The nail
Air traffic controllers were required to take a wide variety of subjects while in training. These ranged from basic electronics to radar vectoring procedures, and controllers, like most other students, tended to categorize these subjects, considering them variously interesting, boring, needless or just a plain drag. The instructors, unless truly talented, tended to carry the same stigma accorded to their subject matter.
The theory and practice of radar control was not to be trifled with, and accordingly, whoever lectured the cadet controllers on the business of “Turn right, heading so and so”, stood only slightly lower than the Almighty himself. Not so with basic electronics. Having a vague recollection from secondary school of what electrons and resistors are all about, most cadets considered their education in this respect to have come to its peak years earlier. So the instructor was a bore by definition.
The matter was further complicated by the fact that in ATC Colleges the world over some of the instructors came from the ranks of controllers who, for one reason or another, but mostly medical, had been told to keep away from the microphone. The less demanding subjects (like, basic electronics…) tended to land in the laps of older people, mostly engineers near retirement, thought to be able to handle the task. It was only natural, and also very cruel, that these people should find themselves the target of all kinds of pranks perpetrated by their pupils. On the rare occasion when their personal habits formed the basis on which malefactors could build, truly crazy situations were wont to develop.
Old Pete (not his real name) was an electrical engineer of the traditional kind, convinced that transistors would never replace valves and as chief of the technical department of the airport, he advocated a tacit policy of non-interference. He knew that what he did not touch, could not go seriously wrong. Younger engineers under his command lived in a perpetual hell and it was rumored they were building special electronic counters (all transistorized) which showed at a glance the number of days remaining until the old man was due to retire. Pete was also entrusted with lecturing ATC cadets on the mysteries of electronics. These lectures were invariably boring and, the tired old man that he was, Pete often appeared to fall asleep in mid-sentence.
He used the blackboard quite extensively, and his scribbled notes usually contained an ample amount of errors. Pupils of a kinder disposition put this down to a clever, running awareness check secretly devised by the old man. If one or the other of the students pointed out such an error, Pete would stare at the blackboard with vacant eyes, seemingly unable to decide his next step. It was on such an occasion that he found THE NAIL.
This old relic had been hammered into the wall next to the blackboard countless courses earlier, conceivably to hang demonstration placards on. For Pete, the nail became a hand-hold, a firm point in space that he could grab and hang on to while contemplating his mistakes and the impudence of his pupils. With his right hand firmly grabbing the nail, a long suffering expression on his face, his stance elicited an equal amount of pity and hilarity. For the young, it was mostly the latter.
The summer vacation came and went, and when old Pete returned from wherever he spent his holidays to take on yet another ungrateful bunch of aspiring controllers, he saw with a satisfied eye that the nail had survived the general spree of summer repainting and redecorating of the classroom. As usual, it did not take long until he found occasion to grab for his favorite means of reassurance.
A few weeks later, on a Monday morning with electronics coming up, the most observant of the class realized with a shock that the nail was gone! Pete was already well into making a mess of a formula on the blackboard, so there was nothing to do but wait and see what would happen next.
The first error and then the second appeared as if by miracle under his chalk. An uncharacteristic silence fell on the class while even the more daredevil blokes held their breath. Finally, a pair of hands shot in the air. Poor old Pete, he knew what was coming and he grabbed for the nail almost immediately. But the nail, the only firm hold in his wretched existence, was no longer there. Monday morning wasn’t one of his better days in any case, and now, robbed of his reassurance, he very nearly fell headlong behind his desk. In an effort to regain his balance, he literally ran almost all the way to the opposite wall, his lab-coat brushing off and obliterating most of what he had written on the blackboard, including his calculation errors.
Turning around, he gathered up his papers and slowly walked from the classroom, never to enter it again.
Miraculously, by next morning the nail was back in the wall…