Programming Office Accidentally Issues Tolerable Schedule

As junior Avery Jones finally logged into Talos at the stroke of midnight on January 20, 2026, they noticed something bizarre. Their schedule didn’t immediately send them into a coma. In fact, one might even call it decent. As any upstanding citizen would, Jones contacted the programming office to inform them of this catastrophe, only to be met with the worst news imaginable—there was nothing they (or anybody) could do.

We here at The Spectator decided to take matters into our own hands. Our top reporters personally investigated the programming office to find out what was really going on.

The programming office is the institution in charge of managing every student’s daily life at Stuyvesant. Every semester, they take diligent care to guarantee that the student body experiences maximum suffering over the next four months or so. From the moment course selections are submitted to the minute schedules are out, they work thanklessly to make sure students don’t thank their schedules.

Members of the programming office pride themselves on their abilities, which is why the release of Jones’s schedule was so shocking. “We explicitly implemented our patented multi-round quality assurance to prevent situations such as this,” Head Manager Shelley Dule said during an interrogation. “We tire laborlessly to put as little thought as possible into each schedule.”

Dule guided us through the programming office’s routine process. Usually, scheduling begins with an automatic system that prints and shreds students’ course selection responses, which are then picked out by someone wearing a blindfold and randomly pasted together into a schedule. Dule confirmed that this is the reason The Spectator had trouble getting its editors into the highly demanded and prestigious Advanced Journalism course. “It’s very normal that we mix up or flat out drop classes since we’re effectively blind,” Dule said. “Personally, it’s the most enjoyable part. Scheduling is an art that no computer could ever replace. It would be completely ruined if schedules had form and structure that suited the wants and needs of students.”

Although this method is highly efficient, manual touchups are still required. For example, sophomore Clover Fortunato managed to make it out of the first Round of Doom with three electives intact. “I was feeling generous that day,” scheduling officer Noah Lectives said. “I decided to remove only two of those electives, but get rid of the student’s 10th free.”

By this point in the process, any schedule should cause its owner both mental and emotional suffering. To complete the trifecta of suffering, the programming office called in specialist Mara Thompson. Thompson looked at one particular schedule for mere seconds before concluding the following: the student will first take Mandarin on the 10th floor, then take Music Appreciation on the first, whereafter the student will take chemistry on the 10th floor. The student with this schedule will walk 18 floors in just two passing periods. “Only [Patrick] Sunwoo teaches chemistry on the 10th floor,” Thompson said. “Even so, I was able to pull some strings to make it happen. I think that shows how dedicated we are to the suffering of the students’ bodies.”

Dule told us that the programming office suspects that something interfered with Jones’s scheduling during the first phase. “It’s easily possible that a newer hire didn’t shuffle the schedule enough,” she said, “and then forgot to label it for further review.”

Jones was completely ecstatic once they found out that there was no mistake. They said it was their first semester with fifth-period lunch instead of fourth-period lunch. “I think I’ll be slightly hungrier and not as full from breakfast,” Jones said. “Which will mean that I can actually eat lunch during lunch instead of that weird brunchtime period they still call lunch.”

Other highlights included getting into two electives and sharing both their second and ninth period free with at least one friend. Additionally, their first period is physics, so they’ll only have to walk eight floors at eight in the morning! Jones also expressed dissatisfaction with only three and a half teachers in their schedule (who we will not be disclosing for Jones’s safety). Overall, this schedule actually caused Jones to feel hopeful about the coming semester. “I thought those people with one to six schedules bribed the programming office or something,” they said. “It makes me feel confident that I will be able to take on the next semester’s challenges.”

The programming office explained that they will be implementing many more safety checks to ensure the future butchering of schedules. Dule discussed ideas such as specially training employees to check every stage of the process and consulting with scientists to create foolproof, lab-tested methods to incorporate into their workflow. They planned to crack down on good schedules and work around the clock to dispirit pupils. “We’re looking towards onboarding a larger workforce,” Dule told us. “It takes a village to neglect these children.”

In the meantime, they expressed hopes to avoid bad PR in exchange for letting Jones get off scot-free with their schedule. “We hope this incident doesn’t tarnish the programming office’s reputation for torturing students that we’ve built up for more than a century,” Dule said. “I’m sure they’ll blend in with all the fake student plants we give one to six schedules.”