News from the Ministry of Everything

This is a continuation of my uncle diary from here.

The spring is coming and Ministry of Everything is  active as a beehive. Here is a sampling of the  latest developments.

Oververk

I have described the concept of verk here and, what can I say,
it took the Ministry of Everything by the storm. It boosted morale and
productivity and gave a glimpse of untapped potential. More
changes were coming at a rapid pace, and the newest Party directive
finally equates verk with work, and more importantly creates
incentives for oververk. What is oververk?  Well, it is a truly
transformational phenomenon that captures the concept of overtime -
when a comrade works beyond his or her tour of duty, and simul-verk --
when a comrade does several  things at the same time. Simul-verk is
adding a much sought after multiplier when one hour of simul-verk
counts as two or possibly more hours of plain verk. Unlike
simul-verk,  for some reason, simul-work is somewhat controversial and
while many comrades try to develop the necessary skills for it, others take
ritalin to medicate themselves against it. One theory posits that
simul-work is aggressively suppressed  in early childhood because
intimidated teachers cannot keep up with simul-working children.

Within weeks of the introduction of oververk  a new breed of employee
emerged, a Constant. This is a comrade who verks constantly for  24
hours a day. Double Constants soon followed, and a Triple Constant was
rumored to make a brief and ghostly appearance in the Ministry.

A tremendous amount of wealth is created by verk and oververk and the
Party in its wisdom allowed employees to donate all of their
additional pay back to the Ministry of Everything. Since verk is a
reward in itself, all readily agreed and the sagging budget of the
Ministry was propped up by this windfall. It is expected that the future
growth of Ministry of Everything will be financed entirely by the oververk
of its employees and the embarrassing drag on societal resources
will slowly diminish.

Demise of Belphegor

Our beloved Party keeps good track of comrades' work habits and
until last year it was in the hands of a comrade who everybody
called Belphegor, after a  demon who helps people make discoveries.
Belphegor sat at the entrance to our building, mostly dozing, and
thanks to his photographic memory he recorded the comings and goings of
all employees. It was not uncommon that he would murmur "Short day at
work, comrade?" or something equally ominous, and he was always right.
Numerous rumors credited Belphegor with having a transformative
effect on the clients of the Ministry of Everything, while others
snickered about his on-the-job alcohol consumption. Overall,
Belphegor's phenomenal skill set and lack of interest in looking for a
better use for it was responsible for his popularity and put him on
par with many of the Ministry's visitors.

Belphegor was doing excellent job keeping track of work, and he was
coping well with the accounting for verk, which he did by tracking not
only the time that employees spent at work but also time they
were absent. But there was no way he could deal with oververk. He
feebly pleaded for his job, but one day he was gone and in his place
we got a thick ledger where we were supposed to record our own activity
time. The ledger had a space for initials and  columns for work, verk,
oververk and its multiplier. Suddenly the scheme become more
complicated, but soon the comrades discovered that  the entries can be
written weeks in advance  Some  took it in stride and were happy to
part with the somewhat intimidating Belphegor, but others are less
certain. In the history of the Party every purge is preceded by a
thaw, and the ledger, which according to rumors is burned when it fills
up, is too good to be true. Others argue that this is just a sign of
catching up with capitalists. In the last phase of this rotting
system, work time need not be accounted for, as low wages and
the prospect of unemployment are compelling exploited masses to work
non-stop at full capacity. Apparently, for completely different
reasons obviously, a similar phenomenon could be  present at the dawn
of communism.

Continued here.

Ministry of Everything -- mapping out the future

This is a continuation of my uncle's blog from here.

The Ministry of Everything was never at the front lines of the revolutionary effort, and the Botany Unit is fairly insulated from the daily struggles. While we believe that we will share a large piece of the final victory with other comrades, our contributions are of a strategic nature. The Party often checks up on us to make sure that what we do is somewhat useful, but it is our existence that makes capitalist pigs' lives miserable rather than any particular thing that we do. A seasoned comrade expressed it as follows: "Metaphorically, the outcome of the Ministry of Everything may not be a fish to eat for today, nor even a fishing rod to help us catch fish tomorrow; instead, the plan is to draw a map with information about where the fish are."  So we move on with our daily efforts, but lately whole months pass without a single event bearing any resemblance to a victory.  The days of stomping our enemies into the ground are over and we spend our time on this map drawing business. A small fish once in a while would have been be a welcome change and  many comrades are withering in such an environment.  What keeps us going in these trying times are thoughts of retirement.

Retirement

For capitalist pigs retirement is a heavy burden because the system is built on exploitation and a lack of respect. It is quite different in the workers' paradise. The Ministry of Everything invested a lot of lateral thinking in this subject and came up with a scheme that encapsulates the dreams of past generations. Ask any worker, farmer or scientist: what is so great about being retired? Perhaps half of them will tell you "not having to do anything" and the other half will say "not having to come to work". Now ask them what is not so good about retirement: the answers will likely be the same! The first half will say "not having to come to work" and the second half "not having to do anything." You see, not doing anything and not coming to work is just too much, but if you separate the two it is a step in the right direction!  The Ministry of Everything  was the first to forge these simple observations into retirement plans that shine a beacon for the rest of the working class.

The Barnacle and Blue Yonder

are the two primary retirement plans in our organization. The Barnacle is designed for comrades that  already gave their best years to the organization. They do not feel like working anymore but they sure do like to come to their workplace to watch their colleagues running their daily chores and socialize. To become a barnacle you need to attach yourself solidly to the vessel of your organization and at a midpoint of your anticipated career span, start reducing your level of activity so that in the end it barely hovers above zero. Barnacles are a great asset: after a few frantic years at the beginning of their careers they develop pleasant and easy-going personalities and are great advocates for a stress-free environment. Barnacles are also voracious verkers who exceed their quotas by a wide margin. Barnacles were super-productive in their early years, but not so much after the transition, and in the end it averages out to what the Party expects from all of us. Consequently,  the rest of the comrades are not punished with unreasonable expectations regarding their productivity.  Even though turning into a barnacle is a retirement, there are ample career opportunities afterwards. The Ministry of Everything has a number of positions that require no actual work, and they are all occupied by barnacles. In many cases it takes several promotions to get there.

Blue Yonder is a twin of The Barnacle and it is a retirement program that eliminates the need to come to the Ministry of Everything but provides almost unlimited opportunities for interesting and creative work.  It is designed for comrades who feel that their best years are still ahead of them but who sense that the Ministry of Everything may not be the place where they can spread their wings.  They are full of energy and ideas, but for various reasons the Ministry of Everything has never tapped into this resource.  They project their frustrations and make life hard for everybody. Blue Yonder is there to help! Successful applicants -- and nobody is really turned down -- are sent to the wild blue yonder to fend for themselves, and the bare minimum of sustenance helps them to leverage their talents.  As usual, nay sayers claim that getting Blue Yonder is no different than being fired, but this is a malicious slander spread by people who never experienced the Party vengeance reserved for those whose employment was actually terminated. No, Blue Yonder is a tough love program and its recipients usually work harder then ever before and many are happier that way.

I recently realized that I have spent  a decade in the Ministry of Everything, and have reached the midpoint of my career. Consequently, it is time to think about retiring, and both options are calling. I am very interested in becoming a barnacle and I feel that I would do a good job at it.  Not doing much work seems quite hard at first but I suspect that it becomes easier once you get the hang of it. But Blue Yonder is also tempting, and a chance to have an opportunity to play for a winning team is alluring. I was torn between these two options until a new possibility presented itself.

Kvass Party

is the resistance movement at the Ministry of Everything. It just started in the Botany Unit and it is slowly spreading around.  A senior comrade once said "Ministry of Everything's past is admirable, its present is more than magnificent; as to its future it is beyond the grasp of the most daring imagination." Unfortunately, these days this statement is hardly a reflection of reality, and Kvass Party is a rebellion  that aims to alter our organization and to right its course. At the moment, Kvass Party members enjoy deep conspiracy and are cloaked by a profound sense of irrelevance. But this is soon to change. At the first meeting we settled the issue of a secret handshake and a warning call.

Putting the Ministry of Everything on the right track is a harder problem and so far comrades have attacked it on a philosophical level.  After considerable discussion we arrived at the consensus that our situation would be greatly improved if we did more of the smart things and fewer of the stupid ones.  Most comrades had difficulty identifying smart things they could possibly do but they had a copious lists of stupid things they deal with all the time.   When my turn came I  mentioned  our weekly meetings as the most boring and futile activity. Suddenly all eyes were on me and I quickly clarified that I meant "their" meetings, and not Kvass Party meetings.
At the conclusion of the first gathering the Kvass Party members pledged to eliminate the most silly and useless things that they do on a regular basis and to keep productivity unchanged, replace them with the second most stupid thing. This slow and gradual change will build momentum for the most needed changes.

For the moment joining the Kvass Party seems like the most exciting and daring thing to do. We practice our secret handshake and plan to use a decoder ring for secret messaging.  I will report on the future Kvass Party activities as they will undoubtedly bring former glory to the Ministry of Everything.

Continued here.

Ministry of Everything on the move

This continues my uncle diary from here.

The big news is out - we are moving to a new building! Comrades are
excited and rumors are endless. Not that there is anything wrong
with our old building. Ok, it is a bit small, the paint is peeling off
and the motivational posters hanging here and there are faded, but
that is about it. Wreckers incited by the capitalist pigs are claiming
that our building is constructed from bricks made out of clay
excavated from an old uranium mine. These statements are simply false;
numerous tests done by government-appointed scientists showed once
and for all that the radiation level is a great deal lower that what
comrades on our nuclear submarines have to endure every day.  And it
is definitely not true that the nomenklatura  residing on the top floor
is wearing lead lined underwear.  It is all nonsense; in fact we are
moving because the Party wants us elsewhere, it is as simple as that.

In the swamp

The new location is called Wolf Swamp. I have not seen any wolves
there  but indeed the area is a bit soggy and galoshes come in handy.
Mosquitos, leeches and frogs are in abundance and the smell of
decomposing organic matter envelopes the surroundings and gives the
environment an exotic  feeling.  Our building will be constructed in
the middle of the swamp with convenient access by paddle boat in
case of rain. We all speculate about the size and shape of the
building and  wonder whether it will actually have windows.
Three committees are in charge of the move. Two of them consist of
senior and seasoned Party officials who actually make all the
decisions. These committees operate in utmost secrecy and not much is
known about them except for some acronyms. The third one interacts
with rank and file comrades and in the likely scenario that something
goes wrong, it is they who will have to endure proletarian anger.


But so far everything is all right. The swamp is brimming with life
and committees are dealing with issues that have to be addressed.
These are myriad, and the one of foremost importance is
security.

Protecting assets

The Ministry of Everything is a government organization that interacts
with the citizenry quite a bit. Over the years we have discovered a
curious pattern. Within six months of their initial interaction, about
70% of our customers become quite unhappy with us. They write letters,
shout insults and with growing frequency urinate on our walls and
doorways. These symptoms usually recede within next six months, but there is a startling periodicity that we decided to address at the new
location.  The perimeter fence will keep these rascals at bay by
giving the offenders strong jolts of electricity. It will also keep us
out of range of projectiles such as the tomatoes, rotten eggs and beer
bottles that these low-lifes may hurl at us. Everybody agrees that you
cannot be complacent about security: a puddle of urine today may lead
to  a nuclear attack tomorrow!

If external enemies are a menace, so are those who are already inside.
And what brings dark thoughts, anxiety and anger? Solitude, isolation
and idleness. Well, our building features 375 urinals and squatting
stations, perhaps half of what is needed but far more than is
prudent to leave out of sight.  The big question is - should the
Ministry of Everything have total control over these facilities or
should visitors and guests have access to them as well? The Party seems
to have the answer ready; providing  outsiders with access to these
difficult to control spaces is only asking for trouble.  As it stands,
there is a segment of the population that feels inclined to express their
views and opinions on a range of topics by writing them on the latrine walls. This filthy habit is difficult to eradicate and idle
minds  often incorporate these subversive comments, with a detrimental
effect on productivity. So we say "No" to these malcontents and
layabouts. The Ministry of Everything will employ guards armed with
truncheons and brass knuckles to protect the walls in the latrines,
keep the undesirables out, and make sure that pleasant amenities such
as freshly cut newspaper squares  are not purloined by free-loaders.

Sacrifices

The costs of securing the perimeter, guarding the latrines and
performing random checks on unsuspecting employees are a significant
drain on resources. Even though we were operating in an unsecured
environment for decades, we cannot bear the risk anymore.  Most
employees of the Ministry of Everything spent years coping with fears
and anxieties, thinking of dangers lurking outside, developing ulcers
from using unsecured latrines, and hoping that today is not the day
when their luck runs out.  Early retirements, heart attacks and acute
paranoia are clear markers of the sacrifices that our community was
making. The Party in its infinite wisdom decided to make some
allowances and let senior comrades set new priorities.  Small
sacrifices are necessary for securing our space, and giving up our walking yard, library and nursery is really a bargain! These recommendations
of the Central Committee were applauded  by most employees, although I
have to report that a few obstinate complainers were annoying
everybody by clinging to the past. The collective understands that
nursery, a walking yard and a library are pleasant to have, but the mental toughness and resourcefulness coming from not having them has a far greater value in the revolutionary struggle.   We were nearly brought to tears
by the Party's willingness to discuss these issues and to turn weaker
minds around. Nursery  became a particularly big issue.
Members of the Central Committee, mostly men in their 70's, seemed to
be quite puzzled as to what all the fuss was about. Nevertheless, with
fatherly patience they explained to decades-younger
inexperienced female comrades the importance of doing the right thing.
I was elated to see the principles of our system brought to bear on
the issue. Our leaders worked with persistence and I watched with
amazement as  the first glimpses of comprehension about the idea of an
electric fence around our building gave way to the unanimous support.
In the final tally all junior comrades of both genders voted against
nursery as a capitalist folly compromising our security, something that would serve to divide comrades and alienate senior Party members who were past their reproductive age.


Many years separate us from the actual move and a lot of  comrades
feel that they are putting their life on the line simply by coming to work
under the present security arrangements. But thanks to our leaders
there is a bright path in front of us. I know that while it may take a
decade or two, and many of us may not live that long, as a collective
we will endure and on one very distant day we will make Wolf Swamp
our new home.

Continued here.

Food for thought

A while ago I wrote (you can find it here)  about the trail-blazing effort of our organization in facilitating the scientific endeavors of other species.  These first steps seem naive in retrospect, and in spite of our elevated expectations, not much came out of them. Little did we know that this was a pivotal point in the history of human civilization…

Shortly after the first inter-species panel, a paper was posted in the archives. It was titled "Computational aspects of biology," and it claimed that every DNA-based life form is computationally equivalent to the Turing machine. The paper generated a tremendous amount of misunderstanding, but in a nutshell it demonstrated that a human being and an ordinary house plant represent two  species that in principle have the same ability to abstract the universe through computation. The key paradigm shift presented in this work concerned the concept of communication - a necessary step in carrying out an algorithm. While humans view communication as a process involving five senses, talking, writing, and so forth, this is a smoke-screen. On the biological level, communication occurs via ingestion of biological matter, that is eating. The entire food chain is really an encoding of billions of computations performed by various species. Sadly, consuming your interlocutor is the universal language of nature, geared towards a higher purpose.  The computations carried on by the entire biomass are for the most part charting its evolutionary path, but there is a great deal of spare capacity. For example, if a banana plant wants to embark on resolving the Riemann Hypothesis, it carries on as long as it can and then produces a banana. This banana is eaten by a bird, who is eaten by a shark who is eaten by a tourist, who urinates on another banana tree during a cruise in Carribean. This is how a new banana plant finds out about the computation carried out by the former one, and is able to continue the former's efforts. The slowness of the process is offset by the immense size of the biosphere. 

The tremendous amount of interspecies interactions  is certainly a new ingredient in our understanding of the world, and given the asserted computational equivalence, it exacerbates the central question of humanity: "why are we here?" The answer is unfortunately quite sobering: "eat, shit and travel." Why? Because, the friendly plants inform us, we can do it so quickly. Apparently plants, bacteria, and the rest of the lot are also on a tight schedule, and it helps to have omnivorous busybodies running around and speeding things up. What about science, culture and the rest of it, you may ask?  It has all been surreptitiously donated to humanity, and by golly, calling intuition a gut feeling should have been a hint a long time ago! Indeed, Archimedes' fondness of olive oil, Pythagoras' love for pig’s intestines, Newton's appetite for apples, Einstein's interest in sauerkraut, Marie Curie's appetite for fried possum, and Darwin's bouts with the flu were all  means of transmitting scientific ideas from the ever-computing biomass into willing minds.  

It is only when humans started messing up the planet too much that the biosphere faced the dilemma of whether to poison us all or try to appeal to our better side. The interspecies scientific panel was a big plus and a nudge in our favor. Reportedly it was a very close call, with bok-choy firmly on our side and Ebola virus and broccoli furiously lobbying for a showdown. As had already happened several times in the past, humanity prevailed, and soon afterward the movie "Avatar" was made. It popularized ideas of the computing world while carrying out a warning not to interfere with it. So in the end humans, were allowed another chance  and given their marching orders. Most accepted with great relief solutions to a number of millennia-old philosophical questions, and promised  to help restore the planetary balance.

Our funding organization is at the forefront of these changes and takes them in stride. The support for human scientific efforts, that is, human-based science, is in retreat as nobody wants to invest in ever-traveling gluttons. It was dwindling for years but now there is really no good reason to pay money for science  that really originates from brussel sprouts or yeast! Consequently, the budgets of grant proposals that used to have dollar amounts, now speak of light, water, and air, and science is the cheapest commodity on the planet. We are adapting to these changes as quickly as possible. Just recently a bullnose dolphin named Todo was hired as a program officer in the Political Science unit. His colleagues often frolic with him in a water-filled office. Frankly, these guys are so worried about human bias that only soliciting help from another species could give them credibility in the studies of the US political system. But the boldest move is due to the directorate of mathematical and physical sciences. In a recent search for a director of one of the units, a candidate named Fern made it to the final short-list. Discrete inquiries revealed that Fern is, yes, you have guessed it, a mid-size fern that is already settled in the hiring unit (still called human resources) in a clay pot near a window. Colleagues were apprehensive about the upcoming interview and were not quite clear what would transpire.  On the day of the interview, Fern was brought in and the acting director murmured profuse apologies while collecting  several leaves from the lower portion of his body. Next he brewed them in a small kettle and the interview commenced with everybody getting a Shot of Fern. Within minutes, a profound change occurred. Colleagues who were threatening to retire got new wind in their sails, ideas for budget drivers flourished, people were pledging to move on with mundane everyday work and engaging in strategic thinking. An hour into the interview we had drafts of three new solicitations, an employee assessment plan, and a clear vision of the future. Fern got enthusiastic support from everybody and was carried to the Central Office for more interviewing. After several hours, human resource people, clearly acting in the best interest of Fern and his leafy brethren,  had to intervene  and just in time! Poor Fern was missing half of his leaves, while his colleagues from the Central Office looked like they were walking on clouds. We hope for his speedy recovery and fully expect that Fern will be the first representative of flora in a managerial position of a government institution!

Botany Unit looks forward to the next year.

This continues my uncle's diary from here.

Transmutation

The year is coming to an end and there is new stuff to report. The story is simple: the Command Center has been hijacked! Old comrades are not particularly surprised but newbies like me are stunned. But let me start from the beginning.
Ministry of Everything has many units and one of them is called the Chem Unit. After a recent reorganization it is now divided between four sub-sections - Air, Fire, Water and Earth. This time-honored Aristotelian classification seems to stimulate our Chem comrades intellectually and it connects us to modernity by providing budget drivers for the entire Ministry of Everything.
Our fellow comrades in the Chem Unit are not very different from us, other than  their unusual fondness for verking, a preferred way of getting things done. But never mind, their main problem is a massive inferiority complex. On the surface they have phenomenal foresight and a vision of an upcoming scientific discovery, but  when it comes down to staking a claim, they often get everything wrong. It is not clear whether heuristics gets in the way of their analytical thinking or whether it is something else, but their record is littered with theories involving changing rubbish into gold, flogiston and curing cancer with vitamin C. So they verk hard, keep quiet and do not speak at the meetings. Well, until now.
Over the last year they surreptitiously replaced every comrade in the Command Center with one of their own! As often happens, nobody noticed until a gigantic Mendeleev table appeared at the entrance to the Command Center and the New Year’s party involved a spelling-bee competition featuring unpronounceable names of chemical compounds. Needless to say, the top three spots (awarded 20 pound bags of onions each) were all won by chemists!

The Botany Unit tries to play along. In the coming year we will be bringing in new programs and initiatives. Plants and Elements, Plant chemistry and I love carbon, are just a few examples. Our Hammer and Sickle training program includes now a new set of drills and I am happy to report that new comrades can recite all elements that start with P and have two vowels, compute sum of valencies of all metals or perform even more complicated mental tasks. There are subtle changes in our environment as well. A complete set of Paracelsus' works now adorns the reception area, and we have commissioned an oil painting of Madame du Chatelet to display between two scrofulous plants in our windowless foyer (some comrades argue that Madame Curie would have been a safer choice.) All together, a lot of thinking goes towards appeasing chemists who are brimming with anger after centuries of disrespect.
At the moment things are fine though. Other than slowly reducing the flow of the resources and snooping around with an eye to nano-managing, the comrades in the Command Center enjoy leadership positions and try not to over-verk themselves.

Happy New Year

Remarkably, the Botany Unit is weathering these events well, given that this has been the worst year on record: deep divisions and polarization in the Central Committee, suffocation followed by the shutdown, and a ten percent reduction in seed allocation, now followed by this chemical invasion. Perhaps things cannot be worse, and we have been watching it unravel with morbid curiosity. Yet strangely enough, the Botany Unit is infused with hope and optimism. It is as if, pushed against the wall and surrounded by stronger enemies, you suddenly find a six-shooter in your pocket. How can that be? Well, in a time of crisis, old Communist principles kick in. What you stand for matters more than who you are. In our case these are beets, potatoes and corn - the basic products of the Botany Unit. Perhaps not enough to defeat capitalist pigs and save the planet, but certainly things that are our pride and responsibility.

Continued here.

Hard verk

This continues my uncle's diary from here.

The battle against capitalist pigs is going well and we can afford some minor celebrations.  The history is somewhat murky but as our glorious system matures the difference between working and not working has increased considerably. Our beloved Party that always tries to balance things out decided to bridge these two states and introduced verk. What is verk? Well, this is an intermediate state and for the most part it is up to the employee to determine how much of not working they include in their verk. More to the point, the main characteristics of verk is that you can verk at home, in the shopping mall or for that matter anywhere else and to verk you no longer have to come to the workplace. Needless to say the program turned out immensely popular and many of us verk a lot!
I started forgetting faces of some of my colleagues, but when I see them once in a while, I notice that they look more rested and happier. Unlike work which by law is limited to 40 hours per week, one can verk for 80 or more hours per week without exerting oneself much. There is not much more getting done this way but everybody looks very busy these days and statistical reports are stellar.
Our former management was not particularly fond of verking and counteracted with an obsolete concept of “face time” - being present and together with your colleagues - but the new management embraced verk wholeheartedly. Quite frankly Ministry of Everything is not doing very well these days and our Command Center is in disarray and infested with a number of comrades who’s qualifications are somewhat lacking. All in all, it is better when everybody is verking rather than coming to work and  rolling their eyes or gossiping.

I love verking but sometime I wonder if the capitalist pigs aren’t outsmarting us. They seem to try to get the most out of their employees, rely on their skills, knowledge and initiative and generally behave as if the responsibility for future of the world was in their hands. Comrades laugh that this is a complete nonsense but capitalists are sure making a convincing show!

On top of that the Central Committee occasionally confuses verking with non working and this is potentially dangerous. Our recent example involves an onset of winter and the associated snowfall, periodic and not completely unexpected event given our geographical location. The Party's aversion to snow is legendary and the Central Committee shuts down Ministry of Everything together with the rest of the government at the slightest presence, or even anticipation, of this fluffy substance! Telling people to verk would have been understandable, but closing down  entire buildings seem to indicate the lack of trust in common sense of the employees and general stupidity on the part of people empowered to make this kind of decisions.
In this particular instance a snowfall was expected and at four in the morning, hours before the first flakes twirled in the air,  and couriers were dispatched to tell comrades to run and hide. Unfortunately, the  Botany Unit was hosting three farming teams associated with the program of Underground Farming (described here). One can only imagine the surprise of comrades farmers, weathered and tough folks,  when they were confronted by armed guards blocking their entrance to the building because of a paper thin layer of snow on the ground. Nevertheless when all seemed lost our comrades from the Botany Unit stepped up to the plate and saved the day by pitching a large tent serving as a temporary hothouse. They comforted the  distressed farmers and exacted  from them some amount of actual work which they came to perform!

All in all, we verk hard and I am sure we are beating capitalists left and right but some days I cannot escape the feeling that we are led forward by people who do not quite know what are they doing. But I am ashamed of these thoughts and I punish myself with extra verk!


Continued here.

Academic life - finding home

In my earlier post I described the two arcs of one’s academic career: the formative years associated with establishing one’s identity in the marketplace of ideas, and the return home, a quest for starting one's own scientific family and spreading one's own ideas.  The links to the Iliad and Odyssey were unmistakable,  and we covered the outward  portion of this exploit. In this post we complete the journey and absorb Homer’s wisdom on the subject of university tenure and beyond.

Without further ado let’s introduce the characters:

Odysseus - yes baby, it is you. The intellect and cunning are still there but so are some new ingredients. Hesitation, dark moods, and indecisiveness will accompany you through this journey. That is just the way it is, too much randomness that gets in a way of careful planning. But do not despair, your team, even if anonymous,  is with you and they will step in when needed. For the most part you are in the same boat after all.

Penelope - she is the ultimate prize, your dream job. Separated by time and space, she calls you frequently. She could be your dream postdoc or an endowed chair, whatever. When you saw her first years ago  she was just there, looking great and unreachable. Now you are making your move. Good luck!

Telemachus - this is how the past influences the future. You have nurtured this fellow when he was an undergraduate. Now, years later, he is completing his Ph.D. thesis. He worshipped you for all those years because through some casual remark of yours he saw that being a scholar is the best thing in the world. Now he is the president of the student body, and, while still weak and inexperienced, in time he will be a powerful ally.

Antinous, Amphinomus, Eumaeus and the rest of the suitors. Incompetent scumbags of the lowest order - the inside candidates who will stop at nothing to deny you the job that you deserve and that they want for themselves. You can discredit one or two but there are simply too many of them. They have their tentacles in the university senate, they arrange housing loans for new faculty, and more. Killing them all commando style is Homer’s wet dream, most likely you will have to coexist with them for most of your career.  If you get the job and the dust settles you might discover that some of them are actually fine colleagues. Won’t you be glad for sparing them?

Eurycleia - Odysseus' nurse. In spite of all the technology: online applications, papers posted online, videos of your classes, and so on, you need someone who actually reads all your papers and knows what they are all about. It seems that everybody else relies on someone else’s opinion. Eurycleia is a great help. She will recognize you in any disguise, she will find your unsigned notes that miraculously became your competitor's top publication. She is good at keeping secrets and she knows all the gossip. And she loves you too.

Calypso - a beautiful nymph who could be male or female. What can I say, in nearly every scientific biography there are some “missing years”. Meet Calypso and you will understand why.

Polyphemus - the scruffy bespectacled chair of the hiring committee. His attention to checking the compliance of every application is legendary. When it says that candidates must use 12pt helvetica font it better not be Arial!  Polyphemus will obliterate your job application unless you walk the razor-thin path of the righteous.

Circe - the infinite allure of software: TeX, LaTeX, Powerpoint, Keynote, Java and all that. The days and weeks that you spent in her company choosing fonts for your presentations, developing transitions between slides and wondering if your treatise on why noodle dough darkens would have benefited from a soundtrack. One day you will glance at a blank sheet of paper, take a sharp pencil into your hand, look at it, and the music from “2001: Space Odyssey” will erupt in your head. Can it be that simple? Duh.

Nausicaa - the dean’s daughter, who is beautiful and honest. It is easy to accept her help, and without that things would be a great deal tougher. But watch out, Employee Integrity Testing is in your near future.

Tiresias -  he spends most of his time with university administrators and in the Underworld. Not a particularly pleasant character. Full of himself and overconfident in his ability to tell the future. You probably could do without him but he will make your cover letter ten times better. Of course you have to pay, and he will torment you with his blog which supposedly has all his wisdom on matters of academic employment.

Underworld - it is a place, not a person. Have you ever seen at a large professional meeting a booth run by the National Security Agency, State Department or some other acronym infested entity? This is the gate to the Underworld. They can swallow you whole and give your life a completely new meaning. But you have to pledge to depart the world of the living, and for many it is a one way trip. Caution, caution.

Kraken - strictly speaking not an Odyssey character. Kraken is a bright and powerful faculty member who is largely invisible due to a massive amount of funding from the Department of Defense,  the National Institute of Health, or similar entity. He has the best office furniture and equipment that taxpayer's money can buy. When the external funding dries up Kraken gets unleashed and with anger and arrogance  torments his colleagues.

Ithaca -  a place where Penelope resides. It might have other attractions like mild climate, clean environment, no crime or traffic, good school system, no history of natural disasters, and proximity to nature and recreation. It is prudent to expect no more than one of those extras.

Athena, Poseidon, Zeus and the rest of the lot are gods. In Iliad they were just tricksters but here they decide to get their hands dirty and be involved. Unfortunately not all of them are on your side.

These characters and many like that will be a part of your Odyssey, and some of the Iliad players will tag along as well. In fact you have come across some of them already and in time you will meet the rest of them. Homer’s original narrative starts the Odyssey in the middle and uses flashbacks to fill in the past. We will follow our protagonist in a more direct fashion.

Odyssey retold

One day an Ithaca alumnus is outed as having a lavish Swiss bank account.  He tries to ameliorate by making a large donation to his alma mater.  It is for a tenure-track appointment with some nice perks. Or perhaps an endowed chair accompanied by two perpetual two-year postdocs, funding for graduate students and for the lucky recipient a name plaque which will be attached outside of the building (which is also new.) There is a lot of buzz in the community and even the deities on Olympus are impressed. Athena drops Odysseus' name during lunch.  “Where is he now?” asks Zeus. “I dunno” mumbles Athena choking on an undercooked ambrosia. "Is Haphaestus again doing kitchen duty?" unspoken question crosses her mind.  Never mind, it is time to get involved.  Later in the day she locates Odysseus in Turkey, and under the  guise of a pink flamingo advises Telemachus to start beating the bushes to get respectable candidates in hopes that he will persuade Odysseus to apply. Unfortunately, the lax formulation of the job ad allows local nebbishes to apply as well. They call themselves Suitors and try to scare off everybody else.

Did Gods stage an intervention? or perhaps just a plain e-mail from Telemachus was enough to set things in motion? Whichever way, Odysseus gets the vibe, decides to apply, and thus begins his trip.
Unsure of how the business of academic hiring is done these days, he acquires services of Tiresias for help with cover letters, vitae, teaching statement, long and short term research program, writing samples and whatever else they want. It is a good move as his submissions acquire the solid look of polished bronze and project the impeccable logic of a “must hire” candidate. He decides to hedge his bets and settles on a hundred applications to a wide range of schools. Ithaca is there as well…

Just hours from the moment when Odysseus' ship sails out an ugly monster comes to the surface and blocks his path. Most of his body is covered with ads for College Board, SAT, GRE and TOEFL. It is clear that carrying this stuff around affects his buoyancy. “Interfolio, at your service” he gurgles happily “will it be Mastercard or Visa?” Startled, Odysseus and his fellows shut down their laptops and turn off WiFi. But there is no hope. Powerful Interfolio  keeps the job applications sequestered until the payment is made. Not the end of the world but a strong remainder that many monsters feast on the fringes of the academic world. Luckily Euryclea comes to the rescue by sending a homing pidgeon with her credit card number.

Crisis is averted, Odysseus continues, and his job applications get delivered before the deadline.  The seas are calm and the winds favorable until suddenly the skies darken and a powerful storm approaches. Unbeknownst to Odysseus it is Poseidon who brings the storm, enticed by his son Polyphemus.  What happened? Odysseus, in a fit of joyous insubordination, lists himself as a female and a Pacific Islander on the Affirmative Action Form.  This is childish behavior unfitting of a serious scholar even though the provided data is stored on 5.25in floppies in the government bunker while the form itself is the main ingredient of a fully recyclable coffee cup. Polyphemus spots the silliness (even though the form is anonymous) and gets a conniption. It does not end well, in anger he pokes his own eye out scratching the cornea. Poseidon, a god whose sense of humor is descended from invertebrate and sense of justice from Vlad the Impaler, blames Odysseus and sends the storm.

The storm rages for hours and tosses the ships around with no mercy. Finally, an island appears on the horizon. They do not know it but they have entered the land of Circe. In a blink of an eye she turns Odysseus’ entire team into computer scientists and convinces him to engage in developing his webpage. Days turn into months while powerful java scripts are being written to display Odysseus' vitae in all congressional languages. A webcam app shows the inside of his office, another app indicates the amount of seed in his bird feeder, and for an unknown reason his website announces to the world that he just changed the air filter in his furnace.
Finally, Odysseus has had enough. He refuses to cooperate and the defeated Circe releases his crew from the torment of programming this rubbish.  Circe remains friendly, fixes  terrible scripts on Odysseus' webpage and bestows the biggest gift of all - a new Linux distro. Linux programer is a new hobby on Odysseus' vitae, a big shot in the arm in the dying world of Windows. He feeds Interfolio its dues and his applications are updated.

They sail out and soon enough, trouble shows up on the horizon. It is the six-headed Scylla, a monster of interdisciplinary research, and the whirlpool of Charybdis, a temple of a single author paper. The passage between is very thin and Odysseus has to use all his cunning as many job applications call for research plans in a concise two page format. Scylla lures with societal impact and scientific breakthroughs, Charybdis whispers about divided credit and lack of independent record. Charybdis murmurs about famous writers, poets and artists, all taking their challenges solo, while Scylla hisses about ten thousand people behind the Large Hadron Collider and the discovery of Higgs boson. Tough spot, careful navigation is required and on the horizon tenure might be at stake as well.

They continue west when an island shows under a veil of fog. Beautiful Sirens are calling from afar. Odysseus plugs the ears of his crew with wax, a productivity trick that he learned from Achilles in Troy, while Sirens are singing about the Tenure Committees, Curriculum Development Committees, Faculty Outreach and Faculty Senate. They are calling for Odysseus and his crew to abandon their research journey and devote their time to serving Academia. “Too early, too early” moans Odysseus covering his ears.
Perhaps you wonder whether the Sirens wouldn’t sing about something more desirable to lure them  to their island. Naaah, not in this job market.


Days turn into weeks and not much is happening. Something is not quite right. "Is it me or is it the system?" Odysseus wonders aloud. Finally, many months after job applications reached their destination, an e-mail arrives. It mentions an on-campus interview, 45-minute talk, and meeting with the faculty and the dean. The whole works, and it is for real this time.  Suddenly the frustrations of the journey fade away and layers of faceless anonymous communications peel off. Is it a new beginning or another island of illusion? “Carpe diem” says Odysseus as he crosses the campus gate.

                                          The end of the Odyssey

What??! This is the end? Where the hell is Penelope? Ithaca? Suitors skewered with arrows?
Well, it is tough but we are not there yet and maybe never will be. Don’t you get it? This is the odyssey! It is not supposed to end, there is always something new beyond the horizon.