A Full-Time Job

This is the fourth episode in the series "Mystery of the Missing Research".

Previous episode: Siegfried and the Professor

After a couple of weeks, I realized that the part-time job was not going to cover my costs. This is partly due to the high taxes in Germany, but mostly due to the fact that under German law, I still have to pay private health insurance. It’s so complicated. One of the main reasons I took a job as an employee was so that the employer would contribute to my massive private health insurance costs. In fact, the university’s HR Department promised me on the phone that they would take over almost half of these costs, as is customary. After two weeks, it turned out that the guy who assured me of that had got the facts totally wrong! Instead of paying what was discussed, it turns out that they will only pay about one-eighth. The net pay is so low that it makes a big difference. Plus, there are higher travel costs than I expected and more tax. Quite literally, it is not worth me doing this job at all!! I am left with so little net that I could be earning more by staying at home and doing a couple of small translation projects every month.

There is no other solution at the moment but to take on a full-time job in order to survive. However, I am not convinced that, even with a full-time job as a secretary here, I will be earning enough to be living a half-way comfortable life. I simply hadn’t foreseen this situation and to be honest, the HR Department has screwed up a lot.

I have spoken to Kurt about this, and he was very understanding. “One of Professor Eichner’s secretaries is leaving at the end of the year”, he told me. “It’s possible you could take over her position and combine it with this one, so we could turn yours into a full-time job”.

I sure hope there is more going on in her job than there is in mine!

Professor Eichner has two secretaries, Uschi and Marianne. Marianne is his personal secretary, while Uschi works for the whole Institute. They both sit in the office next door to his, in the secretariat. We are all much the same age, although Uschi is a bit older, and that’s why she’s leaving, to retire.

They are both pleasant enough. I don’t want to have any problems with anyone here. I have my private life, which is probably a bit more interesting than most people’s, because I need a lot of diversity. I literally go out and make things happen. But I’m not planning to make friends here.

One of the things I am doing this year is working together with an archive in England on World War II research. As a historian, the World Wars are my specialist topics, and most of my research is dedicated to them. The archive has several events organized this year, to which I am invited and at which I will hold talks. I can take some of my leave from the university for these visits, and the archive pays a lot of the expenses. In addition, I answered a Call for Papers from another network last year about World War I, and my paper was accepted. So in June I am holding this paper at a university in Scotland.

The great thing about Kurt is that he’s very interested in my research and very supportive. Not only has he offered to read my Scotland paper but he also told me to hold my talk at the Institute, as a kind of dress rehearsal. “Book a lecture room”, he said. “You can invite anyone you like”, but I have just invited everyone from the Institute. My talk is about World War I war memorials, with an accompanying PowerPoint presentation of around 65 photos of memorials that I have taken myself.

Kurt has come to see me this morning on one of his flying visits and he said there is bad news about the job. Apparently, Professor Eichner has turned me down. He doesn’t want me. “He says he doesn’t know you”, Kurt told me. It’s a bit of a shock and a little upsetting. Of course he doesn’t know me. But it seems that I have made such a very bad impression on him that he’s not even interested in getting to know me. “Never mind, we’ll find you something”, Kurt said. Financially, it’s not awful. I have just been offered a massive translation project.