An Average School Day in the Life of a Designated Door Opener

Being a Designated Door Opener is one of the most important roles someone can play in a classroom. It requires constant vigilance, stamina, and an unexpected amount of leg strength. You can’t even get angry with the people for whom you have to open the door, because you might need the door opened for you one day, and if you were mean to everyone, then no one would open the door for you.

The worst part is, it's no one's fault but your own. In most classes, you get to choose your seat, unless your teacher treats you like elementary children and still gives you assigned seats or in the case that the teacher wants you to work in groups (hopefully not the same ones over and over again). Being that you get to choose your seat, if you did not want to be assigned the job of being the “Designated Door Opener,” you should have not chosen that seat.

Before I get into the details of an average day in the life of a DDO (as those in the know dub the position), I must explain why every class needs one. This never used to be a job at Edgemont, but I guess with inflation and more and more people in search of work, the administration thought it was a good idea. When people return from using the restroom they have to be let back into class because the doors have to be locked. Why are the doors locked? That's a good question, since we already have ID cards that let us into each locked building.

Unfortunately, it is because of the sad reality that is America. The rate of school shootings is through the roof, and a way the administration chose to combat that problem was to lock all the doors. This may seem like a good idea in theory, but the doors at Edgemont have windows made of glass, so it requires minimum effort to penetrate them. Whether or not the idea is “good,” locking and shutting doors during class is the new rule at Edgemont, even though some teachers may “forget” to follow it.

Being a DDO myself, I know what it is like to endure this hard work for a full 55 minutes, and for science classes, practically two hours. It is already bad enough for all Edgemont students, and teachers for that matter, to have to sit in class for 55 minutes and pay attention. Although for DDOs this task is even harder, with the added work of having to be alert to those who are returning from the bathroom, and then having to get up and lose focus from the lesson/work you are doing in class, to only then do the same thing three minutes later because pretty much everyone uses the bathroom at least once each class because of how incredibly long the 55-minute periods are.

To start the class where I am a designated door opener, I first sit down and assess the people who are in my class. We all have at least one person in each of our classes who likes to use the bathroom each time he or she is in a particular class. This person is called the regular. The other type of person I assess for is the absentee. This person leaves to go to the bathroom for at least 10 minutes, sometimes longer, and will usually go unnoticed, although now it is harder to do so because he or she disturbs the class upon requesting reentry. The absentee is called the absentee because they miss so much of class, it's almost like they are absent.

After I assess the classroom, I then try to get focused on the class, even though it is hard to do so when I know I have about fifty minutes to get through. I will consider also using the restroom and disappearing from class for a few minutes. I have to pick these classes wisely, because it is the worst when you're in a class where the next closest person to the door is always reluctant to get up. That type of person makes me not want to get up for him or her, so I always make sure to make him or her wait a little outside.

In the future, if this madness continues I might consider charging those I let into the classroom a small fee, and I encourage other DDOs to do the same. Those who are fortunate and do not have this important job should make sure to thank the public servants who control the traffic flow of the classroom. Otherwise, the next time they have to use the facilities, they may find themselves locked out.