Senior

(The interview continued.)

The junior lecturer took quite some minutes to make sure he is not dreaming. Finally, he says, “The budget is fixed… what’s it all about? Oh, I mean, how could it happen?”

The chairman makes a bitter smile, “It is quite beyond the point to ask how. It happens because someone high up says it happens. Isn’t it how we have light since the Genesis? The real issue is the amount of money we have to run this department – the salary of everyone of us, secretary and amah, printer and cartridge, tea and coffee, water and electricity, everything included – is fixed. If some of us get promoted and, in the jargon of the extra-terrestrials, have an advancement in our pay scale, we have to cut down the expense in some other areas to cover for that extra amount of salary.”

“My god, it can’t be real!” Dr. X exclaimed, “Shouldn’t it be the primary aim of the university to encourage every academic staff to excel in their own field, and the reward of that is promotion? If we have a fix budget, it simply sets a limit to the chairperson, or whoever holding the department account, to manipulate so that no one in his department would get promoted?”

“Well, I can only say you sum up the situation rather clearly.” The chairman twists his lips, “Nonetheless, I know some divisions have their own way to make money for their staff promotion.”

“Really? How?” The younger lecture is certainly interested.

“Em… Dr. X, if you agree to answer all phone calls yourself, type your own letters and envelops, and manage your own daily schedule, we can fire your secretary and use her salary to top up your post…” The chair professor says slowly.

“Alas, do you mean, rather than having all my academic achievement, if I do both the work of my own and my secretary, I could become a senior lecturer? Or should I be called secretary lecturer ?” Dr. X says – finding himself more cynical than ever.