Last Friday, after two years in the making, my appointment as a University Research Associate was released by UP. Now officially, I’m a government employee.
This is my first job in the government service, and of course, not the last. Hopefully I’d still live long enough to be promoted, as it takes a whole geological era before government employees get a raise, much more be upped in position. Many were asking if I’ve been diagnosed with dementia and why the crazy hell did I go to government service, when I could’ve been somewhere else more financially advantageous. (Translation: In America most probably, teaching kids who threaten that they’ll shoot/stab/strangle you while you’re discussing your Introduction to World Literature High School Edition.) Frankly, my answer to that is my trauma brought by my employment in the private sector.
BACKSTORY:
The first job after graduation
A month after my graduation I landed a job in a BPO (no, not really a call center but close) in Makati, where I worked my ass off from 11pm to 9am, talking to mortgage customers, insurance companies, county tax collectors, banks, processing loan documents and doing my small but pivotal part in helping America get its second economic recession. The job was stressful but it paid well. Really well for a starter. My salary then was a little bit higher than the regular wage of a poor UP associate professor who has a PhD. Talk about social capital hah! I was able to upgrade my computer, buy a new cellphone, enroll in a first class gym (which by the way didn’t work all), eat fancy lunches and dinners (that’s why), and felt that I had more human rights than others because I had more money in my purse.
But as Barbara Streisand sings, “some good things never last/ why don’t they last?” and the company became bankrupt. When the company officially closed down, there were only a handful of us left mad and cheated, as the rest had the good sense to resign before the worst and spare themselves of the heartbreak. All of us social climbing asses didn’t get half of a month’s pay, didn’t get our 13th month pay, and not a cent was remitted for our taxes and insurance when documents prove the cheating accounting department deducted all those numbers from our salary. Good thing I took advantage of our Medicard and had all maintenance procedures done for my teeth. At least that’s my pat on the back. So there’s my first job experience.
The teacher-cheater-maniac
After the worst, came the horrible. Probably due to what I wrote above, I wasn’t thinking straight and applied for a teaching position in ABE International Business College. (Don’t be fooled by the name. Up to now, I don’t know what A-B-E means. All I know is its a subsidiary of the more popular/or notorious AMA Computer College.) This was my first teaching experience, and probably the last. I didn’t get complaints or negative feedbacks of any sort but I think I grew a lot of white hair and acquired hypertension (at my age!) during my brief stint there. I won’t mention my experience with the students, because that’s a given when you’re dealing with teenagers with the maturity level of 8 year-olds. Half-way through the first month during my first and only semester in ABE, I had these hair-raising discoveries in the new underworld I had unknowingly plunged into.
First was the terrible accounting department of the school. Employees were required to get their own paycheck and ATMs (these are different trips) at the school’s bank located in an obscure part of somewhere-in-the-neighboring-city. Also at one time, my new co-faculty took home only 800 pesos after she was absent for a week because she had to attend to her ill child. Imagine her rage when she checked her ATM, and found almost nothing there. Second. The shock of my life came during the midterms, involving one of my colleagues. Its a long story and I don’t have that much typing energy right now to write about it but the point of it is there was cheating involving a male student and a male faculty member, who proctored during MS’ exam. Turned out the Mr. MFM had a huge crush on MS and gave him the answer key. The cheated teacher in that subject found out, of course, and she managed to get written confessions from MS and his girlfriend who wrote the exam answers in a blue book which then MS submitted to Mr. MFM during the exam day. Talk about stupid criminals! But that’s not the shocking part yet. The thing is, the Dean and the School Director knew about it and did, well, absolutely nothing. Prior to this, the same teacher cheater harassed one male student during the College’s acquaintance party–in front of everyone, including the dynamic duo of the School Director and the Dean. The students had it on video, the poor male student who was being awarded star of the night, some other people and Mr. MFM were on stage, and the crowd was cheering (or jeering?) them and the egged Mr. MFM gamely took on their hoots. First it was just a hug then to everyone’s amazement, he suddenly put his hand near Mr. Star-of-the-night crotch (more cheering here) and grabbed it. And the next day, everyone’s talking about it (and its video) but the school administration doesn’t seem to mind. Never talked to the teacher -cheater-maniac like its perfectly OK to do that in a college acquaintance party. And back to the cheating story, if the Ms. Cheated Teacher didn’t threaten the administration that she will report it (and consequently the admin’s inaction) to the higher ups in the main branch, they would’ve let the incident go.
I can’t put into words how relieved I was when the semester ended and me and that school finally parted ways.
SO BACK TO THE MAIN STORY:
My first epiphany here is that UP really is a world of its own. I thought its purely romanticizing but its true. Take it from someone who went out and came back and who will surely go out again (once I finish my graduate studies). For two years, working in these damned companies was hell (UP is purgatory, in my opinion).
And this brings me back to UP. A government employee. I had to wait for more than a month after my job interview before hearing the yes. And then another 2 and a half months before I received my appointment. Back to being a sloth. Back to traveling an hour a day. Back to the kilometric walks under some caterpillar infested trees (and back to the Infirmary! Allergy! Allergy!! Aaaargh!!).
But I’d be lying if I say, I didn’t like it here. I could finally wear slippers again! Goodbye dresscode! (Although there is a dresscode for government employees, the people here don’t seem to mind) This is chillax compared to working 10 hours a might, or dealing with rioting students and incompetent superiors (except on some occasions).
But the ultimate purpose of goingback is to study. I’m not here to spend the rest of my life! Puhleez! I’d be able to get 100% free tuition fee! And that’s all. Its probably the university’s way of making up for the low salaries, and the stupid policies and memos the administration are imposing (<–this deserves another post. I feel some anger here. Tuition fee increase!! Grrr!!).
This is not paradise, but it is, relatively. The world is much greener here than anywhere else in the city.
Though in the next few months, I doubt if I’d still have the same contentment as I feel now. Waiting for my “your hired” papers for more than two months is a prelude of things to come. (I think I’ll get my salary 4 months from now huh?)
