When I was interviewed for senior lecturer, the professor told me that what they were looking for was a “people person”, someone who could “get the best out of” those he/she was line managing.  “This is the Computing Department,” she said.  “People tend to be… eccentric, paranoid, set in their ways… communicate only with their screens, and all that.”

I considered my answer.  Managing a husband, four teenagers, two cats and a home was how I had honed my “people” skills but no middle-aged woman ever dare say that at interview.  Passim (as we academics say), I was disappointed that they had not been more interested in my academic achievements.  “Information systems?  Um… can you explain what you mean by “information systems”?” the professor had asked, and when I had tried to explain about C/OAT analysis and POM cycles, the interview panel had looked bemused.

I must have given the right answers because I got the job and I had been working at the university for five years when the professor (who I now knew as Jane) called me into her office.  “Sue, I need you to work in a different staffroom.”

“Oh yes?” I replied. 

Jane squinted at me under her bronze-dyed fringe, an infuriating habit of hers, then swept her fringe from her eyes with her hand, another of her habits.  “Er… seeing as you do much of your teaching on the fourth floor…”

All my teaching was on the fourth floor, the vast majority in Room 405, which I had customised to my user requirements.

I paled.  “You don’t want me to go in with Sandra and Audrey?”

Jane pushed back her fringe again.  Nature had intended that her hair should flop down over her brow, Beatle-fashion, but she didn’t accept this.  Jane worked in a world of political “targets” and I suppose you became used to not meeting any of them.  My daughter, Caitlin, who had the same hair problem, used to waste precious minutes every morning with ceramic tongs, causing me miss getting a place in the university car park, until I had bought her a hair band – navy blue, of course, school uniform colours.  “Would you, please, Sue?”

I couldn't say anything.  I was shocked.

“But Sandra talks to you.”

Sandra was a terrible talker.  She had a way of grabbing your arm and meetings attended by Sandra were interminable.

“I don’t know Audrey very well.”

Jane waved her hand.  “Nobody really knows Audrey.”

“I would insist on having my own computer.”

“Of course.  You’re a senior lecturer.  You’re entitled to it.  Otherwise, it’s 2.56 staff to each PC.  That’s senate policy.”

The university porters moved my stuff at lunchtime a few days later, from my nice, light airy staffroom on the first floor, into this tiny, dark cupboard of a place on the fourth.  Sandra was eating a banana (as she “didn’t eat lunch”), and staring at a pile of papers stacked higgledy-piggledy on her desk.  “Sue, I'm so glad you’ve come!” She shook her head in infinitesimal movements.  “Look!”

I looked, at a stack of programming exercises in C#.  Audrey was the Winters in “Advanced Programming in C#” by A Winters and T Humphreys. 

“She wants my desk!” Sandra went on.  “She’s wanted it for ten years.  This desk was passed on to me by Anthony Tolhurst when he retired in 1988…”  It occurred to me that Sandra’s was the desk nearest the door.

Through the wall, in Room 405, I could hear scrape of chairs and students’ voices.  “Sandra, I’ve got to go.  I've got a class.  Just move this stuff.”

“I don’t like to touch her papers.”

I picked up the pile of programming exercise and thumped it down on the Audrey’s desk as I walked out.  My husband had a habit of leaving his coat on the banister, even though the coat cupboard was right behind the front door, out of laziness, not because he was declaring lebenstraum on the stairs.

As I walked into the classroom, I cleared my head.  “Good afternoon.  Today,” I said, “we will consider the POM cycle.” The students got out their A4 pads, as I wrote POM on the whiteboard.  “That’s …process of organisational meanings.  It is not a system for resolving problems but for finding meanings, in information systems supported by IT.  It incorporates Vickers Appreciative Settings and DCIK.”  (I wasn’t stupid enough to pronounce DCIK!)  “There are seven elements to POM,” I waffled on as I keyed my user ID and password on to the tutor computer.  “We’ll go through them, one by one.“  At last, I had a diagram of the POM cycle on the projector screen.

I looked round at the students.  Their eyes had glazed over.  Sandra, on the other hand, always had the students’ full attention, although nobody really understood how (least of all the inspectors), because all she seemed to do was stand in front of the class, the seat of her tweed trousers perched on the edge of the tutor’s desk, and talk to them about e-commerce.

“We will consider POM with reference to research carried out at Chenham General Hospital in 1992.”

The glaze on the students’ faces intensified.  For a moment, I wished I could be Sandra, for my specialty to be e-commerce, which the students regarded as important.  But why did they consider it important?  Because Sandra had impressed it upon them that e-commerce was the future. 

“Bloody Hell!” cried Sandra from the staffroom.  Thud, thud, thud.  I recognised that sound all too well.  I may not have been in Sandra’s staffroom but I had been teaching next door for five years.

“Element One of the POM cycle, Individuals and Groups,” I went on, shouting above the distractions.  “At Chenham General Hospital…”

“Sandra,” said Tim, one of the students.

“Sandra and Audrey,” added Sophie, another student.  “You know what they’re like!”

I frowned.  Students were not supposed to know about staffroom feuds. 

“Element Two, Their Perceived World.  At Chenham General Hospital…”

“Sandra perceives that Audrey wants her desk,” butted in student Simon, rocking on his chair.

“Sandra has been here for 20 years and has developed her perceptions over time,” said Sophie, with a smirk.  “That’s Vickers Appreciative Settings, Sue.”

Thud, thud, thud – again.  “That’s Sandra knocking the keyboard against the desk, to shake out the crumbs that Audrey drops when she eats her lunch at the staffroom computer,” added Nathan, doodling on his A4 pad.  “That’s Sandra’s Perceived World again.”

“Does Audrey have a Perceived World?” asked Sam.

“No.  She’s in her own world.  She’s Asperger’s, isn't she?”

“Come on.  That’s enough,” I said.  (They were right, of course.)  

“Loads of computer geeks are Asperger’s, aren’t they?” Tim went on, as I walked out the classroom meaning to shut the staffroom door.

“Including us?”

“Yeah, probably.”  Tim pointed to my POM diagram.  “External factors.  Asperger’s diagnoses from doctors.”

“Shit, shit, shit!” Sandra was shouting, as I closed the door.  “Why should I have to work in her shit?”

“Come on,” said Tim, now leaning forward, as he did in Sandra’s classes.  “Element Three, Discourse.  Sandra can have discourse without Audrey even being there.”

I lingered by the classroom doorway… as a teaching strategy, of course.

“Don’t be disgusting!” retorted Nathan.

“I said “Discourse”, you prat!  Element Four.  Data-capta-information-knowledge.  DCIK.

“D..” began Simon.

“Don’t say it!.  Data?  All Sandra’s emails to the professor about where Audrey eats her lunch.  That’s data, innit?  And don’t forget the water beakers she leaves on Sandra’s desk.”

“Capta?  That’s data deemed to be relevant.  Well, some of Sandra’s emails must be relevant.  Information?  That’s for Sue to find now.  That’s what the professor’s put her in there for, isn't it?”

“Knowledge?  That’s longer term, broader information.  Well, everything Sandra says goes back 20 years, doesn’t it?”

“Element Five, Assemblies of Related Intentions and Accommodations,” said Tim.  “With Sandra and Audrey?  You’re having a gir-affe!”

“Sue said POM was a sense-making device, not a solution.” 

“Yes, maybe.”

“That’s what they’ve brought Sue into the staffroom for, though, innit?” 

“Element Six, Purposeful Action.  Give Sandra and Audrey a computer each?”

“You can't do that.  Senate policy is one computer to 2.56 staff members.”

“No.  Your 2.56 rule, that’s Element Seven, Supported by IT.  Element 7a, Organised IT.”

“Element 7b, Appropriate IT.  Well, that would be them having a computer each, wouldn’t it?”

“And, if Audrey’s got her own computer, she wouldn’t be using the one next to Sandra and dumping her stuff on Sandra’s desk.”

“Bum, bum!””

“But them both having a computer each is against the 2.56 rule.”

“Sue would have to go to the professor and get her to make an exception.  That’s your accommodation in Element 5, innit?  Sue said you can run the POM cycle in any order.”

“Or… Sue gets her own computer, doesn’t she, because she’s a senior lecturer?  She could offer to share her computer with Sandra.  More accommodations.”

“What about Element 7c, IS/IT professional knowledge?”

“We wouldn’t have any of that.  This is the Computing Department, innit?”

“Tiddly-POM.”

“Yeah.  Tiddly-POM.”