Fighting meagre battles at work

It's sabotage. Well, not that entirely but an inside ploy definitely to tick me off. For the past two weeks, I have been assigned classes only to be told, when I reach the centre, that the lecture has been called off.

The first time, it happened in Vashi. And that's not funny. Vashi is like a gazillion kilometres from my place. When I reached there, I found not one student. I called the office and they said, oh yes, the class is cancelled because students have their exams and won't come.

I let that pass as an oversight. Then, it happened again. On Sunday, I had an early morning class for CMAT (Common Management Admission Test). When I reached at 10, not a soul. The centre was not even open. I called the scheduler to check and he said there had been some painting work in the centre the previous night and the area was off-limits for a day. "Why didn't you inform me?" I said. "I forgot," he said, remorselessly.

I let that go too. Then, it happened a third time. I was asked to come over for a doubt-clearing session with a student on a Thursday afternoon. When I reached, the scheduler said the student had cancelled the appointment. "When did he cancel it?" I said evenly. "This morning." "Why didn't you tell me?" "I am really sorry, but I was busy with accounts all day."

Now, I really lost it. I returned home and drafted an email. After mentioning all three incidents, I wrote: "Why do we have schedulers if they don't bother informing faculty about cancelled lectures? Am I supposed to call them every time I have a class to confirm if it is, in fact, taking place? Please address this issue urgently. It's highly unprofessional."

The "unprofessional" bit was deliberate. One of the directors had called me "unprofessional" a few days ago over some scheduling issue. We are a small setup and as such, do not run a tight ship. Classes, batches, material, subjects are all last-minute decisions, so that sometimes the same topic ends up being listed in two consecutive classes or a few topics disappear from some batches altogether.

This one time, I had sent the roster for the entire month (yes, it is the faculty that draft the schedule). Due to the way we work, my inputs got entangled in mindless changes. As a result, for a Saturday class in Vashi where I was supposed to teach adverbs, I received the handout for tenses. By the time we sorted things out, we had lost an hour and had to extend the class beyond the stipulated time, not a happy outcome since we are charged by the hour for renting space.

It was then that I received a heavy-duty email from the aforementioned director about how the mix-up would have never happened if I exercised greater control over my domain. "Make sure this does not happen again," he wrote.

The ball, after the latest fiasco, is now in their court. At any rate, there is a lot of me-versus-them going on at the centre. During the silly season of no classes (the time when students write CAT), I have little to do. It was decided that I would make English questions. I do that from home, and so am pretty certain I arouse suspicion that I am having a lark all day, devoting just that tiny bit of time to office work.

Which, to be sure, is not entirely incorrect. At the cost of sounding immodest, I am quite fast with making CAT-type questions. As a former journalist, I am good with quickly scanning articles and making inferential questions for reading comprehension. Parajumbles (mixed sentences) and paracompletion (last sentence missing) are also lightweight.

The point is I am able to generate a day's output in a few hours and resent the implication that I am somehow, for that reason, working less. I can see why some people in my office, putting in eight-hour days, might envy my freedom. To them, I say: "Darling, suck it up!"

Oh, but I digress. What I am trying to get at is that I have a hunch I was not informed about the cancelled classes because one of these people decided to have some fun at my expense. Let the dolt run around a bit, they must have thought, it's not like he has much on his hands anyway.

Incredibly, I let them have their fun. Acted like I was putty in their hands. Once, sure. Twice, ok. But a third time? No sir, not happening. Oh, how dreary to fight these meagre battles. How worthless. It comes down to that old clash, between body and soul. If only I could survive on books, I would sit home and nourish my mind. But no, the body makes its demands, which one must answer. Of course, one desirable outcome is the material such fracas generate for this beloved column of mine.

The author has switched too many jobs in the past and hopes he can hold down this one