Can I answer that in the medium of interpretive folk dance?

oh so happy to have my little blog back healthy thought I would post. But do I have anything to say? Oh. Stage fright. How awkward. Maybe if we try it this way instead..oops, wrong kind of stage fright! How doubly awkward...that I would.. and then you would think... Oh no,now I'm stammering.

Today I think I had some combo of stage fright, being a total chicken, waiting for the perfect answer and not quite having the right thing to say at the right time. What's that?? I hear you say?? Hot date with fernando the ravishing biotechnician* from building 14 turned into awkward silent torture through spontaneously mutually running out of things to say?? Gearing up for a bit of lab coat lovin' up the back of the labs only to have the wind blown completely out of his romancin scales due to me laughing awkwardly at his sowhatkindofmusicdoyoulike doyouhaveanybrothersandsisters whatyoudoonasaturdaynight howlongivebeeninsydney howdoyoulikethisplace textbook questions during a short coffee date at the refec?**

No,not at all. It was me and 7 colleagues entering a long skinny board/bored room to be questioned by a bunch of international academics who are wearing their 'Australian University Quality Assurance' hats (not literally, although that would have been quite funny. Maybe like those crass trucker caps with AUQA in big green lettering on yellow? Or Terry Pratchetesque wizard hots, long, pointy, drooping towards the floor and with a few spots of egg on them..whatever - there were no hats***). We enter carrying our names in long triangular plastic name holders (think bank manager or UN delegate style), pop these on desk, and barely our buttocks (firm from all the walking, aber naturlich) have hit the large black executive swivel chairs than the first question is being issued by the guy with the whitest hair and least lips (I mean he has two, they are just not very voluminous. So don't worry, fernando is not wearing this guys lips).

"How would you go about replacing your stapler if said office stapler had been leant to another faculty for use by postgrads? Do you know the relevant policy that would apply in this situation?" he delivers in his driest (no discernable spitting at all) tones.
We creak about in our chairs for a while until paul says "Um, like, would the answer be 'use a paper clip instead?'" to the approving nods and murmurs of the postdoctoral fellow**** and the director of his unit. This is like watching a fine game of some balll game of choice - "ooh gary that was a very nice maneouver from the staff team. But can they follow through in the second quarter?"

Next a lady with a skijump bob and a mousey nose directs a question at professor tiddlywinks "Do you see yourselves as staff of the university?" Is this a trick question I think? The name of the uni is on my business card, my email address, my payslip, the letterhead, there are students everywhere you look (not literally, obviously, that would be weird and you would probably need professional help*****). Hmmm I muse..."is this question cleverly framed to flush out any delusional tenured academics who think they're still in the crimeran war or that they are really on the payroll of somewhere more interesting and they just happen to incidentally arrive each day at the university to do their work?". We alll look uncomfortable and kind of nod and make little squeaks which could be "yes" or could be the large exec chairs groaning under the weight of our stupendous walking muscles. This seems to do the trick, they write down things and the stenographer taps away adding to the ambience of some kind of (if somewhat startrekesque) criminal trial.

Then, a long faced greyish man up whose nostrils I can plainly see (is there no modesty at all these days?) looks at his piece of paper and says my name. Followed by a full stop. I'm thinking...what - you want me to just free form at this stage? Just wax lyrical about whatever takes my fancy? And just as I'm composing a punchy haiku about the hazards of sharing a Friday bar venue with students who come and ask for cigarettes and aren't nearly as cute as you remember uni boys to be, he follows with a question. Booms it out. Eeek. This one is just for me. for me for me for me. I have to answer it all on my ooooooooown. (Sorry what was the question?). Ah, yes, services provided to us by the uni. Is our unit, you know, well supported (and not in the underwire and satin trim kind of way). Ahuh! I can answer this one!! yes - we get training provided by the HR section, and you know, there are opportunities for cross faculty collaborationon projects, and well, golly the library is just ace. Hey did I mention our Greenstar rated office space - if that's not being supported rather nicely by the uni I don't know what it. Oh hang on, then there's the help with grants, the contract and legal advice not to mention the facilities like the gym and the very popular cheap drinks at happy hour at the uni bar (even if the students are not all as hot as fernando the ravishing biotechnician). Oh yes it's grand. Wait - hang on, let me try that again. What about if I instead say 'aah, yes...well..you know. I haven't been there that long, but, well, you know - I like to think so. I mean you know - payroll and IT are good, and um...it's like nice to have the backing of the unis policy and strategic direction stuff.' Ooh near miss there! Lucky I didn't bore them with any actual useful examples - phew!!

They move on and let people spout their preprepared answers to questions that weren't actually asked, we all cringe as one professor shared the vision of complementarity of our units which he had stressed at our pre meeting get together as being very likely the hottest of topics of all - so proceeded to jump in excitedly to explain it to them (in answer to a question on the finance system), using his special little church and steeple style hand gestures to show just exactly how complementary we are to each other ('we're like this bro' with the one pointer finger extended would have been much cooler I think but no one asks me. Anything. More. At. All. I mean do you blame them: "payroll"?????????)

I try to make up for the lack of having anything to say about postgrad supervision and ARC linkage grants and make up for it (I like to think) by smiling rather idiotically at the interviewers to make surethat even if they conclude that our workplace is populated with idiots, that we are the happy and helpful type.

We leave and are ushered into a post-interview-interview to debrief and I try to keep a straight face as we all um and ah trying to recollectthe exact details of the stapler quetsion while esteemed faculty heads lean forward, nodding and writing notes. It is all too much rather like "what was question 4 like? Oh how hard was 11??" "Did you get number 12- I just skipped the workings and went straight to the answer coz we'd done that one in class".

I can only conclude that will not be promoted to cheif staple policy answerer anytime soon. I can only conclude that grown ups are very silly sometimes and like to take themselves rather seriously in their dress up games. I can only conclude that even a bad refec cofffee with a barely sketched in FTRB would have been a more enjoyable way to spend an hour.


*I am sorry to say that fernando the ravishing biotechnician is purely fictional. I have neither seen nor seen him nor sighted any secondary evidence to support his existence. I think sadly his breed may have died out due to global warming. (He will be in good company at least)
** Please note once more that none of this actuallly happened. It is a rhetorical question, much like schrodingers dead cat - there was no actual cat. It is a very famous not actual cat. (Perhaps it was fernando's cat?)
*** I think you can guess where this is going. I need not even mention that fernando and his cat both look very nice in the AUQA not-hats that never existed.
****he's not actually employed by the uni, he's just a nice fellow who's just finished his phd
*****need I say anything about the omnipresent students keeping fernando company?