Skip The Budgie

Somehow I find myself lumbered with the impressively tedious task of providing references for students. It is a job that seems to have been tagged on to the role, more of a Well they've always done it, than it actually having any relevance to anything else I do. So I look up students, demand signatures, write brief unrevealing letters and palm as many off onto absent academics as I am allowed.

I don't do character assassinations, only dates and awards - I am only admin after all and can't be expected to know them all personally¹. Usually this is all that's required, they are usually temp agencies. Occasionally there are some corkers. I receive a call from an agency, who are disappointed to learn that I have told them that a student has withdrawn after 2 years without getting anything. He essentially failed first year and didn't turn up for second year. But we have a certificate here, saying he got a 2:1 they assure me. Naturally I am interested to learn how someone manages to get a 2:1 when they failed after year 2, so I ask for a copy.

The 'certificate' is on headed paper, sure. It has our fancy certificate logo on it, certainly. There is a bit of formal wording saying that the Academic and Administrative Staff are please to commend the award of... (as if the admin staff care), which bears no resemblance whatsoever with any genuine certificates. The crowning glory of the forgery is the signature of our current Vice Chancellor (circa 2008), poorly copied and dated 2005. Someone is now in a lot of trouble.

British Airways are at great pains to point out that they will hold me legally responsible if it turns out I get a date slightly wrong:

A student applies for a job with a hippy-hating security company:

Lastly, to entertain oneself during those long hours at work, why not hide in the loos until you hear some important people having a conversation outside,² then flush, step out and with great deliberation place the CAUTION: Wet Floor sign outside. Take photos of their faces.

I take a well-earned holiday during which I manage to finish off our dining room and paint the extension. It DOES count as a holiday, because I am not running around panicking and being at work until 9pm trying to get the little bastards’ results out on time.

That’s all over now.

I return to the usual piles of paper work and hundreds of emails inviting me to this retirement party and that pile of cakes in the kitchen. One of the good temps has moved out of my office and one of the bad temps has moved in. At least there will be plenty of entertainment as I slowly pick apart his misplaced confidence and try to teach him how human beings are supposed to behave.¹

Towards the end, there are hysterics and tears and tempers soar. After we surface and realise that nobody actually died my boss says that she is very pleased with my efforts and that I have really borne out her confidence that I could do the job. Aww. So pleased in fact, that they are considering swapping me into doing enrollment in September because I’m so laid back about everything – there is no pay rise for this you understand, just a satisfied feeling that I (probably) won’t have to worry about resit exam boards.

The big boss tells me I should take up bell ringing, which is incidentally where she buggers off to on Thursday night while the rest of us scream bloody murder in her absence.²

Today I am required to produce a detailed statistical report³ on all the students we have had this year. How many were under five, black, blue green, you know the score. Normally this takes me about two weeks. Normally I’m not asked to do it when there are 50 employers screaming at me for references and 500 students after certificates and a nice stack of minutes to write. Normally I say it’ll take two weeks and then play on the internet.

That’s all over now, too.

I do it in one day. Next week, I will probably have to do it again, but I might just get away with it so I figure it’s worth the gamble.

A complaint wings its way across the office. The foolish temp who was filling in before I took on my current job (see this story for more details) is still receiving emails and forwarding them to me. This is a Good Thing and yet it reminds us of what an insufferable idiot the man is, and how bitter and twisted people can become for no apparent reason. He isn't in the meeting this morning. He writes:

Due to some nonsensical management in the faculty I don't work for [them] any more, you need to talk to [dash] (who now has my old job) about this, if you can prise him away from Facebook and Module timetabling

So naturally I demand a Court Marshall, how dare he besmirch my Good Name? I am only on Facebook at lunchtimes these days!

Out of the kindness of my heart I visit an Exam Officers' Meeting, in which the exploits of our students over the recent exam period are celebrated. We have more incidents of insolence, cheating and mobile phone rings than ever before. Calculators are too clever these days and one of the invigilators is assaulted by a student who refuses to put his pen down when the exam is over. Students are caught in the toilets with crib sheets or on the phone and they are aggressive and upset when challenged.

Is it that cool to cheat so much? Are you so addicted to your iPods and mobile phones that you don't 'understand' when or why you're asked to switch them off? Yes, someone even hid his headphone wire inside one of his dreadlocks and his iPod inside a big hat! Are you really that selfish and or stupid?

I am 13. I am sitting a history exam about which I know nothing. I need a poo about half an hour in. Does the teacher let me go? You should have gone before he says as he puts me on Punishment Squad for distracting the other kids with my squirming. I swear my bowel could have ruptured and he would still have punished me. One of the other students writes the story of WWII as if it were a football match, with the countries being the players. Or so he claims.

The highest mark in the year is 17% and this is a Public School.

We suggest having a bucket of water by the door for your phones, or perhaps a magnetic field round the door that nukes them anyway. We suggest providing calculators so that no-one brings any of them Pocket PC thingies. We decide that it is cheating to have a scribe that speaks German for your German exam. We think that perhaps students should be taught bladder control, tie a knot in it for goodness sake, are you that pathetic?

Ah society, how we lament thee.

So after three long months, they finally stick their necks out and say that they'll pay me all the money they owe me. I am not yet past caring, but continue to announce to any that will listen that I WILL delete the timetable if they don't sort it out. Of course I am effectively doing three jobs now, so it would be an easy mistake to make, I could just pretend to be one of those people who just clicks away without reading anything (What did it say? - I don't know, I just clicked OK). There is a timeline of sorts:

1. March 2007: Secondment to timetabling to cover maternity leave.
2. January 2008: Receive slight payrise due to the Pay Equality Project. The extra money they are paying me is NOT increased to the higher grade. I complain. A lot.
3. March 2008: Get letter from Payroll saying that they're going to stop paying me and bump me back down to the lower grade. There are no apparent plans for the future, so they reluctantly give me a new secondment at the same (higher) grade after making me do an interview.
4. The Timetabler (1st secondment) comes back and says she is pregnant again and will be off in 5 months.
5. Everyone panics and they wonder whether they will be able to just leave me where I am and give the new job to someone else. At a lower grade, of course. I speculate loudly about how staying in the timetabling position would be a dead-end job and maybe I should just go elsewhere.
6. Big Boss panics and tries to force me to stay in 1st secondment at lower grade.
7. I start new secondment anyway, am promised the higher grade at the PROPER pay.
8. End of March: They really do stop paying me the higher grade and don't start my new salary either, which adds a couple of weeks to the £££ they owe me already.
9. Everyone is fighting Big Boss who insists I will do the timetable for the rest of my life because it is the most important job in the Faculty!
10. *waits*
11. Three months after the Pay Equality Project, I am assured that the backpay and my new salary will be incorporated into my April paycheck. I assure them that if it isn't, I will be camping out down there until it is damn well sorted out.
12. I receive the letter...
13. Several furious phone calls later I am given a full break-down of exactly what they are going to pay me. Finally...

So I started my new job last week. I have a week off beforehand of course, which is spent building an awesome desk designed by the GF, as well as sanding and painting and filling skips and other such DIY delights.

The TEMP who I am replacing has made few friends, many enemies and generally been quite a nuisance. He keeps copying me into emails saying things like just to let you know; I'm a temp and my time here is almost up (was a surprise to me too) and my replacement is one of the perm staff, [Dash], to whom I've copied this, and I'm in the midst of having my job taken away from me to a secondment post, which has been won by [Dash]. Just so YOU know, he was a TEMP and the TEMPORARY contract was only TEMPORARY while they found some PERMANENT sucker to take it over from him! ...And relax. There is much consternation about this chap's penchant for being far to generous with the truth, sending references back saying We are not willing to discuss this student in any way, when it isn't even his place to say anything. My first task is to untangle the mess and sort everything out, starting with the terrible state of the filing. Oh joy.

Much time has spent re-writing procedures and re-labelling everything so that it makes sense again. I manage to get the cleaners to actually clean my new office and it is all tidy and bearable after four days. For some reason the previous occupants refused to let the cleaners in because it wasn't safe or something. But I'm in charge now and my colleagues are impressed. They have spent the last month or so in fear, preferring to whisper behind each other's backs and avoid the issue.

I have been here for nearly four years now. So forgive me if I laugh when I receive such enlightening handover notes as:

• Check Voicemail Daily
• Check Pigeonholes regularly.
• Chase job reference requests with the academics- I try to email them reminders at least once a week for anything outstanding, and attach a read receipt for each
• Try to do filing of stuff (like conferments sheets) weekly as a minimum, otherwise it can turn into a daunting heap
• Outstanding matters ...need to be thought about at least twice a week until they are rectified
• Try to batch up tasks for the archive, it is a pain to go up there, do whatever needs doing, come back 15 minutes later and then find that a fax just received means going back up there... I had a day the other week when I went up five times....

Any of this strike you as being bleedin' obvious? No? The other person I am in charge of has some sort of social interaction disorder, which drives him to varying levels of extreme rudeness and uncomfortable friendliness. My Colleagues are hoping that I will sort him out as they are now afraid of him and we can't sack him because it would be like putting someone with special needs out on the street. So why am I here again?

This week I am on my own, back in charge and steadily going through the filing, and the computer, deleting all the horrors that my predecessor left behind and emailing everybody he was dealing with to tell them that everything is okay after all.

There is a huge meeting with our new Vice Chancellor, in which the predominant theme is the proposed rebranding of the University, along with the slogan "Better Together". After listening to the cries of horror and general consensus that this is a load of crap, he says Well at the end of the day, I'm the Vice Chancellor and this is what we're having, end of discussion.

Aha! We think, one of THOSE sorts of years.

March 12th 2008. After much negotiating, worry and stress I attend an informal interview. It isn't really supposed to be an interview at all, but in the spirit of healthy competition I am summoned for a 'chat'. I spot my rival leaving as I wait sweaty-palmed for the interrogation. She is young and pretty and while it would be nice to have more of that sort of thing in the office,¹ I have to keep my eye on the prize. I meditate.

It is pretty awful, actually. I am interviewed by my two current bosses and one outsider. I have to pretend they are strangers, sell myself, be the best I can be. I stumble over basic things like Why do you want this job?, forget to mention important things like which software I use and instead I talk about Glastonbury and Bosnia² and drunk hippies. It turns out that that is what swings things in my favour, working on large scale events, not going to pieces in a crisis, that sort of thing.

Long story short, it's bye bye timetables and hello exams.

I will have two minions to do my bidding, will be second in command - inasmuch as anyone has any command round here - and will obviously be taking with me all the other crap that I've always done that nobody else wants to do. I will be in charge of the exam timetable, exam boards and graduation.

My first point of order is to relabel all the folders that the current incumbent temp, dubbed Dangerous Dave, in order to distinguish him from me, Safe Dave. I have been trying to have this changed to no avail, perhaps I can be Dangerous Dave once the temp has gone and I've cleaned up his mess. Dangerous as in Bad as in Good.

My second job will be to clean up the damage he has caused in his brief tenancy of the job, recalling emails, fixing things. After that I have to keep the remaining recalcitrant fellow in check, who is so rude that my boss refuses to talk to him because he makes her so angry.

Hello Middle Management, it's draughty up here.

Oh, would you like me to go in the other room? I say, as I appear to have stumbled in on some timetable moaning. Oh no, they say, we're just talking about that thing, you know - with they guy Obviously I'm not going to name names on the internet.

Well you see, this guy successfully convinces everyone that everyone else has said it's okay and after all, who am I to argue? I tell him that one student won't be able to make it. Fsck them, he says. SO I put the wheels in motion and then the course leader turns up and enquires as to why all the students are complaining that their lecture has been moved. Now I'm not supposed to let people move around, but they wouldn't come to me if it wasn't important right? WRONG.

So the big boss comes to see me. She is very upset. She says I should have told her, that it is unacceptable, that if I do it again she will tell me IN WRITING (I don't know, by email or something?) and I am to put everything back how it was.

So here they are in the staff room, whining and moaning about the timetable, about the fact that I allowed someone to move a lecture, that I had the audacity to make changes without consulting them, that I...

The reality of course, is that after they all came and shouted at me they have now decided that this guy is Nasty Nick from Big Brother and has been playing everyone off against each other. Like I have the time for this. I'm too busy writing a mini essay on why I want the new secondment that has come up in the office. Everone wants me to get it so I'm convinced that I won't.

We all receive an email:

Once upon a time there was a kingdom called 2Q25. This was a magical kingdom because every week it was visited by the desk fairy who rearranged all the desks into pretty patterns. Every week the grumpy troll, (me, actually) came along and rearranged all the desks back again into boring rows, so that he could inhabit the kingdom of 2Q25 again. This happened for what seemed like ages. One day the grumpy troll will get hold of the desk fairy, who will then have to go to fairy hospital to have their wand surgically extracted!!

Another member of staff comes to see me and says that he is quite offended by it and has complained to the highest authority. I tell him to stop being such a whiny hippy and laugh at the funny joke. I wonder who it is who leaves the room in such a mess? Hmmm.

So this is it, today's the day, this is where it all ends, I think to myself, as I do every morning while negotiating the astounding stupidity that is Monday morning on the roads. Everybody is still asleep, there is only me, a ghost of a man struggling to change cold gears up a busy hill in the rain.

In swerving to avoid an idiot in a Golf GTI who doesn't look left before she swings out into the road, I narrowly avoid taking out a pensioner who isn't looking either and stepping out from behind a van. And in swerving away from her, I nearly crash into a small girl who is running across the road (it's a RED man) without looking to get to school. Ah right, I think, one of THOSE sorts of days.

I am a Stastistician. How did this happen? I am asked to provide statistics on our new partner faculty, because my statistics are so great and they don't have a proper statistician like we do. Um... I have a degree in music?

I spend the week being shouted at by feckless academics who leave it til the last minute to find out which room they're in and how many students they have. My worst problem is a group of 50 in a room for twenty. Of course this is all my fault. The same lecturer unfortunately has a clash with a postgraduate group who claim that they didn't agree (I have the emails to prove it) to move halfway through their day.

There is shouting in the corridors. I'm not blaming you, he says, but I've told them all to complain very loudly about your cockup. I shrug and drink more coffee. It's all their fault anyway, all I do at this stage is damage limitation. They complain to me because they didn't know this was being taught in the mornings, how was I supposed to know - I can't do mornings!

Of course there is much spluttering when I point how that I did remind them all to check before this term started, the timetables HAVE been on display since September and not in a locked filing cabinet in a disused toilet either.

At the weekend, the GF electrocutes herself cutting through a wire that we had been assured was DEFINITELY disconnected. She's fine, thanks. We discover that the wire, which leads to two spare sockets (not working) is connected to the light fitting in the bedroom. I nearly slice my finger off (slight exaggeration) and we chop down a couple of (mostly dead) trees and plant five new ones. The bonfire is impressive.

I receive an email from somebody called 'Pavita':

And Dave sweetie I want to see you to make things right between us. PLEASEDave I just want hug. this is horrible. Please dave. I don't know how to express what I am feeling in words. I just want to hug you maybe you would understand if you saw me how I feel. Please Dave.

The new year starts with no major incidents, I remain mostly sane and gear myself up for the astounding stupidity that is bound to accompany the new term, and worry about what is going to happen to me when my secondment finishes in March.

There is an error in the system. I am triumphant with my individual student timetables. Well mostly. I figure that they're accurate enough to go live, at least - I'm sure if the students care, they will soon let me know if their timetables are wrong! This is going to open me up to a world of pain-in-the-ass queries I'm sure.

But there is an error in the system. Just as I'm about to make it all available, I realise that most of my students suddenly don't have timetables anymore! It's not just mine, either! SOMEBODY (not me) held down SHIFT when clicking 'allocate' and BAM! 3000 students suddenly leapt off the radar.

It takes a few days to get them back, oh the hilarity, the fun and games, the finger-pointing. During this time we are told that in November we only used 15% of our available space. This seems strange, given that our rooms are always full and too small.

The first term's exams are under way, I see a student who is supposed to have a scribe in his exam and is dismayed to find that he doesn't. in fact, the exam room is full over other nervous students who don't look like they want to do their exam if someone's going to be talking all the way through it.

After we stop laughing, we have to make him wait while we find someone to be his scribe and he gets more and more agitated. It becomes clear to me at least, that he will certainly be claiming Extenuating Circumstances if he gets a bad mark, mainly because he keeps going on about how much this is all upsetting him, instead of doing a bit of last minute cramming like any normal person.

I build an origami X-wing to alleviate the tension.

The Christmas blackmail continues, apparently not having the decorations up means I'm deeply unhappy with myself and my life and will remain so forever. This from the extremely in your face Christian woman who, despite her best efforts, still takes the decorations down after 12 days because it's 'Bad Luck'. I'm happy all year, she says. So leave them up all year, I say. Ooh no you can't do that, she wails.

Later, I am miserable because I don't like mince pies. I am miserable because I don't like the obligatory work Christmas cards. Am I Scrooge? I like olde Christmas songs, Christmas carols and stuff, it's not THAT bad. My office is freezing, that's the Christmas spirit right there, under that pile of ice!

We have our office Christmas lunch, in a place called The Folly, which has the worst service, or possibly the most under-appreciated workforce ever. There is broken glass under the table, which we discover when we realise there is one missing. I have elected for steak rather than turkey, which turns out to be a mistake as 'turkey' means 'anything you fancy from the carvery' and 'steak' means 'steak En-croute' (a sort of pastry thing, overcooked and cold). Curse that small print! The vegetables arrive ten minutes after the 'steak', the potatoes are undercooked and we only have the presentation gravy to douse it in. Worst. Meal. Ever. The cheescake for pudding is awesome though. I have to wear a hat.

I hear that one of our lecturers once sent out 2 cards to everybody, one was a dark tunnel with a light at the end and the other one was all bright and cheerful. In her email, she said that those who received the dark cards were people she didn't like, people who had personality problems and that she hoped they would change their ways. Obviously those who got the happy cards were bright, cheerful people. I'm sure her message went down well and everyone who got a Tunnel card didn't go home miserable at all.

So I've been threatening to bring in Bootsy Collins' Christmas Album, Christmas is 4 Ever, since they were so upset with me playing The Blind Boys of Alabama last year. Apparently gospel/blues music is 'depressing' and 'weird'. I miss the chance to fill the office with Christmas Funk (that'll be the sprouts) since the CD player is safe at home where the box for the now missing Now That's How I Vomit Christmas CD is.

Finally, best Christmas card ever...

Dear All

I attach my electronic Christmas card in pdf format. Should you wish to have it on your mantlepiece simply print and fold in half each way.

Happy Christmas

What was I thinking? I mean, I KNOW that the last couple of people in the queue always speed up once the lights go amber. There has never been a time where the traffic has actually stopped when the lights are red, so many near misses, so many idiots who can't wait the extra few seconds.

So it comes as no surprise when there is a screech of brakes behind me as I come to a stop at the junction. I mean, the lights are amber, but there's no way I would make it across before the cross traffic went green. I turn and give him the look, you know the one, the one that says if this was America..., the one that should make him get out of his car and grovel for being such an impatient fool.

Of course he looks the other way and resolutely refuses to meet my angry eye (just the one), as so many car drivers do when they know they're in the wrong. Like they all do when they're running red lights, pretending to look worried, it was an accident officer, honestly, I thought the cyclist ahead of me could accelerate to 30mph suddenly and survive...

We talk about my future at work, in March my secondment will be up and I face the prospect of being demoted back to a Grade 3. Someone else in the office is going on maternity leave in February and I'd quite like to do her job, but she's a manager and I suspect they want to keep me in a timetabling capacity, which I wouldn't be able to do. My boss said she'd like me to do it, so there's a small glimmer of hope, if the Big Boss doesn't fight too hard.

I am assured there will be something at least, which is about the best I'm going to get at the moment - they won't seriously think about this until mid January, by which time I will be deep into next year's timetable and I'm sure they will hope I have forgotten. I won't forget.

Today we will be celebrating Christmas, thus far I have resisted the blackmail and peer pressure to put up the horrific decorations in my little corner. The worst offender is the most overtly Christian woman in the office, who never fails to tell me how drab and miserable I am because I haven't pinned some shiny plastic to the ceiling.

My Christmas lunch will be steak.