Well, I had my meeting with the head of school. And I brought up the salaries. I told him I had agonised over whether or not to ask him about it but essentially I wanted to know for my own reference purposes. I phrased it along the lines of "how are salaries determined, as I discovered through the conversations of one of the other new people that I was getting the same salary as he was yet he had no PhD." Initially it was said that this guy had his viva very soon but I said no, he had yet to submit his PhD and hadn't the experience of teaching undergrads and postgrads that I had. The head of school realised who it was and said his name and I confirmed yes, but from that I assume that he too was under the assumption that the guy had his PhD. Essentially, I was told that HR decide the salaries and any new person starting out would start on the same salary unless the interview panel thought there were strong reasons for having a higher starting salary. All well and good but if the panel were misled as to someone's qualifications, how then are they to base a decision on whether to start someone higher up the salary scale? Anyway, it's said and done and I think I did it in a nice way so as not to get the head's back up.
One of the reasons I was adamant I wanted to say something is that I applied unsuccessfully for more than 50 jobs before getting one and got no job offers without my PhD so it does grate that this person appears to have lied and have got a job as the result of the lie. At the time of accepting the job I wasn't in a fit a state to bargain with them over salary as I was less than 2 weeks after my hip replacement and doped to the eyeballs on painkillers. I will know in future to ask for that little bit more if and when I change jobs!
Today I started looking at the textbooks of one of the subjects I'm teaching. I've never taught it before or even studied it, but I'm not unduly worried about it. I've decided most of this week will be given over to the teaching prep and getting to grips with the basics of it. Next Monday or Tuesday I will have another look at this damned book review and try and amend it as to their suggestions. Then I will finally get a look at my thesis and start preparing it as the book for next March! Things have started to get busy for me.
2 comments:
Well done you for raising the subject. I think that you tackled it in exactly the right way, and with luck you have sewn seeds of doubt about the suitability of the other candidate and he will have to watch his step very carefully because if he has deliberately misled the university, it will not do him any good in the long run.
You certainly seem happier now that you are settling into the job, and all you need to do now is sit down and deal with sorting out the book review and then getting to work on your own book.
You're getting more confident already. Just keep doing more of the same and you will ace it.
You definitely did the right thing in raising the subject tactfully. It's never a good idea to lie in job interviews, and I suspect this guy is going to find out about that pretty soon. Let us know any developments.
I've read your blog and got up to date - it's very interesting. I've blogrolled you :)
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