Leonie Christopherson

  There were two things that horrified me when I first started working at the University. The first was the rank structure and arrogance of the teaching staff. A Senior Lecturer was a cut above a Lecturer, a Principal Lecturer was superior to a Senior Lecture and secondly, ALL of them thought they were seriously superior to the General or Support Staff. To my surprise, I found the Academics were far more rank conscious than anyone I had encountered in our army life. And don't you forget it. I had a humble arts degree myself – gained as an adult in the seventies when free tertiary education was introduced. If it wasn't for Gough Whitlam I would never have gained a degree. I said this once to a staunch Liberal and she said ‘Yes, and the country is still paying for your free degree.' Working full time for a very low salary, with our three boys all in private school (and eating us out of house and home) – there was no way we could have afforded to pay for me to attend University part-time for the required six years. So I'm still extremely grateful for the opportunity to study and doors have opened for me as a consequence of the confidence that such study provided. I would never have achieved what I have without it. In an ideal world, there would be more ongoing educational support for all women in similar situations. Because of my husband's mobile army career, I had held a total of eleven different jobs, trying to find work wherever we lived. Army pay was notoriously low in those days and a steady rise in my own advertising career was not possible.. So I would happily take secretarial positions where I could find them, but was not the type to be subservient. So when I arrived at the University I was in no way in awe of the academics and their qualifications, unlike the general support staff of whom I was to be in charge. My own boss, the Head of the Faculty was extremely unpopular and some of the Lecturers would not speak to me as his Personal Assistant to show their attitude to him. Or if they did speak, they were incredibly rude. It became so bad at once stage I applied for another job as Medical Secretary to a urologist. I was offered the job – but decided – no, I would only be exchanging shit for wee. ‘ I'll make this place change' I vowed privately. So I developed the technique of backing the bad guys into corners on the stairs with a bright ‘Good morning!' until they replied. I still had a long way to go though as one morning I buzzed the boss on the internal intercom to say ‘Michael is here to see you, Dr. Foley.' Michael swung on his heel to enter the Head's office and said imperiously to me over his shoulder – ‘Mr. O'Hara to you.'   Foolish fellow. Each floor in our Faculty building had a room for three or four typists and each was allocated to one or two academics. The academics varied from the kind and considerate to the bullying and overbearing. The bad guys often overloaded the staff with frantic last minute typing requests of handouts before class to compensate for their own laziness and shortcomings as teaching staff. The teaching staff's housekeeping of their own rooms varied from the totally chaotic to the clinically tidy and clean. Before I arrived, one academic (guess who?) had, in order to keep his own room pristine and uncluttered, moved one of his four drawer filing cabinets into the typists' room. They were somewhat crowded as it was and also, they all liked to imprint their own personalities on their share of the space (fluffy toys, family pictures, plants, and/or incense burners). The invasion of the filing cabinet was deeply resented and caused further distance between the Academic & General staff. But as this was fait accompli before I arrived, I did not feel I could do anything about the situation. Until, after a year, one of the girls came to me one day to complain that he had moved a second four drawer filing cabinet into their space. This meant war. I sent Michael a light and bright memo requesting that, as the typists' room was already overcrowded, would he please move it somewhere else. The stand-off lasted for three days with Himself stalking past me whenever we saw each other without speaking. To think a slave had dared approach a superior Lecturer with such a request! Pure anarchy, who did she think she was? A modern day Spartacus? Where would it all end? The peasants were, indeed, revolting. Michael was one of those European men who wear the same shirt for several days, with the consequent aromatic results. Surprisingly, he was having an affair with the pretty secretary from a different section of the University whose office was opposite mine. He would often drop in to see her – but the relationship was somewhat fragile because if she didn't receive a daily romantic poem on her desk she would have an emotional breakdown. She would grab her box of tissues, race downstairs to the tearoom, sobbing as she went. Years later I was pleased to hear she had married a very wealthy man and lived happily ever after in exotic locations world-wide. After three days there was still no movement of the filing cabinet. I thought of moving it out of the typists' office into the hallway but knew he would just move it back in again – and the confrontation could go on for ever. It needed to be moved somewhere that would make a statement. But how? And where? All the best ideas always come at three in the morning. I had master keys to the building and being a very early riser, I dressed in casual, furniture moving clothes, complete with gloves and got to the University at 7 am . I quite often arrived early – and was well known to all the cleaners. As a precaution I took our black German shepherd dog with me, and a small carpeted car mat. The car park and building was deserted at that hour. I dashed upstairs to the typists' room and manoeuvred the filing cabinet on to the car mat with the carpet side down. The corridors were always superbly polished by the cleaners and it only took seconds to push the filing cabinet the length of the building into a room at the end of the hallway. I zapped back and re-locked the office and fled towards the car park. One of my favourite cleaners was just arriving, she looked at me and the dog in astonishment – ‘Maria! You haven't seen me!' No, she shook her head wordlessly. I went home and dressed for the office but was quite late in officially arriving that day as my boss was working from home that week following knee surgery and our practice was that I would stop by his home to get orders and work for the day. The first person I saw when I arrived in the building was Maria. ‘Someone very angry' she said. ‘He walk all over the building searching for something.' I put my finger to my lips and she nodded happily. She didn't like him either. Feeling very nervous I continued to my own office. The University had a considerable security staff and I was concerned they would be called in. I also cannot lie very well and look guilty even going through customs when carrying nothing questionable. On the way in I passed the Student Administrative Assistant for the Faculty, who adored a gossip. ‘Someone's stolen Michael O'Hara's filing cabinet!' She announced with great glee. ‘Yeah. It was me.' I whispered. ‘YOU!' ‘Yes, but I don't want Security to be called in. Can you see they're not?'   She retired speechless. Michael and the building manager continued to prowl the faculty building. But it wasn't until after 11 am that Michael had cause to go to the men's toilet on the top floor. There – coyly facing the urinal was the disappearing filing cabinet. With a roar of rage he stormed down to the ground floor to get the building manager. Carrying it like a coffin – it took the two of them to manhandle it back down the corridor to an empty office opposite Michael's. The Student Admin Officer had alerted the girls who were equally gleeful, the whole floor watched the cortege from behind their half-closed doors. I found the next few months extremely difficult as I felt my guilt was too evident and I felt sure he would have guessed who had done it. But the fact that the cabinet was so heavy convinced him that it must have been a man. He immediately suspected the hefty student boyfriend of one of the typists and vindictively marked his assignments down. He voiced his suspicions to me and I blushed so guiltily I had to make an excuse to leave the room. The Building Manager said to me conversationally one day ‘ You know we had been looking for somewhere else to put it.' ‘Ah well, that wasn't fast enough for someone.' I replied, calmly. At the next General Staff social function held off-campus, the general staff presented me with a magnificent sports-style trophy, with a little gold figure on top of a business woman holding a briefcase, engraved – TO LOON (my nickname) OUR HEROINE. They also told one of the nice academics who the culprit was. He was delighted ‘You are FORMIDABLE' he said in admiration ‘Please can I be the one to tell him when you go?' I continued working at the University for several more years until we were transferred to another State. However, over ten years later I met up with the suspected student who had subsequently married the beautiful secretary and also lived happily ever after and was able to apologise to him for his poor grades from one disgruntled lecturer. They told me that Michael was holding a very low grade position in an eminently forgettable University. It may take time, but justice does prevail. The moral of this story is that good managers do not ride roughshod over their subordinates, if you treat them like the gold they are, they will walk through fire for you.