In the past few years everyone has been more stressed due to the pandemic, but now that things are returning to normal a new source of stress is affecting Ben Davis students.

The cause of this new-found stress? Overcrowding of the school hallways.

It’s gotten to the point it’s impossible to not bump into at least one person during passing period throughout the day. Sometimes it gets to the point where students come to a complete stop in the middle of the hallway just to talk to their friend, which poses as a problem for students that are just trying to get to class on time.

The place the influx of students is the worst would be the two staircases in the commons. There’s a staircase at the end of X hall where the hall connects to A hall, if you go up those stairs and go straight you come out above the commons and you avoided the huge crowd of students.

There’s two staircases in C hall, one when you turn into the hall coming from the cafeteria. When you come to the top of that staircase you can turn left and your above the commons or you can turn right and your in C hall upstairs. Further down C hall right next to door 20 there’s another staircase, you’ll come out at the end of C hall upstairs and you have avoided the crowd of students. There’s another staircase at the end of A hall downstairs where it meets Y hall. There’s a staircase in AA hall right after you pass the Dean’s office.

If you absolutely have to use the stairs in the commons don’t stop on the stairs. If you are annoyed with other people doing it maybe you shouldn’t do it because you are annoying someone else the same exact way you are being annoyed when other people do it.

If you see your friend in the hallway walk with them and talk, there’s no reason to stop and stand in the middle of the hallway during passing period. If you have to stop and talk to your friend move out of the middle of the hallway, it gets you out of the way of shoving and pushing people so you aren’t getting trampled and it makes it easier for other people to get to class.

Another thing that needs to start being done is apologizing to people when you bump into them. Usually if you bump into someone and apologize it’s not a big deal, but bumping into someone and just walking away like it never happened is rude.

Another big thing that your parents probably taught you from a young age, if you don’t have anything nice to say just don’t say anything at all. You can’t always know what someone’s going through. Bullying or making fun of someone because of their clothes or their appearance when someone is going through a rough time can make that rough time harder for them. If it doesn’t directly affect you there’s no reason for you to comment negatively on their appearance or them in general.