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Well, howdy campers.
Been a while since I’ve posted last, but things here in the wonderful, sunny, hot, humid, sizzling, ‘cook an egg on your car’s front seat’ Middle East have been a bit, well…, odd.
(Yes, I do get paid extra for extraneous punctuation…).
Seems my contract with a certain oil company (whose name isn’t, but should be: ‘Pretty Damned Obstinate’ (at least the initials work)) has decided that for one or another of idiot reasons, after 8 wonderful years, my contract was not to be renewed. Evidently, those who are employed in what passes for economic forecasting around here, have decided that since oil, a while back, was selling for US$130/barrel and is now only going for US$81.23 (at least according to Oilex.com), they’re losing a whopping US$48.77/barrel (Which raises the obvious question: “What is a “whop”?), and therefore are going to spin into one of their decennial austerity routines and get shed of all those expensive, talented and possessing of a load of global experience, Western Expatriates.
Got that? Does the oddball accountancy give you a headache as well?
Long story short (I know, “too late.”), I was bereft of work. And I wasn’t even in Tokyo.
(“Bereft”?…miss the last plane out of Japan…Never mind…)
Anyways.
So, once again, I was a free agent.
Disinclined as I am to returning to the slaughterhouse, scrap yard or burger joint (adventures of which are available here, free; another advantage of your subscription to Customers Suck) I was in search of work.
I won’t bore you with the details of my wanting to stay here in the Sultanate so my youngest could graduate high school (her 14’th school in her varied and dare say I, global, academic career) and my earnest desire not to pay taxes (none here at all, except on booze at hotels, where I’m sure I’m financing more than a couple of Indian and Pakistani fella’s kids through college…).
I was looking for a job.
Oh, sure, I had loads of offers in other wonderful places: Buenos Aires, Moscow, Houston, Cairo, Doha, Dubai, Al Khafji (…eeesh…), but I really wanted to hang around and be with the family.
When out of the blue (and hazy, hot and dusty) air comes the notice that a certain university was looking for ad hoc (non-tenure track) professors.
Tab A. Slot B.
Get the picture?
Beware all ye tyros, Doc Rocknocker is approaching, laden with more degrees than a thermometer factory, 30 years of worldly experience (remind me to tell you the tale of getting bombed in a hotel bar in Baku…), a hungry look in his eye and a cheeseburger in his pocket (another story all together).
Scooter, this ain’t gonna be like TA’ing in the states.
I am being paid to teach the locals about geology. Rocks. Minerals. T-diagrams. And other such boring stuff that eventually leads to oil and money. It’s an accredited university (through some sort of agreement with a uni out of Scotland, of all places), I’m staff and my word is law.
If only.
If only.
I write the prospecti for my courses, and every last one includes as a prerequisite “English is the language of the course. Written as well as spoken.” (We’re like Air Traffic Controllers, we Oil Field Trash; we might come from hither and yon, but the lingua franca is English. Right? I mean everyone understands English, just as long as you speak it LOUD ENOUGH! Right? RIGHT?)
Well, besides the fact that I speak fluent English (and American, Australian, Tasmanian, Barbadian, Jamaican, Canadian…) Russian, Castilian, and Mandarin (I actually can order a beer in 47 languages, and get out of jail in 15…gotta work on that). Arabic is one that I flat out, early on, refused to even consider.
I mean, c’mon, these guys gave us al-gebra. That lead to calculus and topology.
As if differential equations wasn’t bad enough.
Sorry, I digress.
So, I’m a teacher.
I am the very model of a modern geo-professorial,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
(Especially the mineral…)
I know the stratigraphy of England, and I quote the fights historical (too true)
From William ‘Strata” Smith to ‘Soapy Sam’ Rev. Samuel Wilberforce,
in orders categorical…
And so on…
Done this before, and know the ropes. First and foremost, get the course requirements out front and let everyone know, from day one, what’s expected.
And so on…
Therefore, hopefully (but not expectantly) preventing the inevitable: “Will this be on the test?”
Yes.
“Does attendance count?”
Nope. I don’t care if you’re there or not. I get paid the same and this ain’t Ding-Dong School, tweedles. But miss an exam and I’m going to get all Neanderthal on you.
“My father is a minister!”
Well. Hooray for you. Doesn’t in the least impact your utter failure. I’m sure he’ll be pleased when we mail out grades.
So, I’m being paid to impart knowledge of a certain rocky and mineraly type, and these local bozos are paying to imitate Spongebob Squarepants and soak up said knowledge if only to regurgitate it back, in some small form, on my way-too-lenient exams. Only then will you be allowed into the hallowed halls of erudition, that is, if you’ve paid your dues…
And all are (sorry if fratching, but after 13 years over here, I’m entitled) entitlement whores. Sorry, it’s endemic around here.
Onto and into the fray of suckosity…
Let’s see…
“You failed me!”
No, you failed yourself. Your answers were not only wrong, but irrelevant and stupid.
Next.
“I couldn’t afford the book!”
Sorry about that. But there’s this thing called a ‘library’ that loans books. And though Tibor Gasparik’s book on petrologic ternary diagrams is pricey (US$299), I have 5 copies in my personal lending library that no one has bothered to borrow.
Next.
Him: أنا لا أقرأ / التحدث باللغة الإنجليزية. (“I don’t read/speak English”)
Me: Но это необходимое условие для этого курса. (“But that's a prerequisite for this course.”)
Him: “What did you say?”
Me: Gotcha.
You still fail. And no soup for you, 1 Year!
Next.
Oh, the fun of absolute power.
On exam day, I make a point of only handing out blue test booklets to those who are actually on time for the exam. You come in late, it’s a white book for you (I couldn’t be more fucking obvious; but to this day, no one has ever caught on.)
So, it’s mid-terms. I’m sitting at my desk, reading Fark, the Onion and other scholarly pursuits, when a local chappie wanders in about 20 minutes late and asks for an exam book.
“Certainly, my good man. But work quickly, you only have 40 minutes left. Here’s your book”.
Nicely white, just like his dishdasha (“Going out to pester camels later?”, I think, but wisely not articulate...)
Forty minutes zoom by, I call “pencil’s down” and ask for the retrieval of said booklets for grading.
Most all are handed in, except for one, who is writing like he’s just been given a list of porno movie for free, just check the boxes (sorry about the pun).
“Pencils, pens, charcoal, and crayons down. Testing time is over. Please hand in your tests NOW!”
After 10 minutes, the lone deranger sidles up with his test booklet and asks: “Do you know who I am?”
Figuring I’m about to have yet another run-in with some minister-without-portfolio, I truthfully say “Nope.”
“Thought so…” and quicker than a bunny fucks, he slides in his exam booklet into the stack of 40 or so others residing on my desk.
I’ll leave it to you, gentle reader, to ascertain his severe error.
Gad. I’m glad to leave the hubbub of academia for the peace and quiet of the oil industry.
*30*
Been a while since I’ve posted last, but things here in the wonderful, sunny, hot, humid, sizzling, ‘cook an egg on your car’s front seat’ Middle East have been a bit, well…, odd.
(Yes, I do get paid extra for extraneous punctuation…).
Seems my contract with a certain oil company (whose name isn’t, but should be: ‘Pretty Damned Obstinate’ (at least the initials work)) has decided that for one or another of idiot reasons, after 8 wonderful years, my contract was not to be renewed. Evidently, those who are employed in what passes for economic forecasting around here, have decided that since oil, a while back, was selling for US$130/barrel and is now only going for US$81.23 (at least according to Oilex.com), they’re losing a whopping US$48.77/barrel (Which raises the obvious question: “What is a “whop”?), and therefore are going to spin into one of their decennial austerity routines and get shed of all those expensive, talented and possessing of a load of global experience, Western Expatriates.
Got that? Does the oddball accountancy give you a headache as well?
Long story short (I know, “too late.”), I was bereft of work. And I wasn’t even in Tokyo.
(“Bereft”?…miss the last plane out of Japan…Never mind…)
Anyways.
So, once again, I was a free agent.
Disinclined as I am to returning to the slaughterhouse, scrap yard or burger joint (adventures of which are available here, free; another advantage of your subscription to Customers Suck) I was in search of work.
I won’t bore you with the details of my wanting to stay here in the Sultanate so my youngest could graduate high school (her 14’th school in her varied and dare say I, global, academic career) and my earnest desire not to pay taxes (none here at all, except on booze at hotels, where I’m sure I’m financing more than a couple of Indian and Pakistani fella’s kids through college…).
I was looking for a job.
Oh, sure, I had loads of offers in other wonderful places: Buenos Aires, Moscow, Houston, Cairo, Doha, Dubai, Al Khafji (…eeesh…), but I really wanted to hang around and be with the family.
When out of the blue (and hazy, hot and dusty) air comes the notice that a certain university was looking for ad hoc (non-tenure track) professors.
Tab A. Slot B.
Get the picture?
Beware all ye tyros, Doc Rocknocker is approaching, laden with more degrees than a thermometer factory, 30 years of worldly experience (remind me to tell you the tale of getting bombed in a hotel bar in Baku…), a hungry look in his eye and a cheeseburger in his pocket (another story all together).
Scooter, this ain’t gonna be like TA’ing in the states.
I am being paid to teach the locals about geology. Rocks. Minerals. T-diagrams. And other such boring stuff that eventually leads to oil and money. It’s an accredited university (through some sort of agreement with a uni out of Scotland, of all places), I’m staff and my word is law.
If only.
If only.
I write the prospecti for my courses, and every last one includes as a prerequisite “English is the language of the course. Written as well as spoken.” (We’re like Air Traffic Controllers, we Oil Field Trash; we might come from hither and yon, but the lingua franca is English. Right? I mean everyone understands English, just as long as you speak it LOUD ENOUGH! Right? RIGHT?)
Well, besides the fact that I speak fluent English (and American, Australian, Tasmanian, Barbadian, Jamaican, Canadian…) Russian, Castilian, and Mandarin (I actually can order a beer in 47 languages, and get out of jail in 15…gotta work on that). Arabic is one that I flat out, early on, refused to even consider.
I mean, c’mon, these guys gave us al-gebra. That lead to calculus and topology.
As if differential equations wasn’t bad enough.
Sorry, I digress.
So, I’m a teacher.
I am the very model of a modern geo-professorial,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
(Especially the mineral…)
I know the stratigraphy of England, and I quote the fights historical (too true)
From William ‘Strata” Smith to ‘Soapy Sam’ Rev. Samuel Wilberforce,
in orders categorical…
And so on…
Done this before, and know the ropes. First and foremost, get the course requirements out front and let everyone know, from day one, what’s expected.
And so on…
Therefore, hopefully (but not expectantly) preventing the inevitable: “Will this be on the test?”
Yes.
“Does attendance count?”
Nope. I don’t care if you’re there or not. I get paid the same and this ain’t Ding-Dong School, tweedles. But miss an exam and I’m going to get all Neanderthal on you.
“My father is a minister!”
Well. Hooray for you. Doesn’t in the least impact your utter failure. I’m sure he’ll be pleased when we mail out grades.
So, I’m being paid to impart knowledge of a certain rocky and mineraly type, and these local bozos are paying to imitate Spongebob Squarepants and soak up said knowledge if only to regurgitate it back, in some small form, on my way-too-lenient exams. Only then will you be allowed into the hallowed halls of erudition, that is, if you’ve paid your dues…
And all are (sorry if fratching, but after 13 years over here, I’m entitled) entitlement whores. Sorry, it’s endemic around here.
Onto and into the fray of suckosity…
Let’s see…
“You failed me!”
No, you failed yourself. Your answers were not only wrong, but irrelevant and stupid.
Next.
“I couldn’t afford the book!”
Sorry about that. But there’s this thing called a ‘library’ that loans books. And though Tibor Gasparik’s book on petrologic ternary diagrams is pricey (US$299), I have 5 copies in my personal lending library that no one has bothered to borrow.
Next.
Him: أنا لا أقرأ / التحدث باللغة الإنجليزية. (“I don’t read/speak English”)
Me: Но это необходимое условие для этого курса. (“But that's a prerequisite for this course.”)
Him: “What did you say?”
Me: Gotcha.
You still fail. And no soup for you, 1 Year!
Next.
Oh, the fun of absolute power.
On exam day, I make a point of only handing out blue test booklets to those who are actually on time for the exam. You come in late, it’s a white book for you (I couldn’t be more fucking obvious; but to this day, no one has ever caught on.)
So, it’s mid-terms. I’m sitting at my desk, reading Fark, the Onion and other scholarly pursuits, when a local chappie wanders in about 20 minutes late and asks for an exam book.
“Certainly, my good man. But work quickly, you only have 40 minutes left. Here’s your book”.
Nicely white, just like his dishdasha (“Going out to pester camels later?”, I think, but wisely not articulate...)
Forty minutes zoom by, I call “pencil’s down” and ask for the retrieval of said booklets for grading.
Most all are handed in, except for one, who is writing like he’s just been given a list of porno movie for free, just check the boxes (sorry about the pun).
“Pencils, pens, charcoal, and crayons down. Testing time is over. Please hand in your tests NOW!”
After 10 minutes, the lone deranger sidles up with his test booklet and asks: “Do you know who I am?”
Figuring I’m about to have yet another run-in with some minister-without-portfolio, I truthfully say “Nope.”
“Thought so…” and quicker than a bunny fucks, he slides in his exam booklet into the stack of 40 or so others residing on my desk.
I’ll leave it to you, gentle reader, to ascertain his severe error.
Gad. I’m glad to leave the hubbub of academia for the peace and quiet of the oil industry.
*30*
(Sorry. Stupid, I know)
We Aussies DO speak English you know....
Not really seeing much of a difference in your correction of my comment. It was still a funny kick in the pants and a twist on the old joke that there were 2 different colours of paper in this case, whether they were the actual test pages or answer books. 
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