Something lucky happened two days ago – my yearly employee review. Yuck, you say? – my history with these in British academe has been somewhat variable; I don't mind working on plans and lists of projects, but my last review with our old Head of School was frankly disturbing. No surprise – the old Head was a manipulative illusionist, a distinctly untrustworthy serpent of a man; he once mentioned a son, and I remember wondering whether that son would take the path of endlessly hating his mendacious father, or instead of following in his footsteps.
All this must be seen in context: a provincial university that has grown a great deal, that is already considered vastly more important and successful than even ten years ago; but one that, with a fairly rough-edged background and crude infrastructure, is frantic to push everyone upward in the most heavy-handed manner. We are surrounded with vast swathes of ill-considered New Initiatives and quotas, and university management, not being terribly competent at their tasks, are always desperate to shove their own responsibilities downward. Therefore, a mess: bureaucracy without pattern, because time hasn't built up the patterns yet, and plans without any realistic grounding.
But the new Head, the replacement, is an easy-going straightforward kind of guy, one who prefers to use the institutional mechanisms for people's benefit. During the review he was happy to chat about a wide variety of things (actually the conversation was fairly rhizomatic, going to all sorts of unexpected places) and offer advice and even justify himself – the latter because he is the kind of person who would not be happy with his own policies if they weren't approved by his underlings, not because of any need to polemically win ideological battles. He criticized some of my deadlines, thinking they were a bit unrealistic (story of my life) and even offered to meet with me independently every two months just to help manage/coach my way through some of my current projects.
I came away pleased, enthusiastic, even excited – and I honestly think this will have good effect. I already cranked out two substantial administrative papers yesterday, and hope to finish some research periphera this weekend, before going away. In any case, it all feels very productive... and fits my long-term complaint that all I have really needed were certain kinds of support....
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