What a week it’s been at Benilde-St. Margaret’s with time flying by like never before. For the first time in BSM history, first hour began at 12:08 pm… at least that’s what the clocks read.

For three days this week, the bell system has not been functioning, causing confusion and disarray among students and staff. But what’s the cause of this unexpected time travel? “The bell system, both the clocks and the PA, run on one server, essentially a computer that keeps everything ticking. That server had a failure on [Monday, December 3],” help desk manager Bill Cheney said.

Without bells and accurate time, it’s quite difficult to know when class starts and ends, as well as passing time. However, the lack of functioning clocks is no excuse for tardiness. “I sent out an email today that tardies will still be counted. I asked teachers to be aware of the time and use their best judgment on the tardies,” attendance supervisor Ms. Kathy Jacobson said

Students are learning that it’s hard to execute good time management without actually knowing what time it is. In fact, the clock situation has created much annoyance within the student body. “I am frustrated and angry. I can’t keep an eye on the clock during class, in fact, I am to the point where I am extremely enraged and am considering leaving BSM,” senior Mason James said.

On long block days especially, students often glance at the clock to determine how much time is left to complete their test, assignment, or simply just how much longer until class is dismissed. “The clock situation is throwing me off. I never know when class is ending,” senior Harrison Shibley said.

Conspiracies have begun to form. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this psychological time manipulation experiment,” senior Cole Zeman said.

The time accuracy leaves students who are eager to go home for the day disappointed,  “I thought I was going home after 2nd hour. Turns out school wasn’t over until 7:00 at night,” senior Taylor Anderson.

Luckily, the PA system bounced back on its feet fairly quickly. But if the PA system works, you may be wondering why the clocks are still not properly functioning. “If we turn off the server then everything shuts down and we don’t even have a PA system, which we need because it’s a statewide rule to have a functioning system in case of emergencies or announcements. Everything is plugged in which is why the clocks are on and counting minutes, but the server piece that displays the correct time is still broken,” Cheney said.

Cheney and other BSM staff members in the technological field predicted the clocks may be down for a while.  “The server itself is still having failures so we need to reach out to the company who makes them and get a replacement. They can fix it but we need to ship our broken one out to them in order to make that happen, which may take a while,” Cheney said.

Fixed in less than three days… what a quick turnaround! A miracle struck BSM when the clocks made a speedy recovery, displaying the correct time by 5th hour on Wednesday. “We reset them at midnight [December 4] so they can at least show the correct time,” Cheney said.