My boyfriend has such an interesting work life.
He is a percussion professor, and teaches advanced lessons at institutions all over the city.
Most of the places he works are pretty swanky private schools, and he’s compensated very well for his time with these upper class children. The strange part is, even with the enormous operating budgets at these private institutions, the art programs are largely defunded. One of the schools he works for spends millions of dollars every year in cultural programming efforts, but for some reason, my boyfriend is teaching his lessons out of a trailer on the school grounds. Not only is this depressing, but it’s incredibly uncomfortable for him and his students. You see, at best, these little trailers are equipped with a single window AC unit. They are small, and there isn’t a huge volume of air to treat, yet the cooling units struggle to keep up with the temperature demand. There are two reasons for this. First of all, the trailer is a tiny metal box, collecting all the heat and humidity of Atlanta and trapping it a sardine can. The sun constantly pounding down onto the metal room certainly increases the indoor air temperature and creates a convection oven all afternoon long. Secondly, the window AC units themselves are quite old and poorly maintained. My boyfriend thinks that the air filters have never been changed out, so he’s been bringing in his own air filters to perform the routine service himself. He also thinks the freon needs to be recharged, but he’s not tackling that task. I’m just blown away by the fact that parents pay $150 an hour for lessons, but the kids don’t get a comfortable learning space or a real HVAC system.