What will you do?

Just relax and get some work done

There's no point getting uptight about something out of your control. The cabbie looks to be fuming about the delay and so to avoid a prolonged one-way discussion of the town's failures regarding the transport infrastructure, you get out your laptop and try to look busy. You take the opportunity to familiarize yourself with your students' thesis and dissertation subjects, which are generally rather more ambitious than you're used to. In fact, a couple of them may be a bit too ambitious, because the graduates concerned seem to be struggling a bit. Not that that's unusual; in an average year you'd expect one or two outright failures and the same again or more needing hand-holding and detailed support. This current crop is overachieving by comparison.

Before long, you're in motion again and get to the college only a few minutes later than expected. You normally check in at the faculty's combined postgraduate research space to get a general overview of how things are going, before meeting each of your supervisees individually, so thankfully, you're not actually late for the first appointment.