How I Got Here Today, or My Career

I got a couple emails today from some people who were curious about my current career predicament. You see, newer readers of the Ox (yes, you three) may have missed out on my earlier rants on my situation at work. So, rather than subject them to hours of scrutinising my previous entries, I thought I'd be a dear and post a streamlined, timeline-like piece on my job up till now.

November 2000
An out of work Ox, tired of jumping from one part time thing to another decides to accept an offer of a tutorship at the university (I applied half a year earlier). First day of work was the 11th of November.

December - February 2000
Started working as a tutor, and was informed that the university was interested in looking for more lecturers. In any case, the new SLAB scheme offered a scholarship for our master's degrees on the condition that we'd be bonded once we came back, but as full lecturers. Not in the contract, but implied through the current policies.

May 2001
Began first semester of master's course in UPM, since allocation for overseas studies were all full. Ended up paying for the first semester myself because of red tape. My uni finally paid the bills, two semesters too late. Allowances were also late, leading to a lot of hungry nights.

November 2002
Finished master's course and returned to the uni. Colleague who returned in October was being interviewed for promotion to lecturer, more of a formality than anything else. Got hit by the first of several bombs: sometime during 2002, the uni decided to shift the minimum requirement for their lecturers to a PhD, effective January 2003. Fought to have another round of interviews in the same time frame, but failed.

January 2003
New policy takes effect, leaving me and my four colleagues still tutors. No pay increase, no benefits. Pleading for second hearing (and an interview) starts.

May 2003
Interview finally commences, due to inexplicable reasons. Final result: the university appoints us temporary lecturers, with lecturer pay, but no other benefits ie: not eligible for government loans of any kind, years of service not counted, no increments, until end of 2006 (when we end the bond) or we return from our PhDs.

July 2004
One year of grunt work, hefty administrative duties with no time to prepare for a proper PhD proposal, let alone to find scholarships. A letter of appeal is sent via the dean to the VC for us to be promoted to full lecturers (again). Letter gets censored. The VC's office receives it, and requires us to wait two weeks for an answer.

That, my friends, is the past year or so in a nutshell. I've given up really talking about it, and instead am concentrating on what other options I DO have. It's tiring, and sometimes you just feel like throwing in the towel, but I guess everyone goes through their own private hell.

Goodnight.