Submitted 9 months ago by sjmarf@sh.itjust.works to [deleted]
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/80665e07-69c8-4131-9283-7fe0501cd4ac.jpeg
I remember showing up for tenth grade, looking at the list of assigned classrooms in the first day of the school year. Instead of the usual the digit number, it said “C1”. My classmates showed up, and we’re just as confused as I was.
The C turned out to be short for “container”, which we found in a corner of the school grounds.
That said, being able to quickly go outside in every break was pretty neat. And the school actually did get a second building only a few years later.
For anyone interested: This meme has been posted by bots to a Reddit community I was active in back then very often.
A bot would mirror these Reddit posts in a Discord server and because this exact meme has been posted there so often, it became an insider at some point, with various people always posting this meme again (because that was itself funny).
That’s why I can’t take this meme seriously at all.
Why the hell are you taking a meme seriously in the first place. You see it, laugh if it resonates and move on.
laugh if it resonates That’s what I mean with taking it seriously. Just seeing is genuinely as a joke.
In our group, it just became a meta-level-joke because we’ve seen it so often by spam bots and the joke was to re-post it as the newest most original joke one has ever thought of (but without it mattering what’s actually on the image); and that was funny.
But reposts trigger me beyond belief! I feel bad downloading them even though we’re on a completely different platform. I can’t control my emotions though so I just had to justify my feelings to everyone otherwise I’d feel bad.
I’m online quite a bit, so really surprised I haven’t seen this one before
So the meme itself is as moldy as the portables? Fitting.
Walking through the snow in the Canadian winter from your warm school hallway to the portable for that one class was always torture.
I went to school in Aurora in the 90s but didn’t have to suffer any of these containers. Moved to Virginia and had a bunch of classes in them
Welcome to government funding.
School District: we need a new school
Enrollment: 4200
Government: Awesome, here’s $4.2 million, go build the 4200 student school.
SD: Uhh, won’t that take a few years? Should we add some buffer space to the plan?
Government: ehh, naah
Spongebob 3 years later: Welcome to Springfield High School!
Enrollment: 6900
Springfield: see, gooberment, we needed more classrooms!
Gooberment: heh, would you look at that. Lol. Well, use your budget to build some portables.
SD: Us? Why don’t you pay!?!?
Gooberment: Oh, haha, yeah, that’s an operating expense. We only fund capital projects! Don’t worry, give us a plan to expand and we can fund you in 10 years
10 years later: Ok gooberment, our numbers say we need 15 classrooms. But for the expansion, we should do 20 for future proofing
Gooberment: Oh, but you only need 15 now? Yeah here’s money for 25
2 years later: Here’s 15 classrooms!
SD: We need 25…
Gooberment: Oh, yeah, get some portables and talk to us in a few years!
Rinse and repeat
was really confused how spongebob fit into this story for awhile
Happened to me except the plan was the school to expand the number of grades in the school year after year to prevent pulling kids out of their current schools
And they built it to be at capacity day 1
In our town, one of the schools was just built 5 years ago. They built it without classrooms. Not a single one. They had a gym, common areas, admin offices, IT infrastructure (office with a server room became the councillors office and the IT guy needs to ask permission to use it lol), bathrooms and library. They designed it so it could be made entirely with portables. From the onset.
They designed it so it could be made entirely with portables.
wtf…
Right? To be fair, they used some of the nicest portables I’ve ever seen. Two portables to a class, windows, a semi permanent foundation, plumbing, HVAC hookup, networking, the works. I had to install WAPs in the drop tile, and it was not the worst thing I’ve had to do there.
My charter school operated similarly to this. In a sense it’s kinda smart on dwindling budgets. If the portables are decent enough it allows the school to rearrange or expand without massive construction/demolition costs.
In the end most classrooms don’t need a whole lot, right?
Speculation, of course. Just for once I hope there’s not some evil cynical reason behind the way things are done lol .
Hell the house I live in was also made to be temporary, for factory workers almos 100 years ago
You’re temporary.
Sometimes when I consider how literally everything is temporary, it does help me set my priorities and let go of some things.
I wish all the plastic shit I’ll leave behind me for thousands of years would be more temporary too 😩
Didn’t yall call them “portables”?
Here in socal we called them portables.
NorCal as well
My elementary school in Utah, we also called them portables. Ah the memories!
In the south east we called them trailers.
Yar
Although they suck, neighborhoods go through booms and busts of school age kids. These are actually a great solution to get through the boom, then nicei them to the next booming neighborhood, leaving the core school. Though the schools should be designed so they butt up against the main building and you can go down a hallway into them.
Does anybody remember the way the floors had a springiness to them and how they squeaked and creaked as you walked across them?
How about the mental kind of threshold-looking strip in the middle of the floor from wall to wall where I believe they had connected two halves together, if I recall?
I remember that. Along with the distinct smell they all had, the scent of whatever the portable materials were used.
And because of the compact size, all the sound has this sort of reverb to it. It’s not really an echo, just an elevated hum of busy noise, with only the higher pitched ticking current going through the fluorescents.
And how that size also affected the lighting. Somehow even with the florescents it all was oddly sepia toned, no doubt because the only colors on the inside were white, grey, tan, and beige…
The most permanent solution is always a temporary solution
I remember they had air conditioning when the rest of the school didn’t.
Ours didn’t (in the 1980s). They were hot in summer
My school in the 80’s only had AC in the main office.
It just makes me happy that the ramp is compliant with regulations. I’ve seen some pretty shitty ramps.
Ah yes, the “portables” that never moved. They’re still at my old school, decades after I’ve left they’re still in the same damn spots.
I just checked my old elementary school online. Nearly 40 years later, the same temporary buildings I had class in are still there.
“Nearly forty years ago? This person must be old,” I thought. Then I did the math on how long I’ve been out of school. Oof. Sorry for judging your age, fellow millennial.
My school was given a $1.5 million check by some alumni who had some success after school and wanted to give back. It was supposed to be used for a new multipurpose room and chem lab.
They never did that and instead put it all into the football program.
Good ole’ “portables”
We called them portables.
That happened when the school refused a number of students. The local politicians didn’t like that and said the school was not allowed to refuse students anymore. When summer vacation came there were a few dozen more students signed in than they’re were chairs in the school. The politicians had no choice but to do some expensive cabin building before school opened for the next year. After that, refusing new students was allowed.
There’s a saying in programming, which I believe applies in most disciplines, that “a temporary solution is a permanent one”; also written as, “no solution is more permanent than a temporary one.”
“there’s no solution so permanent as a temporary one that works”
In Norwegian we have this (little known) word ‘permasorium’, describing the everlasting provisions like these.
I like it! In German we call temporary solutions a “Provisorium” and often say that they stay for ever (Nichts hält länger als ein Provisorium). I like the idea of making a permanent Provisorium into a single word!
We actually liked them when my elementary school was being renovated a million years ago when I was a child because they had AC and the old unrenovated buildings didn’t
They were cold as fuck at my school
Yeah, I had one for third grade, and since we weren’t near any drinking fountains, we got our own water cooler, which the other classes were jealous of! That place was like our little apartment, I loved it.
I thought these were temporary in that they last several decades, not several years. Permanent school buildings are intended for several generations.
I think they’re called temporary because they have no foundation; if you wanted to, you could easily remove the building.
Decades are a temporal unit
Had to go check my elementary school on street view… Yup, still there since 30 years ago. Painted at least!
One time I shoved a crayon in the lock on one of these hoping class would be cancelled.
Instead we had to stand outside until the custodian showed up and fixed it.
How many revolutionary acts go
My school had the library in a portable unit like that. The thing was ancient, and had barely any insulation and a leaky roof. In the winter months you could see your breath while reading a slightly damp feeling book.
It was eventually demolished, it was too unsound to be portable enough to move any more.
Ah yes let us keep books made of paper in a damp leaky building. What could possibly go wrong
we called them demountables.
they where never demounted.
We called the portables.
My grade 3 portable is still standing. My children have been taught in it.
I remember having to still walk out to those even though the DC sniper shot a kid at a school a few miles away.
Bowie High representing! Was walking to the same temporaries when the shooting at Tasker occurred. Small world…
I went to Roosevelt but had lots of friends from Bowie. My one friend lived right across the street from tasker.
Public schooling has gotten so strange over the last 2 decades. All these trailers, teachers begging for supplies. Would be surprised if there was some group that was trying to error public education. Is there a benefit to keeping a group of people uneducated?
Just checked my old elementary school, and surprisingly they’re gone and what looks like new permanent buildings in another location! They were there as of 2 years ago, but now it’s extra blacktop and and even more recently a solar panel array. It took about 3 decades but they finally did it.
The Terrapin block.
The ones at my school actually look like they’ve been torn down now (having lasted a good 50 years or so), and replaced with a whole new set of temporary buildings for future generations to marvel at.
chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yeah, we called them “Portables.” They were there long before I came, and will be there long after I am dead. Long live our plywood fortresses.
onion@feddit.de 9 months ago
For me it was containers like these
csm_DSC_0241_babf69b668-633186999
GiddyGap@lemm.ee 9 months ago
At least you had windows. My kids are in a pretty new school building, but most of the classrooms are located in the middle of the building without windows and natural light. Seems like another one of those “only in America” things.
someguy3@lemmy.world 9 months ago
What’s with the cable at the top between sections?
gila@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Demountables for us
Kcap@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Did you go to Summer Heights High?
veroxii@aussie.zone 9 months ago
I’m pretty sure ours was asbestos… back in the 80s.
kinther@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yup, that’s what I was told they were called.
Speculater@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m pretty sure ours are still there 23 years later.
slingstone@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I was searching the thread to see if everyone called them that or if it was regional.