Monday, August 01, 2005

Forced conscription

From the incompetent inefficiency of interdepartmental working of UMS, I am now still waiting for my scholarship to be banked into my account, which of course about 4 months has elapsed since I last signed the agreement with no sign of even a dollar. Asked the Yayasan UMS department and they said they have already met and approved the agreement and it has been forwarded to the Bendahari (Treasury). Asked the Pascasiswazah department and they replied that their hands are tied since the Bendahari has not sent any word to release any cash to my Maybank account and asked me to refer to them. Asked Bendahari and of all things they say that my name is not in the list of payees. So what is wrong with the university? Figures, the only thing now is to keep on pressing the Bendahari to recheck and confirm payment since the other two departments vouch that all necessary paperwork are now with Bendahari.

That is not the most moronic suggestion as of yet. Last week it seems supervisors with master students under them met and one of the lecturers, A Prof Ann Anton (whom everyone has mentioned isn’t well too disposed to students anyway) made a suggestion to get scholarship recipients to undergo a minimum 6 hours of free service per week to whomever wishes to use their manpower. Besides the fact that the scholarship does not implicitly state that I’ve to donate my labour to her, she can go jump off the cliff for all I care. Most probably she is souring from the recent quitting of her Master student who had opinion differences with her as well as exclaiming he can no longer work under such a supervisor which puts up barriers every step of his way as well as to deny him his rightful pay as a research assistant. Okay scenario is as such, she cannot keep a handle on her student, most probably can’t even get them to do her work for her and now she’s pushing for terms where she can order anyone to her service? It may be so that other master students in the university has the free time to idle away and do other people’s work, not so for my supervisor’s lab. I’m technically in the lab from 8a.m. to past 7 p.m. and besides my own research work there are other odd jobs in the lab to occupy my time as well as being roped to teach amali (lab work) to the undergrads.

So back off, get your own students to do your donkey work, you cannot just order people to respect and do your work, it has to be earned. It’s just a typical day in UMS land. At least my boss said to ignore her and if the university asks for justification of what contributions us scholarship holders has given to UMS we have gone above the call of duty already in terms of hours worked here as well as help rendered to him. Besides isn't a scholastic scholarship meant to eleviate you from the need to work for a living and allow you concentrate on studying? If that is so I'd rather take a part time job that pays more and to subject myself to their whims and fancies.

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