Ph.D. Madness: Hungry Eyes

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A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to give a speech at a congress in the North. Since I was one of the junior lecturers, I got to hang out with the other lecturers (the ‘real’ ones). True to the statistics, most of them were older white men, while among the lower ranks, there were mostly women.

Either way, it was a weekend that gave me some slack-jawing insights into the system, which style could be paraphrased by “Boys will be boys”. – Really, there are days where I am very, very glad that I don’t have to date in that pool.

Upon my return, my Ph.D. friends asked for my main impression, and in thinking about the congress days, I was surprised that I didn’t remember the speeches that much (not even my own. It got droned out by adrenaline).

My first thought was hunger. And not of the figurative kind.

On congresses, just like at theater productions, the important conversations happen after the official parts – over lunch break, and at the dinner after the last speech has been given.

Since I was part of the lecturing group, I was allowed to come along for those meetings, but the problems started when we entered the restaurants. Most of the other lecturers had professor status. That means they have a basic monthly salary between 3600 € and 4700 € (by international standards, laughable, but the highest salary possible for a professor in Germany). I don’t know whether any of them got paid for their speeches. As a junior lecturer (monthly salary: 0 €), I didn’t get a salary for my speech. In fact, the reason they invite junior researchers to speak is because they know you will jump at the opportunity and do it for free. That’s fine, but it doesn’t feed you.

These lecturer dinner rounds are the best networking opportunities you can get, so of course you go there. And you have to order something, or the others will give you funny looks. In my experience, they resent being reminded of the less fortunate while eating (or perhaps they just hate to remember a situation they’ve had to go through themselves at some point).

So you read the menu, try not to blush with humiliation at the realization that, with your weekly allowance from your savings, you can’t even afford the salad, and then, with a polite smile, cite a slightly upset stomach (“I’m so nervous about my upcoming speech” – *cue fond paternal chuckles around the table*) and have “just a cup of chamomile tea, please”. Or you claim “I’m not really hungry, thanks”, and order the smallest soup on the menu, hoping your stomach won’t betray you by grumbling.

And then you try to eat/drink slowly, so that the waitress won’t ask you whether you’d like something else, and you try to stay attentive and make witty small talk so that the professors around you may remember you for another conference or a possible job interview. Eventually, you get a headache, and you begin to see pasta plates wandering by in front of your inner eye like sheep at night when you try to fall asleep. Meanwhile, left and right of you, people dig into lamb chops and sirloin steak. The critical point is reached when you see black dots dancing at the edges of your vision. At that point, you should excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and, safely locked into a stall, eat the muesli bar your brought from home and smuggled along in your handbag.

— At the theater, I’ve been through a lot of work lunches and late discussion nights at some seedy pub or other, surrounded by cigarette smoke and sexist jokes, but even the most unfriendly directors I’ve worked with always paid the assistants and interns a beer or a simple meal.

I had to think about that when I made my way back to the congress hotel (at least they paid for that!) at night – “No thanks, no cab, I’d like to take a walk, actually.” – Most of the theater directors I worked with earned less than each of the professors who spoke at the congress.

And then, closing my room door behind me, I was incredibly happy about a late night cold meal of crispbread and hart smoked chorizo that my loving Spanish girlfriend packed for me. For dessert, a few unhealthy, but stomach-quieting cheap chocolate bars that I bought at the supermarket before I left for the congress, and the hunger-induced exhaustion and headache faded away. I dropped into bed with a smile. Another congress day mastered!

…Of course, then you have to sleep quickly since you want to be early at breakfast to eat as much as you can to last until the next evening. You would take an extra roll from the breakfast buffet with you, to eat in a break at the bathrooms of the congress hall, but you can’t do it because you don’t want the other lecturers at the breakfast table to give you odd looks.

Really, and people think that the speeches are the challenging part about going to a congress…

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— Note: If I ever make it to professor, I’ll make it a point to invite the unpaid junior lecturers at my congresses for dinner.

~ by Anik LaChev on April 19, 2008.