Like just about everybody in the world, my goal at work is to reduce my workload as much as possible. As a receptionist, this entails arranging things so that as few people as possible have to actually talk to me. I consider it a success, for instance, if I come into work and the little red light that indicates I have phone messages is not flashing. The faster I do my work, the more time I have to do things like catch up on my politics gossip, and blog about stupid things!
My current ongoing challenge is to get the students of the introductory Geometrical Anthropology course to turn in their homework properly as quickly as possible, without me having to say even one word. The teaching assistants typically have their students turn in homework by placing the assignments in their respective mailboxes. The mailboxes are located in the middle of the office, slightly to the left of the view students have when they walk into the office. Prior to beginning this experiment, students used to have a dickens of a time figuring out where to turn in their work:
View from the students’ perspective upon entering office. Mailboxes to the left, just a bunch of blocky wooden boxes. The forms are kept in one of those vertically oriented organizer type things.
Initially, students would wander in looking incredibly lost, and I immediately isolated these as introductory students needing to turn in their homework (it’s just that unmistakeably vague expression on their faces). I would say, “Are you needing to turn in homework? The GTA mailboxes are right there,” and I would point. About 85% of the students at this point would correctly identify the mailboxes; another 10% just walked straight into my coworker’s office. A scant 5% confused the “Office Forms” holder for the mailboxes, and would just try to stuff their homework in with the curriculum sheets and various other office paperwork.*
Now the students who found the mailboxes would scan, scan, scan the boxes looking for their TA’s name, which is hard because the names are not in alphabetical order – if I were to do this, I’d have to rearrange ALL of the mailboxes every time we got new TAs and the faculty would grumble, so I don’t. Only about, say, 45% of students would find the appropriate slot without additional instructions. Further complicating things is that it is not immediately clear which name corresponds to which box – “is the name above or below the right box?” asked several students.
Eventually I got really tired of having to say “3rd box from the bottom right column, no, your other right, from the bottom, oh, one over – THERE you go!” Also, getting up out of my chair and simply pointing at the box was both insulting to the student and annoying to me. Furthermore, simply taking the homework at my desk was not acceptable, due to the mounds of paperwork currently on my desk – I do not want to be responsible for a student’s homework getting lost among unprocessed vouchers!
Post signage.
With all these in mind, I began to make some changes, making liberal use of some obnoxiously hi-liter colored paper. First I made a big sign on pink paper with the word “MAILBOXES” printed on it, in huge font. I stuck this on top of the mailboxes, obviously. I then made a less brightly colored sign for the forms boxes, still clearly labeled, but as this sign is not an eye-searing color, it is not necessarily the first thing that catches the eye when one walks into the room.
Gradually I added more and more colored signs. For each TA mailbox, I added a bright orange label taped to the right of the mailbox, with arrows – both signaling the location of the box, and also resolving the issue of whether or not the name was above or below the box. Finally, I just started closing my coworker’s door when she is not here.
This setup has worked pretty efficiently, cutting down the amount of time it takes for students to turn in their homework to an average of 15 seconds, as opposed to the lengthier time it would often take prior to these changes.
But today, for some reason, I am encountering system failure! I had to stop one girl from just strolling right into the director’s office, gum-chewing and completely oblivious to the proliferation of neon signs and the frantic secretary right in front of her. And it’s not just her; all the other students today have bypassed the mailboxes, and have needed to ask me what to do with their homework – thus slowing down the average time to 30 or even 45 seconds!
What am I doing wrong? What other improvements does this system need? One possibility is that students’ brains have started filtering out loudly colored flyer-esque signs by this point in their college career; otherwise they’d go blind just from walking through one campus building. Should I mark a trail on the floor with tape, to guide people to the mailboxes? (Nope, no good; annoying sidewalk chalkings proliferate this time of year, so nobody looks at floors now either). Should I tape Christmas lights around the TA boxes? Any suggestions here, people?
* – I still can’t figure this one out. How did these students decide which slot to stuff in their homework?
2 Comments
a loud speaker?
actually I think this is funny because when I walked into your office last week, when you were talking to some people a head of me, I saw the sign that indicated “Mailboxes” and thought, “well that is a bit obvious”
apparently I was wrong
I struggle with these things every day as well- especially the “is the box above or below the name?” question. Hello! Look at the top row of the boxes and it’ll be obvious to you. One of my latest issues was with directing people to our advisor’s office. I would point at her door (which was always open) and say “She’s right in there, just go ahead and walk in”. Yet most of the time, they would hover at the doorway and not say a word to get her attention (her computer faces an opposite corner, so she doesn’t necessarily see people standing in her doorway). You would think they would say “hello” or “excuse me”, but no, probably 75% of the time, they would just sit back down in the entryway chairs to wait for her to “finish” whatever she was doing. I would then have to tell them again that they should just walk in. Eventually I changed my wording and would say “Yes, she’s in that office, so go ahead and just knock on her door”. I still get a few hesitaters, but overall most people do it and are able to get her attention immediately as well. I don’t think I have any good suggestions for you on this one- you seem to have taken all of the steps to make it obvious. Maybe tape the hi-liter paper around the outside of the whole mailbox sorter to border it in sheer eye-catching intensity?
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[...] At the time I realized I was being cruel and decided to take sick leave for the remaining half hour of the day, due to an acute sense of bitchiness. I am torn between sympathizing with receptionista, being offended by her offendedness, and thinking, “goddamn, is that how I come across?” I hereby resolve to be a nicer and more patient secretary. Even with the people that wander into my office seemingly half-comatose and oblivious to neon signage. [...]
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