Perimeter Breach: Adjunct Professor in the Mailroom!

Yesterday was our barony's annual bardic circle. It's a garb-optional event, which means I show up looking like this.

Apparently trying to part something or other.

I say this to introduce the fact that I stopped in to work dressed like this on the way to the bardic circle.

I am an adjunct professor. I teach in both the college and the graduate school, but I'm better known to the people on the graduate side because it's also where I got my Masters degree.

So let's say I have to stop in to the college to pick up course evaluation forms. Let's say I'm dressed like this when I do it:

Is it just me or does it almost look like
I got in the way of the wife's picture of a perfectly ugly wall?

Except I'm also wearing a jacket.

Would you believe I get the shady 30 year old Hispanic male driving in an upper class neighborhood treatment when I go to the college administration wing?

You weren't supposed to say yes. (Bronx News Network)

So here are the perils of being an adjunct professor. I chose not to walk in Convocation because, eh, it was way down there (28 miles away). Then, when I went to get my faculty ID card, I was told the printer was out of ink but it should be fixed by Thursday.

That was September.

I still haven't got my faculty ID card. It's hard to take books out from the library without an ID card.

The impression they get. (Zazzle)

Also, for the first month or so I was teaching, I wasn't officially employed. I'm just that dedicated.

So let's return to that scenario I was talking about. It's the end of the semester, which means I have to get course evaluation forms. On the graduate side it was easy because I teach in our satellite campus.

They know me there.

For the college, I had to go up to the administrative wing. I assumed since I hadn't heard differently, that I should head up to the Academic Dean's office to get them. As I walked down the hallway while wearing a jacket and tie, carrying a file folder, and acting like I knew where I was going (because I did), people ran out of their offices.

"Can I help you?" (source)

This happens every time I go up to the administrative wing.

So the dean wasn't in his office. This meant I had to go down to the cafeteria to ask him where I should get course evaluation forms.

"They should be in your mailbox."

I have a mailbox?

"Yes."

So I went back up to the administrative wing.

Acting casual. (The Guardian)

I went into the copy/mail room to see if I had a box.

Nope.

While I was in there, another administrator walked in.

"Can I help you?"

Hi, I work here. I'm just an adjunct.

"Oh."

I never did find the course evaluation forms.

All that to say that I can only imagine if this was the reaction I got while looking like a professor, what would the reaction be if I walked in in garb?

Possibly severe.