Today, Friday the 6th of January, 2012, has seen the first meeting with our new Dean. Everyone seemed excited and was looking forward to this inaugural meeting...and no one was late. I was excited myself to see how our new Dean plan to bring new changes to the faculty. It’s typical I guess to have someone like me expecting something out of ordinary from our new boss...to bring some kind of miracles and change things. But isn’t that the last thing one should do in this circumstance...waiting and expecting. You cross your arms , bit your lips and whisper to yourself....hmmmm.....let’s see what she can do... as one of the staff members you would feel perfectly okay to do that . I mean nothing much will change if you think otherwise. But as a leader that will put you so isolated at the top and while sitting there alone you must have been hoping for God to grant you some kind of miracle as well. You want to get out of this misery. One miserable head and a bunch of miserable staff will make a meeting very interesting. But that’s not what happened in my meeting this morning. It was alright I guess; jovial and refreshing. A bit of tensed moments here and there but that’s normal in decision-making. Nevertheless, I did feel the old dilemma still kept hitting my head over and over again. So what’s the dilemma? You know what, I don’t know myself how to spell it out; but there remained something unfinished and unfulfilled. The bright smiling face of our new Dean just could not convince me that there will be changes around here soon. I am tired of hearing that the fund has dried out and we could not do this and that. The same old excuses for the same old applications for student’s activities. The same old fear for the same old “new policy in the faculty”. I was not happy because I saw the same old stressful future ahead of me. It’s like a dark and frightening road to my grandma’s. I always feared that and the 15-minute walk seemed like an eternity. I thought I would never have to go through that old road again; but here it is again right in front of me.
Meeting is always a stressful exercise, and if it is dealt with so seriously, it will be so deadly stressful. Deadly stress is not good for an old man like me. I was looking for something cheerful and colorful for a Friday morning but sadly I hit a big white and blank concrete wall. I just did not know what to do with it. Maybe I am being too paranoid for some thing trivial. There must be a solution to this dilemma..and as someone said..if you can’t find a solution then YOU must be the problem... you know what—I hate that expression. If you can’t work it out then blame yourself....this pitiful self-torture has to go; it is nothing but irreponsible authority keeping its hands clean. Would you say this to your child : if you fail than have yourself to blame not me or anybody else! Maybe you find it okay but I think it is a bit unfair---I found a sense of loneliness in there as if I were sent to a solitary confinement—to rot and die.
There is a lot of work to do in this faculty; things to keep the faculty afloat againt the high tides of today’s demands ; publish or perish (an inherited shit from the US), globalisation, world class ranking, research university, and some other things that I don’t want you to puke over it. The amount of work that will not make you see the end of the day....it’s just endlessly tiring. One semester after another, one year after another and soon you will find yourself lying helplessly at the end of your journey in life. Before that inevitability, I want to see myself as a small solution in the big problem. It does not matter how big the problem is; i jus wanna be a small insignificant solution. So help me God.
