This is a true story. There was a student who had not been doing
very well in calculus, and he needed an extremely good grade on
the finals to pass the course. The finals took place in a huge
lecture hall, and there were about 1000 students taking the test
at the same time. The teacher supervising the students to make
sure nobody cheated was not very well liked. He had a bad
temper, and he always had an annoyed expression on his face.
This particular student did not do very well on tests when he
was being rushed, and the mean professor was up there screaming
out how much time they had left, and pacing the lecture hall
like a madman, glancing at everyone’s paper as he walked by.
Naturally, this bothered the student, and he was doing a rather
bad job on the test.
When the teacher screamed that time was up, he kept working. The
teacher didn’t bother to stop him after all of the other
students had left. He just sat at the desk at the back of the
lecture hall neatly stacking the test papers. Finally, an hour
later, the student finished. He walked up to the desk, which had
3 piles of test papers on it, each very neatly stacked, and
about 3 feet tall. The student handed the teacher his paper. The
teacher said, “Sorry, you’re an hour late. You have failed both
the test and the course. You must repeat it.” The student asked,
“Do you know who I am?” To which the professor responded “No,
and I don’t care either.” The student said, “I didn’t think so.”
and with those words, lifted one of the stacks halfway, shoved
his paper in, and dropped the rest of the stack on it, leaving
it perfectly stacked as it had been before. He then walked out
of the lecture hall.