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How Leszek Balcerowicz got me fired (2)

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How Leszek Balcerowicz got me fired (2)

By the mid-1990s, after having worked for the Warsaw School of Economics for a number of years, I had an opportunity to more closely research one of Leszek Balcerowicz’s accomplishments – one of the projects in my doctoral course was to analyze Poland’s inflation at the beginning of “the transformation” period. The famed mastermind of “freezing” the US dollar to the Polish zloty exchange rate was, nominally, a member of the faculty at the WSE, and while I was not aware of his having made any academic contribution (apart from his “inflation control” measures which, as far as I knew, had nt been based on sound economic theory), I had always assumed that politics was his true domain, anyway. And since the political choices he represented were the furthest from my personal convictions, I never, in my wildest dreams (or nightmares), envisaged that he could become my boss. But he did – partly by fluke, partly by desperation. It is also possible that I had been manipulated into joining his department – but that is for you to judge.

Since 1993, I had been employed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Communication. I had a substantial teaching load, made more intensive by overtime teaching, which I was unable to refuse. In the period 1996-1998, I was also enrolled in a doctoral course at the College of World Economy. Studying for the degree and writing my PhD was the raison d'être of my presence within that department. I wasn’t particularly impressed by my colleagues but we had always worked as a team. Some of them were more, some less friendly, and that particular team was no different, although my colleagues were quite a lot older than me. Three of my fellow academics were Russian philologists. All three of them had earned their PhDs in Moscow or St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad). A PhD from a Soviet university had many (shady) connotations. I imagine my colleagues had been through a tough school of various tests and drills, some of which I had the inopportune experience to endure myself. At the time I joined their department, they had found themselves, sadly, with almost no demand from the students: few wished to study that melodious language, marvelous for poetry but rather useless for business communication, let alone business. Thus, some of my colleagues’ many and inimitable skills suddenly became no longer requested and required<”obsolete and fell out of favour”?> in the middle of the 1990s.

Then, a miracle!, or so it must have seemed: an academic assistant, working towards her PhD, who taught in English, was ‘planted’ in their Department. ‘Breaking me in’ took about three semesters, then I was encouraged to develop my own syllabi. My interests focused on marketing, advertising and cross-cultural studies. I developed corresponding syllabi: “The Language of Advertising”, “The Language of Finance and Banking” (that wasn’t my primary choice, but my colleagues hinted heavily), “Business Culture”, etc. Masses of students enrolled in my courses. To be fair, I should mention that my then boss was also an English specialist; she specialized in “Negotiations”, for example. Between the two of us, we collected hundreds of students. But there was a catch – and I understand that my boss had invented it. It was packaged in a sassy course entitled “bilingual courses”: they were offered both in English and in Russian. Those students who wanted to attend the course conducted in English came to about 99%; there were one or two, three at most, who wanted to do it in Russian. The lecturers got equal recognition for their work (appropriately remunerated); thus, my academic colleagues received full pay (and overtime on occasions) and their positions were no longer in jeopardy from a lack of students: after all, in the final run, the number of participants was always impressive: when you counted them together, i.e., the English and the Russian contingent. The happy façade lasted until 1996, when I was granted a scholarship, (more or less equal to my salary, which at that time came to about PLN 700), my salary was stopped and I started attending the PhD course. I was still required to teach the full load, although technically speaking, as a course participant and a scholarship recipient, I could have refused. But then – what would have happened to the Russian teachers? My boss persuaded me forego my rights by saying that “when she was doing her PhD course work, she had to teach as well”. My only rebellion was to refuse to work overtime. My illustrious colleagues were dismayed and shocked by my ungratefulness. The Stalinist-style victimization began gently enough, but intensified as I drew nearer to finishing the course and completing my PhD. Several important items of my correspondence were stolen. Other documents addressed to me had been ‘checked’ before they got to me. The telephone calls were not passed on to me. I wasn’t informed about my callers or visitors. With my PhD dissertation gaining greater weight, plus the completion of two of my research studies, and me drawing closer and closer to the mandatory PhD exams and the viva, the bullying intensified. In the Fall Semester 1998/1999, I abruptly stopped receiving the monthly instalments in lieu of my salary. As the first instalment of this blog made clear – the School is in shambles when it comes to coherent and consistent administration, and in September 1998, it was even worse. In the President’s letter admitting me to the PhD course and granting me the scholarship, the School’s Rector granted me the monies for the duration of my three years<” ’ coursework ” or “of study”?> (effectively until 1999), but the Wages Department had been notified to stop paying it out in September 1998 – a year too early. The then President of the WSE messed up the dates. For two months, I had been trying to untangle the bureaucratic knot the School had created. The mess was made worse by the fact that I had a PLN 6,000 loan from the School (on preferential conditions) which was allowed to be given to the faculty under the condition that two other faculty members would vouch for the loan beneficiary. With the stoppage of my scholarship, my instalment loan payments ground to a halt. The Bursar contacted my guarantors, who, surprise, surprise, turned out to be two of my Russian colleagues. Well, I had vouched for them too – it was a common practice at the WSE to double bind the lenders and guarantors. The lenders and the guarantors could only come from the faculty of the school. But the interest rate was, and still is, fabulous: 2%-3%.

All hell broke loose. I was accused of being stubborn, living a fabulous lifestyle (presumable paid for by the proceeds from my newly published books – they didn’t like it at all) and, practically, a thief. My colleagues called weekly meetings, then they held them every two days. During the meeting they attacked me relentlessly, incessantly and skilfully. They pried into my personal life, they suggested I should sell my apartment and adopt a child. They composed a letter in which they demanded that I be fired from the University. It was signed by all members of the Department. After speaking to one of the signatories (who had been a student of mine), telling her that, of the thousands of my past students, I had never before experienced such behaviour, undermining the essential pillars of the teacher-student relationship. She had a change of heart and withdrew her support of the protest letter demanding my firing, thus making it incomplete when it was submitted to the Dean. After a few days, I managed to borrow some money and repaid the debt. I still keep the receipt. Just in case…

I also developed an arrhythmia and heart pain and ended up in hospital with a suspected infarction. They kept me under observation for two weeks before letting me go. I managed to unload enough of the stress to study for the exams and the viva. On December 2, 1998, I successfully completed my PhD in Economic Sciences, with the specialization “Economics”.

The bullying continued for the next two years: I was stopped from applying for the position of an Adjunct Professor and I was surrounded by a sea of seething resentment, hatred and other negative emotions in the Department. Nevertheless, I published two more books and several articles during that time. But I knew I couldn’t dream of a promotion or hope for professional growth. So I started looking for another department, and started looking for a place in other Polish cities too. It was then that I learned that all public competitions for academic posts at Polish universities are rigged, i.e., they are announced only to secure a promotion or a job for a person who has already been, essentially, appointed. Not on merit, not through the competition criteria (as required by law), but because they are a son/daughter/wife/lover/nephew/grandson of somebody who has sufficient power to “push it through”. Call it a feudal system, call it a mafia system, call it a typically Polish “resort children” system. It is a fool proof system, which prevents talented people from growing and being productive.

Once this realisation sunk in, I became somewhat despondent. Fortunately, though, luck took a liking to me.

In June 2000, the Warsaw School of Economics had the honour of hosting the Deputy of Bill Gates from Microsoft. Hundreds of students and faculty came, attracted by the glamour of the speaker and his organization. I was there too. At the end of his presentation, the Deputy asked for questions from the Lecture Hall. Nobody ventured a question for a good while. The silence was becoming terribly embarrassing…So, after a few seconds of thinking up a question, I rose, introduced myself, and asked the speaker what skills he would recommend the students of the Warsaw School of Economics work on and polish if they wanted to apply for a job at Microsoft. He so loved the question. It, after all, let him off the hook, too.

After the presentation, I gathered the courage and went up the new President of the School to ask him for an appointment. At that moment, he loved me too, and invited me to meet him at 9:30 on June 26, 2000. He listened to my story and came up with the following suggestion: Why don’t you ask Leszek Balcerowicz? His Department is completely inactive, because he’s busy in politics, but at least you will be able to develop your teaching. I thought it was a sensible idea.

A few weeks later I made an appointment with Leszek Balcerowicz. He received me in the half dead office of the Freedom Union Party, of which he was Chairman. It was an almost empty space, devoid of any hustle of busy people. He was positively inclined towards my request. I left him a stack of my publications. He also made a comment which I almost missed: “Actually, this might work. I need two of my assistants employed, so it looks OK”.

I only understood what he meant after I left the office: he needed assistants, but didn’t want to pay them himself. If he agreed to accept me in his Department, the School’s President would “give” him two “souls”, i.e., the School would employ two more assistants (entirely to work for Leszek Balcerowicz) who would be paid – just like all of us – from the taxpayers’ pocket.

On October 13, 2000, I received a letter from the President informing me that, by his decision, I had been transferred from the Department of Business Communication to the Department of International Comparative Studies, effective from October 1, 2000.

I have been traded for two assistants for Leszek Balcerowicz.

To be continued…

 

Danae
O mnie Danae

Let my work speak for me. My blog is in Polish and in English. Niech o mnie mówi moja praca. Piszę po polsku i po angielsku.

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