University suspends Hobson College construction, citing need for additional inconveniences

The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.

On Friday, Vice President of Facilities Gretchen Bloat announced that construction of Hobson College will be paused to allow time for deliberation on the future of campus annoyances.

“Donors demand ever greater impact, and the massive inconvenience created by current construction will be difficult to replicate,” Bloat noted in a press conference. She expressed special concern that Angle and Garish Construction, the company that masterfully placed the college to block the only central bike corridor on campus, was currently tied up with other projects in Washington, D.C.

Some in the audience voiced concerns about a decline in bothersome activities, which Bloat soundly rebuffed. “A pause in construction will in no way decrease our extra-stinky mulch operations. We will also continue to drive big trucks into little alleys and explore new initiatives, like flooding the Whitman lawn so that everyone’s shoes and socks get all wet.”

Bloat also teased a new idea pitched by Facilities staff: “We have tentative approval from the University to place bear traps and landmines on Elm Drive, though we must first establish an equipment corridor to dig up Poe Field again this spring.”

Undergraduate students proposed a different, more data-driven approach. Slacks Hatbackwards III ’27 crunched the numbers for his ORFE thesis work this summer. “Surprisingly, our inconvenience frontrunners were not flashy ideas like moving late meal to Fine Hall — the only proposals that secured a perfect 0/10 on the happy scale were randomizing McCosh room numbers, scheduling major-required classes to completely eclipse lunch hours, and adding two-factor authentication to dorm room locks.”

Bloat said that while she was considering these new techniques, she could not move forward without a thorough efficacy review. But, she assured listeners, at the end of the day, there always remains the option of tearing down Hobson and starting again.

Nathaniel Voss is an Assistant Humor Editor who kindly suggests moving even more of his classes to the dungeons of McDonnell Hall. He can be reached at nathanielvoss[at]dailyprincetonian.com.