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A half century ago, my mom was cut up with one of her nephews whom she considered extra-smart and a smart-aleck (ati-telivi).
It was like this:
This chap along with his parents went to a bride's place for the ritual bride-seeing ceremony before engagement, a la Delhi-6. And after the ritual sweet-eating and tea-drinking was through, an old woman of the bride's party asked this chap if his job was temporary or permanent. And expected a straight answer.
But this guy quipped:
"Life itself is temporary...where is permanence in this world?"
This, my mom considered absolutely impertinent...she didn't tell me if he won that bride...temporarily or permanently.
My mom was biased against him even before that. One afternoon, it seems, this guy materialized at my mom's place in Kovur and my mom was pleased that her nephew took the trouble of looking her up. He said he was on his way to Nellore and thought he would break his journey for a few minutes. And as my mom looked out of her verandah, she noticed a rickshaw-puller waiting outside, and asked her nephew:
"Is that rickshaw yours?"
And this guy deadpanned and said:
"No, the rickshaw belongs to the rickshaw-puller or its owner...I am just his passenger and asked him to wait"
Anyway those were the years of Nehruvian public sector socialism and all jobs were government jobs, except self-employed professionals like doctors, lawyers and barbers. All government jobs came in two classes: temporary and permanent.
Temporary jobs were three to four times more than the permanent ones and the employees in this category were subject to ousting, dismissal and termination (they all meant the same) anytime. Their tenures were extended year to year and they had no leaves except the casual and medical. And no PF nor Pension...the Govt was as poor as the Nation itself.
That didn't mean the lucky few who got permanent jobs after a long time were cushy. Although the post they held was permanent, they had to be 'confirmed' in it...and this could take anything between 10 to 15 years. One of my sisters joined as a permanent lecturer, worked for 5 years, got married, and resigned. And after another 5 years, she got a letter saying she had been recently 'confirmed' for those 5 years...it meant nothing to her.
Professor AVKR joined the Phy Dept at IIT KGP in 1965 along with me, as a Lecturer. Before that he served in BHU for a period of 3 years. We two got close because we shared office and also a Bachelor's Flat BF-1/6 for a while.
And he told me that at BHU there were 4 categories of jobs:
1. Temporarily temporary
2. Permanently temporary
3. Temporarily permanent
4. Permanently permanent
That is all...
Category 1 refers to the post being temporary, but the gentleman who was holding it had gone on a 1-year study-leave and this chap was appointed temporarily for a year in that temporary post.
Category 2 refers to that fellow cited above who had gone on study-leave.
Category 3 refers to the post being permanent but the gentleman who was holding it had gone on a 1-year study-leave and this chap was appointed temporarily for a year in that permanent post.
Category 4 is obvious and the ones who won it were princes.
Fortunately IIT KGP didn't have this system when we joined. There were 4 faculty positions, all permanent subject to a 1-year probation that was more or less a formality. The positions were:
1. Associate Lecturer
2. Lecturer
3. Assistant Professor
4. Professor
One joined as a Research Scholar if he was young and in his 3rd year, if he was good, he was recruited as an Ass Lec. And worked his way up.
But a few were disgruntled since they thought that they were good enough to be Professors but couldn't be promoted since no post was vacant. Such chaps were promoted to a Trishanku position called
5. Associate Professor
which was not a regular advertized post but a make-believe, having the starting salary of a Professor. If no post fell vacant within 3 years or the chap was not deemed good enough, he was reverted to his Assistant Professor post shamefully...which never happened though.
Meanwhile, a few Professors felt that too many upstarts were being recruited as Professors and they wanted special privileges like a telephone in their office. These were promoted to a non-advertized post called:
6. Senior Professor.
Get it?
Meanwhile, a new Pay Commission came up after a decade and streamlined the whole system and said there will only be three posts:
1. Lecturer
2. Assistant Professor
3. Professor
But there would be...ahem...Regular Posts vs Supernumerary posts, a distinction more of prestige than of substance.
And then a new Pay Commission came up after another decade and felt that Lecturer is a pedestrian term and abolished it and came up with:
1. Assistant Professor
2. Associate Professor (back again!)
3. Professor
4. Professor Emeritus
And after a decade a new Pay Commission came up and said that all folks in a particular post can't get the same salary and introduced what I hear were Band Pay Scales. This reminds me of the Band Theory of Solids...Conduction and Valence Bands.
Next would perhaps be, Line Theory of Atomic Spectra...everyone has his own scale and no posts.
This was what the Soviet Regime wanted and gave everyone the same pay of 100 Roubles. But found that there are chaps like Lev Landau who were one in a trillion and the regime was forced to increase these stalwarts' pay to 200 Roubles, called them Academicians, and gave them a Volga car each.
http://www.vjcx.com/old-antique-cars-from-russia/
Provided they didn't get fancy ideas like counter-revolution in which case they were sent to Siberian Camps meant for civilizing them.
Landau is my favorite after Feynman:
He had his own log scale of genius physicists ranked from 0 to 5 in the reverse order:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Landau
As you all know, the US has a democraic system but someone told me that getting a 'tenure' job in Physics is tough. Later someone else told me that getting a 'tenure-track' job is even tougher. But I guess if you do get a tenure job, your life is heavenly...provided you don't do drugs and unionbajee.
My mom's nephew was right...nothing in this world is permanent...
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A half century ago, my mom was cut up with one of her nephews whom she considered extra-smart and a smart-aleck (ati-telivi).
It was like this:
This chap along with his parents went to a bride's place for the ritual bride-seeing ceremony before engagement, a la Delhi-6. And after the ritual sweet-eating and tea-drinking was through, an old woman of the bride's party asked this chap if his job was temporary or permanent. And expected a straight answer.
But this guy quipped:
"Life itself is temporary...where is permanence in this world?"
This, my mom considered absolutely impertinent...she didn't tell me if he won that bride...temporarily or permanently.
My mom was biased against him even before that. One afternoon, it seems, this guy materialized at my mom's place in Kovur and my mom was pleased that her nephew took the trouble of looking her up. He said he was on his way to Nellore and thought he would break his journey for a few minutes. And as my mom looked out of her verandah, she noticed a rickshaw-puller waiting outside, and asked her nephew:
"Is that rickshaw yours?"
And this guy deadpanned and said:
"No, the rickshaw belongs to the rickshaw-puller or its owner...I am just his passenger and asked him to wait"
Anyway those were the years of Nehruvian public sector socialism and all jobs were government jobs, except self-employed professionals like doctors, lawyers and barbers. All government jobs came in two classes: temporary and permanent.
Temporary jobs were three to four times more than the permanent ones and the employees in this category were subject to ousting, dismissal and termination (they all meant the same) anytime. Their tenures were extended year to year and they had no leaves except the casual and medical. And no PF nor Pension...the Govt was as poor as the Nation itself.
That didn't mean the lucky few who got permanent jobs after a long time were cushy. Although the post they held was permanent, they had to be 'confirmed' in it...and this could take anything between 10 to 15 years. One of my sisters joined as a permanent lecturer, worked for 5 years, got married, and resigned. And after another 5 years, she got a letter saying she had been recently 'confirmed' for those 5 years...it meant nothing to her.
Professor AVKR joined the Phy Dept at IIT KGP in 1965 along with me, as a Lecturer. Before that he served in BHU for a period of 3 years. We two got close because we shared office and also a Bachelor's Flat BF-1/6 for a while.
And he told me that at BHU there were 4 categories of jobs:
1. Temporarily temporary
2. Permanently temporary
3. Temporarily permanent
4. Permanently permanent
That is all...
Category 1 refers to the post being temporary, but the gentleman who was holding it had gone on a 1-year study-leave and this chap was appointed temporarily for a year in that temporary post.
Category 2 refers to that fellow cited above who had gone on study-leave.
Category 3 refers to the post being permanent but the gentleman who was holding it had gone on a 1-year study-leave and this chap was appointed temporarily for a year in that permanent post.
Category 4 is obvious and the ones who won it were princes.
Fortunately IIT KGP didn't have this system when we joined. There were 4 faculty positions, all permanent subject to a 1-year probation that was more or less a formality. The positions were:
1. Associate Lecturer
2. Lecturer
3. Assistant Professor
4. Professor
One joined as a Research Scholar if he was young and in his 3rd year, if he was good, he was recruited as an Ass Lec. And worked his way up.
But a few were disgruntled since they thought that they were good enough to be Professors but couldn't be promoted since no post was vacant. Such chaps were promoted to a Trishanku position called
5. Associate Professor
which was not a regular advertized post but a make-believe, having the starting salary of a Professor. If no post fell vacant within 3 years or the chap was not deemed good enough, he was reverted to his Assistant Professor post shamefully...which never happened though.
Meanwhile, a few Professors felt that too many upstarts were being recruited as Professors and they wanted special privileges like a telephone in their office. These were promoted to a non-advertized post called:
6. Senior Professor.
Get it?
Meanwhile, a new Pay Commission came up after a decade and streamlined the whole system and said there will only be three posts:
1. Lecturer
2. Assistant Professor
3. Professor
But there would be...ahem...Regular Posts vs Supernumerary posts, a distinction more of prestige than of substance.
And then a new Pay Commission came up after another decade and felt that Lecturer is a pedestrian term and abolished it and came up with:
1. Assistant Professor
2. Associate Professor (back again!)
3. Professor
4. Professor Emeritus
And after a decade a new Pay Commission came up and said that all folks in a particular post can't get the same salary and introduced what I hear were Band Pay Scales. This reminds me of the Band Theory of Solids...Conduction and Valence Bands.
Next would perhaps be, Line Theory of Atomic Spectra...everyone has his own scale and no posts.
This was what the Soviet Regime wanted and gave everyone the same pay of 100 Roubles. But found that there are chaps like Lev Landau who were one in a trillion and the regime was forced to increase these stalwarts' pay to 200 Roubles, called them Academicians, and gave them a Volga car each.
http://www.vjcx.com/old-antique-cars-from-russia/
Provided they didn't get fancy ideas like counter-revolution in which case they were sent to Siberian Camps meant for civilizing them.
Landau is my favorite after Feynman:
He had his own log scale of genius physicists ranked from 0 to 5 in the reverse order:
Landau's List
Landau kept a list of names of physicists which
he ranked on a logarithmic scale of productivity ranging from 0 to 5. The
highest ranking, 0.5, was assigned to Albert
Einstein. A rank of 1 was awarded to "historical giants" Isaac
Newton, Eugene Wigner, and the founding fathers of quantum
mechanics, Niels Bohr, Werner
Heisenberg, Paul Dirac and Erwin Schrödinger. Landau ranked himself as a 2.5
but later promoted himself to a 2. David
Mermin, writing about Landau, referred to the scale, and ranked himself in
the fourth division, in the article My Life with Landau: Homage of a 4.5 to
a 2.
As you all know, the US has a democraic system but someone told me that getting a 'tenure' job in Physics is tough. Later someone else told me that getting a 'tenure-track' job is even tougher. But I guess if you do get a tenure job, your life is heavenly...provided you don't do drugs and unionbajee.
My mom's nephew was right...nothing in this world is permanent...
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