#Officer clocker how to#

“Or out on East Campus going through one of the agriculture buildings and reading all the suggestions on how to plant your garden. “You can spend time in Morrill Hall looking at every single display and reading every single word on a wall,” Manning said. His shifts introduced him to many people he knew every single custodian and their family by name, all the regulars in Richards Hall working on art projects or nocturnal chemists in Hamilton Hall - anyone who was a night owl. Regardless, the watchclock reminds Manning of a shared history walking the halls. No need to carry a bulky timepiece anymore. When Manning started patrolling in the 1970s, university operators tracked call-ins as check-ins all night long based on the number an officer was using. “This was hated by the people that actually had to use them because it tracked them,” Manning said.

The supervisor would pull out the graphs to ensure not a single floor was left unchecked. Most buildings had two or three watchclock stations with a mounted key that, when turned inside the device, punched a hole and imprinted the key number. This gadget is split up into 24 hours for an eight-day period and holds a little piece of graph paper. “Instead of sitting around doing nothing, I checked out all those nooks and crannies and all the attics and all the basements and the subbasements and the sub-subbasements and steam tunnels.”Įnter the old clock, utilized in the ’50s and ’60s, just before Manning’s time. “I explored when I had the opportunity,” Manning said. Manning was responsible for checking 15 academic buildings three times during an eight-hour shift. Amid Vietnam War unrest, campus law enforcement presence increased, turning the traditional “watchman” job over to officers. After his 21st birthday, he applied at University Police, became a security officer in 1976, and was promoted to officer a year later. Manning has dedicated his entire career to the university, studying criminal justice from 1973 to 1976 and taking a part-time job with residence hall security in 1974.

“That in and of itself is worth the story.” “Whoever cleans out my house is going to come to this and say, ‘What in the hell does he have this for?’” Manning said. Officer Bill Manning had other plans for the relic once used to increase building patrol accountability - he rescued one and has kept it as a memento ever since. Almost indestructible but obsolete, Chicago watchman’s clocks were tossed into the dumpster when the University Police Department cleaned house during a 1982 move.