Many Bakersfield College clocks may be out of sync, but most BC students are not.
At least that is what many BC students say about clocks around the main BC campus, which never seem to show the correct time. Most students admit they take it for granted that the BC clocks never bear the correct time, so they usually rely on their cell phones to check for time.
Nevertheless, according to John R. Griffith, BC’s director of business and operations who now oversees maintenance issues at BC, the out-of-whack clocks issue is currently being addressed. Griffith, who took over for the now-retired Robert Day and has been on the job for two months, said that he and his department knows that time management is a major component of both student and faculty life.
“We’re working hard to fix this,” Griffith said. “We’re currently taking inventory.”
Griffith stated that because of a reduction in staff, which included layoffs about three years ago, the clock problem was not addressed as quickly as it should have been. According to Griffith, some clocks have simply been stolen, which explains the hanging wires where clocks used to be on the walls of some classrooms.
Power outages, such as power outages caused by traffic accidents, have contributed to the clock problem, said Griffith. On March 8, a motorist struck a telephone pole around University Avenue and Mt. Vernon Avenue, which caused a power failure that directly affected BC. Every time an outage occurs, Griffith said, time must be spent resetting and readjusting systems and rebooting circuit breakers. Being an understaffed department does not help, Griffith emphasized.
Ideally, Griffith said, BC should have a clock system that works like cell phones, which are linked to atomic clocks and satellites. Griffith said he is currently devising a plan to bring this system to fruition. Griffith also conceded that the use of watches and clocks have become fairly obsolete given technological advancements. Griffith also mentioned that the telephone number that once was used to get the accurate time no longer exists; the number was officially discontinued Sept. 17, 2007, Griffith said.
The clock problem is not really a problem for many BC students, who rely mainly on their cell phones to get the time.
“In the band room (in the SAM building), the clock is permanently at 7 something,” said BC student Tim Peters, 17, and an undeclared major. “Nobody really cares since they use cell phones to check the time.”
Lyndsey Gillespie,18, English major, also noted a stalled clock in one of her classrooms, but she said that most BC students simply use cell phones to get the correct time.
Meagan Kileen, 19, liberal studies, said that one of the two clocks in her biology classroom was not working.
“The clock toward the front of the classroom, where it’s most convenient to look, doesn’t work,” Kileen said. “Most of us just take the time off of cell phones.”
Sara Pham, 25, biology major, doesn’t even bother trying to look at the clocks. Neither does Shayla Johnson, 30, computer science major, Both rely exclusively on cell phones.
“I never pay attention to the clocks here because they’re always out of sync,” admitted Amy Barker, 30, biology major. “I can’t see them where I sit in class, anyway.”
However, BC student Shirley Reeder, 50, special education major, admitted that she was bothered by the stalled clocks.
“It bothers me. You don’t always look at a watch. We’re all on schedules, and we need to have someone go and fix the clocks; this makes us fall back. It’s the college’s responsibility to fix the clocks; it should be done,” she said.