What an awful morning.

I can't say this kind of thing never happened at TheOldPlace but I don't recall it happening quite as spectacularly or with such a negative backlash.

I've long been booked to do a two hour session with some Masters students in computing this morning. I was here late last night preparing and awake in the night worrying about it. Don't often do 2 hours and fear trying to fill it. Don't often deal with large groups of Masters students and know what level to pitch things at ('specially when some are new to the uni and some have been here three years or more).

But I had quite an important meeting to be at with colleagues and study assistance type people which I had to leave after just 15 minutes (and introducing myself) to do the training.

Got to the room 5 minutes early only to find hordes of 6 year olds doing some math masterclass. Quickly established they weren't just finishing and double checked the diary to make sure I was in the right place. I was. Could only head off to the computing admin office to see if they knew of a room change. It took some time to get through their locked doors and persuade someone to actually check (one of those horrible, walk-in-to-a-large-open-plan-office moments when no one wants to look at you). Yes, the room had been changed. Not just the room, but the building as well. Oh dear. Would have been nice if they'd told those of us running the session. Never mind.

Off I went, but no longer 5 minutes early, now 10 minutes late, I found the room and indeed there were the 26 students waiting for me. And a rather odd woman who introduced herself as some kind of teaching assistant. No sign of the academic who'd arranged the session.

So I started trying to logon to a PC sitting in the corner which had a different login screen to what I'm used to and in any case I quickly realized (once I'd turned the projection system on where the switches were hiding behind a movable noticeboard) wasn't the PC that was being displayed. Aaargh! Didn't matter anyway. I couldn't logon to the PC. So I went in search of which PC was attached to the projector only to find I couldn't logon there either. However, there was a nearby note that said which room technical assistance could be obtained from. I could only go on a quest for them and was relieved to find that they were just across the hallway.

Which was when the real trouble started. Two techy types turned up. Or should that be tetchy types. No we couldn't use normal uni logins, this was an electronic department lab; no we couldn't have temporary logins; no we couldn't even stay in the room. And who were we anyway? Computing students? You can't stay in here.

I tried to point out that the academic had arranged the room booking (presumably - I certainly hadn't) and that had not been me. I tried to point out that I was the librarian for the faculty and not the department so couldn't the computing students stay for my session. I would have pointed out that some had come in to uni 'specially for this two hour session - but I didn't learn that till later in the day. They wouldn't even let me spend 15 minutes talking to the new students just to get that bit out of the way should the session ever be rearranged.

What with all the grief from the techs, a couple of students whinging at me that this was the fourth library session they'd had (though they couldn't tell me if previous ones had covered what I was about to do with them), and the useless assistant or whoever she was not contributing anything, it was left to me to apologize to the students for being late, for not being allowed in the room, for the session not running. I was irked enough, but I don't blame the students for feeling their time was being wasted even more.

With little else I could do I could only offer to go back to the academic and see if we could rearrange the time, but I got the impression there would be at least a few who'd wouldn't be attending that session.

I thought about heading back to the meeting I'd left but I couldn't face it. I'd have missed too much after 40 minutes or so and it had been embarrassing enough having to leave in the first place. Plus it included one of the study assistance folk I'd seen at the teaching induction sessions I'd been attending on Wednesday afternoons. One of those people best avoided. Totally, jaw-droppingly, heart-achingly gorgeous. Not helped by bearing the same first name as that very first love back 3 decades ago aged just 10! (And who incidentally never even have the time of day for the likes of me!) Best just keep away on the whole.

Perhaps it would be more useful to go in search of the academic - not that I was holding out much hope of her being around. And I wasn't wrong. No one at home in her office. I eventually ended up in the outer reaches of the Dean's office where the admin staff couldn't help locate her but the Dean popped his head out and thought that she wouldn't be in all week. I wasn't going to complain about what had just happened but he was so curious about why I was looking for the woman in question that I ended up dumping all of this on him. At least he had the graciousness to be appalled and suitably sympathetic.

I headed back to my office only to pass the open door of a perfectly sized lecture theatre standing totally empty.