I saw a man (let's call him M.) who seemed a bit bored, as he was surrounded by about a thousand people in formal wear, most of them doing that cocktail party thing of standing in small circles and chatting. I introduced myself and mentioned that I wasn't even sure that I was at the right event, and that got the conversation going. Shortly, the entire crowd went into a ballroom for dinner.

We ended up at a table with a group of people who were quite friendly, but had clearly gone through a fair amount of wine. We engaged in typical conversation with strangers, where you talk about where you're from and what you do. I didn't prompt the folks who were tipsy to tell any stories, because that seemed like it could only lead to embarrassment. But, partway through dinner, I elicited a great story from from M, which I will try to retell below.

I remember, as a new professor, being put in charge of teaching an introductory class in COBOL programming. Now, my total experience with COBOL was taking this same class about five years prior. I went to the first class, and wasn't sure exactly what to do. After doing the roll call and other administrative tasks, there was still over an hour left of class to get through. I went up to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and at that moment, I felt like I was home. I knew that teaching was what I wanted to be doing.

Then I offered my story about teaching.

When I was a grad student, I was a TA for a polymer laboratory class. I remember getting this phone call from my students on a Sunday morning, saying that something was wrong with the machine, and could I come in and help. Well, this was a twin screw extruder, for doing injection molding. I got there and asked them what happened. They said that they'd found some stuff in the back of the room and wanted to know what would happen if they put it into the extruder. Turns out that not every kind of stuff is supposed to be put into an injection molder. I ended up having them pick the gunk out of the machine however they could until it started working again.

At the end of the dinner, I told M. that I thought that every student would like having a professor that enjoyed teaching the way he did. I think we did a good job of turning what might have been a boring event into a pleasant experience. Sure, pleasant isn't exactly epic tasking, but I think more people should do this task, so I'm doing it too.