The trouble with barns

A month or so ago I went in to lab on a Sunday to get some extra work done. At around 10 or 11 in the morning there was a call for a wrong number. A very rude call for a wrong number. An approximate transcript of our conversation follows:

Rudie McRuderude: Hi, is this the Sheep Barn?
Meg: No, I'm sorry; you must have the wrong number.
Rudie: [very confrontational] We have an appointment to tour the Sheep Barn, but we're lost. Do you know where it is?
Meg: I'm afraid I've never heard of the Sheep Barn.
Rudie: [very offensively] It's an internationally acclaimed program! Are you even associated with the University?
Meg: Yes... this is a research lab.
Rudie: Can you let me talk to anybody else? Maybe they can help.
Meg: [slightly shocked] It's Sunday morning! There's nobody here but me! [thinking to myself: you're lucky you even got me! Why did I answer the phone??]
Rudie: Ok, goodbye.

The thing is, if she'd just asked nicely I would have googled it and tried to help her find the place. Instead she had to get all snotty about the fact that I've never heard of the internationally acclaimed UC Davis Sheep Barn. (Quick poll: Have you heard of the UC Davis Sheep Barn?) Crazy lady... I have no idea how she got our phone number instead of the Sheep Barn's, but I suspect it has to do with the fact that my building is also a barn. That's right, I work in a barn. But not just any barn, The Barn (with a capital the)!

Which leads me to the eponymous trouble with barns... It's not actually a trouble with barns, as such, but rather a trouble with people's perceptions of barns. We aren't used to encountering barns anymore. People therefore lump all barns together and don't keep different barns straight. This might be fine in places that have just one barn. But this is Davis. Davis has a very high density of barns!

We run into this problem all the time when trying to direct people to our lab. We tell them we're located in The Barn and give them explicit directions (and sometimes locator maps), but they're still never able to find us. Instead they wander around one of the other barns on campus and call us forlornly when they can't find us. There are really only two other barns in central campus that are sources of confusion: the Bike Barn and the Hog Barn. Clearly we aren't in the Bike Barn, and the Hog Barn should be an even more obvious negative. (Thankfully I don't work in the Hog Barn!) The Hog Barn used to be located somewhere out in the country, but was relocated to central campus a few years ago. It's still undergoing renovations, however, and is surrounded by fences and signs admonishing you to "KEEP OUT!" Yet there are always misguided people wondering if they should leap the fence so that they aren't late for a meeting with us. Stupid...

The Barn that I work in is actually very nice. It's one of the few historic buildings on campus, which means that it's one of the few buildings on campus that actually has character. One of the big differences between Davis and Stanford (and one that made me very homesick my first months here) is that though at Stanford there is architecture, at Davis there are just buildings. I don't know if The Barn qualifies as architecture, but at least it's quirky. It was a horse barn built a century or so ago that has since been converted into office and research space. We're up on the 2nd floor, in the hay loft, I suppose. There's a big window with a pulley for hoisting bales of hay up. The first floor is more obviously horsey, however. The hallway is cobbled with bricks and the original stalls still exist as cubicles.

Another problem with barns is that they seem to attract the crazies (like Rudie McRuderude). Once I was addressed by a crazy in the bathroom:

Crazy: I just love this building! Every time I'm here I notice new things about it and I think about how they were used back when this was an operational barn. Like this bathroom; I bet it was the tackroom when there were horses here.
Meg: You do, huh?
Crazy: Yes! Just look at these hooks on the wall! There must have been saddles hanging from them a hundred years ago.
[I look at the hooks. They're clearly contemporary. Also, they're underneath a shelf and at what would probably be an awkward height for saddles.]
Meg: I think those are probably just for hanging purses from.
Crazy: No! Now they are, but I'm sure they were for the saddles!
Meg: [finally finished washing my hands, phwew! Smile and nod, just smile and nod] Ok...

Incidentally; today was another Sunday that got spent in The Barn. I had to referree a paper for a journal. I feel like such a grown up scientist!!