@andy "Okay, but can't we replace the old broken clock?" "The last time we did that, all of the water ran backwards through the pipes, and the teacher's lounge disappeared."
@failrate@andy the big clock is probably on a wired synchronised clock system which is no longer being maintained and/or the skills to do so have been lost, replaced by a free running quartz movement (or maybe one that uses a radio time signal, but the maintenance department struggled to find a suitably large clock (those older ones got a pulse of 24V from the network, or even ran from mains electricity so could power movements that used larger hands)