You may remember last year I took on exam marking as my 'summer job'. Well I'm back again and this time I'm doing overtime, which in exam marking means marking two different papers. I honestly don't know what possessed me.
Anyway last year, you may also remember that I got a jolly to London out of it and even managed to get back to Wimbledon. My plan was similar for this year and I would be in some nice plush London offices enjoying muffins and making small talk while we start to mark.
Ever keen to push the boundaries they decided, in their wisdom, they'd go with a VoIP conference call. No jolly to London, no Wimbledon, no nice hotel.
Instead we were stuggling through a meeting with numerous technical hitches, which our 2nd in command summed up well by saying 'we've no papers, no team leader and no admin support.' Brilliant.
An hour or so later we managed to get the papers to look at, sound problems were sorted and we were able to mark. Some of it is painful though. Because you can't see anyone and read body language, people speak at once then both offer to the other to go ahead, you know like when there's satellite interviews on TV (actually radio is the better example here). The mics for some people seem to be like they are speaking in Timbuktu with a yogurt pot and a piece of string. There's a woman on who starts everything she says with 'can you hear me?' Then someone has to reply to say yes, then she starts saying what she wanted to say, although usually interupts herself a few sentences later to ask again 'can you hear me?'
You really do lose out a lot on not being in the same room. Although I am appreciating being able to do all this in my jammies. Wouldn't be doing that in London.
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