Stranger at the Door

Every now and then something happens at work that knocks my pride down a notch or two...

Yesterday I was bringing a CPU over to my system administrator's office. It's at Lloyd High School, in an old part of the building that USED to be the principal's office. It's right beside what USED to be the front doors of the building, but now are just doors that nobody uses anymore because they're hidden by the new cafeteria . But I parked beside the cafeteria and walked over to the windows of my system admin's office, figuring that he'd let me in the building.

The only problem was that he wasn't in his office. So I walked over to the old entrance doors. I don't have a key to the doors, and as I said, this is an OLD entrance, old enough that it doesn't have an electronic key card reader on the locks. But I peered into what USED to be the main lobby of the building (and which is now an art exhibit hall) and saw, in the doorway of the gymnasium across the lobby/exhibit hall, six students. I motioned for one of the students to come and let me in. They didn't budge. I watched as they pointed at me for a few moments and talked among themselves. Once they finished their conversation they all turned towards me and started shaking their heads and pointing towards the CURRENT front entrance of the school.

I started to get angry. Didn't these kids know who I was? But I couldn't really get angry because the answer was obvious: No, they DIDN'T know who I was. And actually, they were doing the exact right thing. They shouldn't let a stranger into the building.

I got on my cell phone to call my system administrator to see if he was SOMEWHERE in the building and could let me in. While I was on the phone, a Lloyd teacher--I'll call her Emily--came walking by and the girls stopped her and pointed at me and talked to her. I hung up my cell phone, figuring she was going to let me in. After talking to the girls for a moment, she walked over to the door and shouted (I heard it through the double glass as barely above a whisper), "This isn't the main entrance anymore! You'll have to drive around to the front of the building and they'll let you in there!"

I looked at her with a smile on my face, thinking she was kidding. I pointed at the door handle. She frowned. "Sir, you're going to have to go to the front entrance! You can't come in here!"

"Emily!" I shouted back. "It's me! Bryan!"

"I'm sorry, sir," she said with a scowl. "You need to go around to the front of the building, or I'm going to alert the administrators!"

No smile cracked through her demeanor. She really didn't know me. I waved her off. "I'll walk around!" And I did. And as I did so a single thought occurred to me:

I need to get out in the buildings more often...