then hit the green arrow! It’s full of lesbian porn!”

Me: “Ma’am, those are photos stored in your browser’s cache, meaning someone who uses the computer is viewing those images. Who else besides you uses your computer?”

Caller: “My fifty-year-old moth… Oh, my gawd, Mom!“

Sigh. We accidentally outed so many people.

If you have an officially recognized club at my college, you have to participate in the Student Government Association’s (SGA’s) “Club Olympics” each year. It’s required, but it’s a fun way for clubs to compete and get (pretty decent-sized) cash prizes for their clubs.

My club was a newly created club designed for gaming — computer, console, competitive, board, etc. — and, as such, was small. However, we were officially recognized by the SGA, so we were fully intending on competing and winning.

My club walked up as a group to the signup desk, and the person at the desk asked for our name. We told them the group name, and we were prompted to make a team name to make things easier. We just blurted out “Gamers” as a joke, but they took it.

The Olympics were full of minute-to-win-it games, and we were frankly dominating the competition. Things took a turn for the worse when the prizes were announced.

Each game gave out a certain amount of points. You added up the points, and the most amount of points won, up to three winners. I had taken a peek at the scores and knew we had won second place. Not wanting to spoil the surprise, I kept it to myself, until:

Announcer: “For third place, we have the art club! For second place, we have the zoology club! And for first place, we have the Spanish club!”

I was confused. I was about to interject and ask what had happened to us when this announcement was made.

Announcer: “And for the honorary club that sort of just showed up but did really well, here’s an honorary prize!”

It was a small bucket of candy. I sort of sheepishly raised my hand (in front of about seventy-five people).

Me: “We’re not an honorary club… We’re recognized by the SGA.”

The announcer’s face went white since they knew we had gotten second place. Of course, we didn’t go because of the money — honestly, we went because it was required — but the fact that we had been cheesed out of it was kind of upsetting.

After the group disbanded, I went up to the administrator of the event and asked her if their thinking we were an honorary club had barred us from winning. She had a very distraught look on her face because she didn’t want to take the second-place prize from the club she had originally awarded it to.

Thankfully, the treasurer came out and told us not to worry, as they “had it in their budget” to also give us the second-place prize. Usually, these things end poorly, but after spending three hours in ninety-five-degree weather, we were glad that our sweat and tears (quite literally) paid off.

When I was in my first year of college, I worked for my university’s sports concessions. Football days were by far the busiest, as we had to prepare over twice the usual amount of food and put it all in giant heat-proof containers. We basically cooked the whole morning and worked in the stand all afternoon and evening.

One of my least favorite items was the humble hot dog. Because of the sheer number we had to make, we boiled them en masse. The smell was exactly as bad as you’d expect.

One of my coworkers noticed my olfactory discomfort and asked about it while we were on lunch break.

Me: “Yeah, sorry, the meat smell just bugs me.”

Coworker: “Oh, are you vegan?”

I paused because I was eating a premade sandwich from the campus food store. The packaging was still on the table, and it was very clearly labeled, “Turkey and Swiss.” My beverage of choice was a boxed chocolate milk with a dappled brown cow pattern on the carton.

Me: “…No.”

Coworker: “Vegetarian?”

I glanced again at my turkey sandwich.

Me: “No.”

He still looked confused, so I told him that I just didn’t like most red meat — or the smell of a vat of boiling water that had just finished cooking two hundred hot dogs.

I work as a teacher in a small college. I am talking to a new student, explaining the front sheets that they need to place at the start of every piece of work they hand in.

Me: “You just need to create a front sheet for the homework.”

The student seems puzzled for a second.

Student: “Sorry, what was that?”

Me: “You need to type up a front sheet for every piece of homework that you hand in.”

Student: *Incredulously* “A front sheet? What’s a front sheet?”

Me: “It’s the procedure. But you can’t hand in your work unless you write one.”

Student: “This is stupid. I refuse to do something so ridiculous!”

Me: “Well, I’m sorry, but your work won’t be marked unless you write one. You can ask [Student’s Special Needs Helper] if you need a template.”

Student: “But why do you need one? It seems arbitrary.”

Me: *Shaking my head* “It’s not arbitrary.”

Student: “It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. We’re not associated with them in any way. We’re in Somerset.”

I am confused by that last comment, but I need to walk away.

As I walk off, I hear the student muttering:

Student: “Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.”

Later that day, I tried to find [Student]’s helper when I heard that [Student] was spending a lot of time at the computer. From what the helper told me, [Student] had already completed her homework but said that she needed time with her template. I found this silly as there were only a few alterations they needed to make to the front sheets; there were boxes already created for them to write in. But this girl had taken several extra minutes typing up her front sheet.

When I came to look, I saw that she had written an extra copy of the homework… in FRENCH. She came from a Thames Valley area and hadn’t understood my thick Somerset accent, so she thought that I was asking for every piece of work that we did to be translated into French.