High School Combination Lock Conundrum

I learned something troubling about combination locks while at Mt. Elizabeth Secondary School in Kitimat.   Going to my lockers between classes was a bit of a challenge sometimes, because I didn’t want to be late, but there were other students who didn’t care about being late who would watch me at my locker and no matter how I stood would find ways of seeing me work the combination lock at my locker.  Unfortunately the teachers wandering the hallways seemed more concerned amount my dawdling at my locker than people watching me work my lock.  Once someone bragged that they had worked out my combination, and when I challenged them, was relived to find out at a lot of the numbers were off by one or two digits.  I was relieved… until I found out that the locks opened just fine if you were just a digit or two off; the helpful combination locks didn’t require the opener to be exactly on.  So stuff kept appearing in and disappearing from my locker, like my gym shirt being replaced by a much shorter person’s gym shirt and the like.  I don’t recall the teachers ever confronting the students about this, though some of that might have happened behind the scenes. More likely they just got away with it until the school year ended (and then of course I finally graduated).