My oilriggers (third sixteen, luckily I wasn't teaching the twin division of third fifteen, that'd have been too much) have, just like the RGM (rukovaoci građevinskim mašinama - construction machinery handlers, aka regiment) had their own schedule. Because they do field work. By plan and programme, they had the same quota of hours in the classroom and practice as anyone else, 80:20, i.e. four days at the desk and one day at their future places of work, of course a mašinska had its own workshop, it's de rigeur, but they couldn't possibly do their practice there, Nafagas's oil rigs are somewhere out there, halfway to Romania, and Gik's construction sites may be anywhere. (in detail, see june 1986.)
Which is why they had their own schedule, to cram those 24 classroom days into that fifth day over 27 weeks, which meant chaos, and a permanent source of headache for me (as the scheduler), but I managed somehow. And of course, I held my classes there in that rhythm, so that their third written assignment was at least a month before anyone else's.
I always held the written as a twoclass, no recess. As it happened that it was third an fourth class, instead of regular 90 or 95 minutes they had all 105. And all went fine, they went on doing the work... At the beginning of the class, while the orderly was still distributing their practice notebooks (official looking...), the orderly from the third fifteen came in to borrow the sponge. Okay, take it, I don't need it, it's a written, return it after fourth class.
But after the ring marked the end of third, here he comes, wants to return the sponge. I pushed back the door, saying „can't come in, I said after fourth“. But the guy kept pushing. I pushed back stronger, but he came back and pushed again. Then I pushed the front desk, vacant - they had this large classroom at the end of the hall despite being a smaller division, nobody liked that room because the building was still settling down and there was a palm sized gap above the windows in the far corner, it never warmed up except in june, so there were fisix empty desks. I practically slammed the desk against the door, it was quite loud, and I yelled at the guy, using my educational voice, those 60 decibels from the gut, remembering the lesson by that stiff who held the methodics course, „don't shout, there's 40 years of breathing chalk ahead of you“. From the gut it's louder, reaches far and doesn't require much effort. And I sat on that desk. The little idiot gave up. I don't know what the scheme was, to pass something to someone while returning the sponge, or to create a distraction, or someone copied the assignment to throw through the window to someone waiting outside, this is ground floor... but now the delivery method was unclear; that Spasić guy had a line through the window. Well, if you guys manage to go through with such a scheme without me making you, okay I'll pretend that nothing happened, at least I forced you to use your brain.
Turned my attention back at the class, and faced twentysome bewildered stares. „What? Go on with your work, your time is running“. And then Naftarica goes „whoa professor, we didn't know...“. „What, that I can do like this? The better for you, you're better of not knowing, not knowing it means we're okay with each other, so let's keep it so“.
And I really had no trouble with them.
A pointless detail: the door had no handle, nor lock, nothing. A hole. And that desk was there to keep it closed during a class.
25-VI-2025 - 13-VII-2026