Just 20 reasons why you shouldn’t work in the ASSL, as if you needed them
Get me out of this hell hole
On top of spending every waking moment at the Lash or bathing in tropical VKs, we’re also expected to knuckle down and get a 2:1 in the world’s worst study setting – the Arts and Social Studies Library.
It’s not nice and it’s not fair. So here’s literally a list of reasons why the ASSL is the worst and should be avoided at all costs:
1. It’s the ugliest building on God’s green Earth
Doesn’t this look like an inspirational place to spend the best years of your life?
The ASSL was either built in the 1970s or has been transported from some Handmaid’s Tale-esque post-apocalyptic world where flat is a shape and emotions are illegal.
2. The inside is grim too
Apart from the first floor, the ASSL has barely had a spruce since Victorian times. All the furniture precedes the English Civil War and certainly wouldn’t pass any modern health and safety tests. The plaster on the walls could also be obliterated by a badly-aimed sneeze.
3. Even the view is bad
Knock it down
It’s impossible to escape ugliness anywhere near the ASSL – any beauty is sucked into its vortex. If you’re outside the ASSL you can see it, which is ugly, and the view from inside is of the almost-as-ugly Psychology Tower looming over you like a beacon of misery. There’s no getting away from it.
4. The staircase feels like a prison
It’s all exposed brick so it feels like it’s either unfinished (likely), or inside an awful Soviet dungeon (also likely).
5. They’re also absolutely exhausting
Why is the staircase to get to the top floor so tiring? Is it because of the overall death-aura of the ASSL sucking the life out of us like some kind of dementor-in-building-form?
6. There is never anywhere to sit
Actually though
If you can’t sit and work in the actual library then what is it there for? Walking round aimlessly with all my bags and folders isn’t going to push me up to that 2:1 my mum is pressuring me to get.
That line of desks by the toilets is always occupied by awkward acquaintances who you have to proffer a thin, unconvincing smile to. You know they know you’re on the way to the loo. You now have to rush your toilet trip, lest they think the worst.
8. The aisles between shelves are stupidly narrow
Just getting crushed to death NBD
It’s awkward enough making eye contact with a stranger, let alone having to basically rub your entire body against someone else’s when you squeeze past. Who needs Bumble eh?!
9. The law floor gives lawyers a false sense of superiority
Law students are given their own special glass pen because they can’t be around us regular heathens. The glass is only about three feet high anyway so all it does is make them seem like they’re in a weird, boring zoo.
10. The nonsense that happens when you forget your ID card
Nothing makes you feel more like dirt than having to fill in that silly little slip just to get into the ugliest building in Wales, and being made to do so by a judgemental jobsworth who doesn’t care whether you live or die.
11. The complete and utter lack of plugs
These are literally the only plugs in the whole library
The ASSL is so old and decrepit that it was seemingly built before electricity was invented, when everyone hand-wrote their dissertations and sent carrier pigeons instead of Snapchats.
12. The temperature is never, ever acceptable
It’s never comfortable – it’s either like being in a fridge, or like being slowly microwaved.
13. The glass-fronted group study rooms expose you to the whole library
What better way to showcase the extraordinary, explosive demise of your project group’s harmony, than by putting it on display to the entire world?
14. The red chairs in the foyer are pointless
No one sits on them for a reason; you can’t chat there without being told to shut up, and you’ll give yourself crippling back pain if you try and use the miniature tables to work on.
15. You can’t leave your stuff unattended for five seconds
It is so indescribably annoying having spent ages hunting for a seat, then coming back from lunch to find the librarians have moved all your stuff and your seat has been taken by some random fresher.
16. The other people are selfish to the point of evil
Oh sick, a big table that could easily fit four people! Perfect for a group project! Or, perfect for Angus in his flip-flops, shorts and a rugby hoodie to line up his 20 million protein shakes! People like you are the reason I’m working on the floor.
17. Everything is broken
You and me both fella
There are always caution signs dotted around because at least one window or glass wall is cracked or shattered at any given time. Spending over eight seconds in the ASSL will make anyone want to hurl themselves at the walls in terror and frustration.
18. The librarians are the sassiest, loudest people in existence
They’re on a power trip, shushing anyone who even blinks, but will happily have an astonishingly loud mother’s meeting. God forbid you need to find a book – you’ll be patronised to death.
19. It stinks
As well as looking like it, the ASSL smells like the 1970s – the combined odours of old, damp books, decaying furniture and carpet, and sweat is enough to throw anyone back to a time when mince was a main food group.
20. The toilets stink more
It’s physically impossible to breathe in there.
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