Each profession comes with its horrors, I imagine. A firefighter has different fears than a waitress. As a teacher, you probably wouldn't want your students to fall asleep. But as an undertaker, you wouldn't want the people to wake up. My point is, we all have those things in our profession that we pray never, ever, happen. For an archaeologist, it is destroying an artefact. Each time I see this gif I cry a little inside, even though I know it's faked, but still, it shows one of my greatest fears in life; losing an artefact.

This week's story is about the time I agreed to help Archaeology students with their first excavation. Very much like I had done all those years ago. See the chapter "That time I got human bone in my eye" for that wonderful experience.

Well, last year I was asked to assist with the excavation of the then first-year students' Archaeology at my old university. Naturally, I said yes. I was stoked to teach the new generation and meet up with my old professors. And let me tell you these students were some lucky bastards. They got to excavate close to the university in a place that was known to hold many Merovingian graves (5th century till roughly 750).

No long trips to the bathroom, no sandstorms, and amazingly well-preserved skeletons in graves filled with grave goods. What more could an archaeologist want?

Students who listen as it turns out.

Together with a professor, I had to supervise five students. Four of them were some of the most amazing people I've ever met. The fifth one, let's call him Indy, was a different story. This kid came from some very well-off family and would tell anyone who would listen about how wealthy he was, what exotic lands he visited and how much his car cost.

Now, I can't stand these kinds of people but I didn't show it. After all, it was my job to only guide him during the excavation, not judge his personality. It didn't help, however, that he figured that sucking up to me and the professors is the way to get his degree. It isn't.

Throughout the excavation, he would rather hang around us supervisors than getting his hands dirty and actually excavate something. If I asked him to measure something or take a soil sample, he would simply direct the order to one of the other students. After a week of this, I took him aside and straight-up asked if there was a particular reason why he wouldn't excavate anything himself. I still remember his answer to this day; "I'm more of a supervisor so that's the skill I wish to focus on during this project."

"Great that you want to work on what comes naturally to you but how are supposed to supervise people if you don't know what they are supposed to do? Excavating is something you have to experience to fully understand how it works. Would you at least want to try it?"

"That's what the other students are for. You don't excavate either, right?"

"Not now, but I've excavated plenty of times. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be able to supervise you guys."

This seemed to get through to him and he finally got his hands dirty. Which in turn brought a whole new plethora of problems. Indy started for validation on every little thing. "Aly, am I documenting this right? Aly, is this the correct way of sifting? Am I measuring this right?" I would lie if I said that this boy wasn't starting to test my patience. But once again, it was my job to teach him so I did my best to remain polite and friendly, no matter how many questions he asked.

That brings me to the day where our group of students got the chance to document one of the more intact graves, much to my delight. The professor asked me to inform them about the Merovingian burial culture which involved a lot of grave goods that were given to the dead depending on their status. The images below will give you a good idea of what this kind of graves must have looked like.

Well, to break the ice, so to speak, for the students who all nervously looked at their first skeleton I joked about the massive overbite our skeleton seemed to have. It got a few chuckles from the students, and then Indy chimed in, "and she's got a poor fashion sense" as he pulled out one of the glass beads that lay in the grave, and it broke.

One half was in his hand, the other still in the sand.

If looks could kill I'm pretty sure I would have obliterated him right there and then. I didn't say anything, I just made sure that he was stationed as far away from the grave as I could get him for that day.

But as the day went on I figured that I was being too hard on Indy. He didn't do it on purpose after all.

So, at the end of the day, I asked him to talk for a moment and when he fearfully asked if this was about what happened that morning, I must admit, I really felt sorry for him. "It is about this morning, I would like to apologize for the way I reacted. It wasn't very professional of me."

"So, you aren't mad at me?"

"I'm mad that you handled an artefact so carelessly but as your supervisor, it is my job to educate you on the matter not scold you. So, next time, handle each artefact with great care and don't remove anything from its place until it is documented, unless told otherwise."

"Next time, I'll just focus supervising."

I was at a loss at this point, when suddenly my very first lecture came to mind and I asked Indy why he had chosen Archaeology. He asked me if he could think about that before answering and I gave him until the end of the week to come up with an answer. The professor where all brought up to speed by then and as we were coming to the excavation site that Friday, Indy was nowhere to be found. About an hour later one of our colleagues told us that Indy was waiting outside and wanted to speak me and the professor.

Turns out, he had spent that week thinking about what I said and contemplating on why he wanted to do Archaeology and as it turns out it wasn't what he expected. He thought it would be a thrilling and glamorous job, but it wasn't and he came to confess that to us along with the message that he would change majors. I kind of felt guilty but he assured me that it was probably better this way and so we parted ways.

Until, I ran into him a couple months ago as he prepared his speech about historical research that he was now doing as an intern, and although he stilled loved archaeology he admitted that switching majors was the best decision he made in a long time.

And you know what, I'm proud of him for admitting that. Sure, everyone has an archaeologist inside but we can't all be working in the field. Hell, I don't even work in the field most of the time. Some of us have other talents that can contribute a lot more to the world.