YOU MUST WORK HARDER!

2002-09-25

Shin was a doctoral student at U of M's school of architecture. The three ladies who ran Eastern Michigan's Interior Design Department (picture the witches from Macbeth) signed Shin up to teach the sophomore level rendering class (rendering is architectural illustration, even though it sounds like a class on melting fat). Shin had graduated from the University of Taipei and he had certain unshakeable notions about academia and the responsibilities of those within academia. As you may imagine, the sophomore Interior Design class at this regional university also had some ideas about their role and responsibilities as students. I don't believe Shin had ever taught a class before.

Shin expected great things from us. He was acutely disappointed by our drawing skills (mine especially). He was truly hurt when we did not routinely stay after class to get more instruction (the class met twice a week for 3 hours each time). As the semester progressed, the tensions grew. Shin began to regularly scream at us "YOU MUST WORK HARDER!" and bang his fists on the table. We were not slacking by any means. At the same time, I believe that the students all had a healthy dose of perspective as to the relative importance of the EMU sophomore rendering class in the grand scheme of the world. If we saw each other on campus, we would shout "YOU MUST WORK HARDER"! It became the catch-phrase of the semester.

This situation didn't really have a happy ending. I ended up drawing for 35 hours straight (I am not exaggerating) for the final. I ate only candy reception sticks and drank gallons of green tea during that time (N.B. this is not very effective nutrition, don't try this at home). I ended up at Kinko's at the end of this time to make blue prints. I hallucinated from lack of sleep while I was there (or maybe it was from an overdose of candy reception sticks).

Soon after, I decided to drop out of the Interior Design program and transfer to Architecture. It was too much bother for so little a return (did you know that interior designers can expect to make $15,000 a year straight out of college? That's less than you could make at McDonald's). Besides, I was much better at the technical aspects then on the softer skills, like rendering.

Shin also dropped out. I think he became completely disgusted by us and went back to Taiwan. I don't know what Taiwanese Interior Designers are like. I picture them as being thoroughly disciplined, like the Navy SEALS of decorating. Shin probably went back and told them about the completely unstructured and undisciplined interior designers at Eastern Michigan. They probably rolled their eyes and said things to each other like "Americans have no respect for the craft".

I thought of Shin the other day when I was asked to step in for a team leader and run a team meeting. I walked into the room, pounded my fists against the desk and summed up the team's problem in one line "YOU MUST WORK HARDER"! Unfortunately, I just don't have the presence that Shin had. The team just looked at me with a blank stare and then went back to talking amongst themselves.

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