Chicago Business

Seems like there's always something to moan about. Last week: the sheer number of emails. This week: the quiet study lounge is anything but.

Well, the first moan is an easy one to solve. Press delete. Anyone who still has a case of Fear Of Missing Out needs to chug a bottle of Jack and get over themselves. Why? Because - and I promise - people don't have more fun when you are there. You are only averagely exciting.

Is it just me or is this sounding like a TNDC email? Except, I haven't mentioned bestiality yet. There you go, now it does.

One set of emails I have liked this week have come from the Energy Club. Ahh, those sparky fellows with their incandescent personalities. So much did they want me at their event, they peppered my inbox for several hours with the same invite. I'm still not going.

I am surprised I even received that set... you see, another email I received this week was telling me that the school wifi network will be down for maintenance. From 5am to 7am on a Saturday. WHAT? How will all the uber-keen newbies cope? Pretty easily, I would hope.

Salad Bar rage continues aplenty this week, at least in the world of Slandrew. My current beef is with the sauce containers, which are so impossibly positioned, that its not possible for either a) sauce from the lids to get on your sleeve, b) sauce to get on your hands, or c) sauce to get on the floor. Sauce, it should be noted, is added to salads. On the plus side, my rant about people staring at the trays of diced cucumbers does appear to have made people generally faster at loading their flimsy cartons with salad gold. Go on you.

Where was I? Ah yes, the quiet study lounge. I am typing this from the one in Ida, lovely girl she is. There's a man eating a slice of pizza, two people whispering while listening to their iPods (could you be any more dumb?), and at least one person working. I just got forwarded a Youtube link by the guy sitting behind me... is there any way I could do less work?

The big issue, I hear, with the study rooms is that people camp there. Not literally - that would be weird. They park their belongings at 8.30am, leave for class, calls and meetings and hover back occasionally to check their iPhone is still charging. Then they bring in some kind of tuna salad and leave it by the heater. Then they decide to shuffle papers all around their desks as if they are playing cards.

Why is this bad? Not only is there no room for others, they also make it really impossible for the people who are there to concentrate. To make matters worse, they then arrogantly boast to people at TNDC that they spent all day catching up in the quiet study room, making others feel bad for their lack of commitment. You know who you are... you are this week's squirrelly bastard.

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