Why Phone Books Should Be Ordered By Number Instead of Name

Well! My trip down here was kind of a pain. I was in the car for about 11.5 hours from Chicago to Atlanta, with only one stop. But my big problem arose after I got to campus. The housing people had not (and still have not) ever gotten back to me about where I was supposed to be living, though I had e mailed them some time ago. All I knew was the phone number that one of my suitemates (Kathy, another DMP participant) had given me - and no one had ever answered any of my phone calls at that number (turns out there was no phone plugged in).

It was raining when I got to Georgia Tech, and I walked around in the rain for about 2 hours trying to find someone who could help me (it was a Sunday evening). Finally, I paged through a campus directory trying to reverse look-up the phone number. Yes, that means I scanned page after page of directory entries, which for some reason are arranged in alphabetical order by last name instead of numerical order by phone number, scanning up and down columns for the numbers 9659, hoping to at least find a pattern that would tell me what building to try. While sitting in my car in the rain soaking wet. Because the woman I was working with in the Housing Office never got back to me. Which I am NOT bitter about.

Eventually I found the number (miraculously - like 10,000 people or something go to Georgia Tech), and went to that building to loiter around. Finally someone with a key showed up, and I just walked in after him like I was supposed to be there. I found my room, and my roommates let me in. They were really nice - they helped me carry my stuff upstairs, to keep in the common area until my CM/RA-person came by (about an hour later) with the key to my individual room within the apartment. Then I was up til about midnight unpacking (after getting up to leave at 5:30 am). Long day!