After coffee with a friend, I popped into the foyer of the university where someone was working on a horse made of lolly sticks; I was intrigued and had to find out what was going on. Reuben and Lawrence, his boss, were hanging the lolly horse from the ceiling for an event tomorrow, when they are pitching to 6th formers from round the county. Reuben and Lawrence are technicians at the uni.
Now, I have a heck of a lot of respect for technicians, having relied upon them heavily when I was a design student. The simple fact is that students have bright ideas, but it is the technicians who make them fly, like that lolly stick horse.
(And not a lolly-sticking student in sight, by the way).
When I needed a double articulating hinge for my mobile phones design in 1992 at Bristol Poly, it was the technicians who brazed them for me. When I made my text-entry (pseudo-virtual reality) glove, it was a technician who wrote the code. They are the largely unsung heroes of any university, and standing there, lending a hand and talking about the project, made me realise I could do that! They start on 22K, Lawrence said (Grade 5, I think he said?). And what does it go up to, I asked. Well, then you'd have my job, he said. I wouldn't press it, I said. That'd be a good job, I thought. Days of being creative and problem solving.
(And not a lolly-sticking student in sight, by the way).
When I needed a double articulating hinge for my mobile phones design in 1992 at Bristol Poly, it was the technicians who brazed them for me. When I made my text-entry (pseudo-virtual reality) glove, it was a technician who wrote the code. They are the largely unsung heroes of any university, and standing there, lending a hand and talking about the project, made me realise I could do that! They start on 22K, Lawrence said (Grade 5, I think he said?). And what does it go up to, I asked. Well, then you'd have my job, he said. I wouldn't press it, I said. That'd be a good job, I thought. Days of being creative and problem solving.
Lawrence asked my background. Product design, then primary teaching, I said, but keen to get out of teaching and do something practical. I forgot to mention that I qualified in design technology education and have been head of the subject in my primary school.
Carol came over. I know she is an artist because my coffee friend has one of her paintings. I told her this. She looked pleased. She thought I might be the lollystick artist. I told her I wasn't. I told her about getting out of teaching and being something of a metalworker, and she told me about an associate programme at the Uni, where they have rentable workshops, and encourage networking between creative people, and I said I'd look up the website she recommended.
But Coffee Friend says technicians have paperwork to do, too, and that I shouldn't assume the grass is greener. But right now, just about every blade of the stuff is greener in other people's gardens - but I am not green with envy. I am inspired.
