Chairs

Funny how I have this history with chairs, tables, posts and bosses. I get to recall it oh so suddenly after I told my daughter how luxurious looking were the conference table and swivel chairs in my current boss' office. I am happily (acceptingly) holding office under the stairs with an old teacher's table which has missed its side drawer but repainted yellow by a younger colleague who thought I would have some use for it in my reading hub project. It was a better table than the one I have in our current faculty room. I couldn't even put my laptop in that 1'x2' space alloted to me but that one, too was better than the "whatever" space I could get on a table I shared with my colleagues for several months last year inside that space grudgingly given to us by the science department in the building supposedly for OUR department. Confused already? 

 

Anyway, my current "lungga" under the stairs also has two extra armchairs on which I can put my things but I sit on a monobloc stool which happened to make itself available for me during Brigada Eskwela. I am quite content with my space now bec I get to work on a bigger table in between classes and the books and cabinet donated to my reading hub project are right next to me. The admin was able to fulfill my lone request of a grill gate which I can padlock at the end of the day. Currently, a cat and her kittens have discovered my cave and have helped themselves to my boxes. 

In my previous schools, chairs, desks and bosses also figured prominently. At the Morayta tech college, I had my own table, an ergonomic chair which was scheduled to be replaced when I resigned, and a laptop. I shared the domain with three other faculty members who helped me run the language center. I miss the place , its furniture and equipment and the services it offered to students. My bosses' offices of course were royalty compared to the one we had. I guess, this is true in many companies, the big bosses have it all really good when it comes to amenities. Still, I remain mighty proud of that office which I left behind to go teach in a public school nearby.

My cubicle at the Taft university was also something many public school teachers will not experience. All probationary and tenured faculty had individual cubicles huge enough for all the paperwork our job entailed. We had a well-appointed faculty room on the 15th floor. I would have stayed there til retirement but I had problems with my Chair. Yes, the boss, not the furniture.

Speaking of Chairs, I was Chair for Mass Com in a university chain years ago. Funny though that in my first month, our office was too crowded with Chairs and staff that I didn't have a chair! That university chain had all the illusion of being an academic leader in something but it was really just a business that thought so little of students and teachers. 

I am feeling a bit sad that my current boss (with whom I get along well, actually) has a very beautiful office. I don't know if she doesn't feel out of place because the rest of the school needs refurbishing. I don't know why bosses can actually enjoy amenities when their constituents are in need of even the most basic - chairs, tables, fans, toilets. I hope my boss will go visit the rest of the school more often lest she be thought of less than she deserves by the community . Under Duterte, I fear that we're back to the old rotten ways at the education department. I was inspired by Bro. Armin to transfer to the public school. I don't know but Sec Briones , despite possibly similarly intentioned as her predecessor, is too old and weak to oversee the department which in its history was once the most corrupt government agency. Huge, complicated... too great a responsibility. Ideals are lost like chairs, missed like the drawer on my yellow table.