The overpowering job insecurity
She was Afsana Nazneen (37),
mother of two school going kids with five members in family to look after
worked for a private university in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her husband worked for
another private organization with a salary that gets spent for the house rent.
So it’s the salary of Afsana which was required for the living & food
expenditure for her family. By the end of month after meeting all the necessary
expenses, she got to save nothing for any kind of emergency. She worked as an
Assistant Professor in a B category private university in Dhaka. She used to
start her day with making snacks for her kids & breakfast & lunch for
the family. Then she had to take the kids to school facing extreme traffic jam
& had to set out for office which was a journey of an hour. Once she was in
office, she was a complete professional person. She worked really hard both for
her family & university. She had no qualm in accepting varied courses allotted
to her to conduct for any trimester. She exerted her best effort in classroom
teaching, counseling for weak students, educating ethics & taking them out
to industry visit apart from arranging club programs & performing any
administrative work imposed to her on ad hoc basis.
Recently her departmental head was
changed. The new dean had no considerate viewpoint for employees. This new dean
was highlighting all the minor faults of employees & was sending reports to
higher authority & trying to halt annual increments. When he failed to
deliberately identify minor glitches of faculties as almost all performed job
with sheer sincerity, he started to find deficiencies of the teachers by
skimming through each one’s file bringing down from HR department.
Soon he found that one trimester before;
Afsana could not fill up the required number of office hours for 2 months for
prolonged sickness of her child. Dean took this matter too seriously & this
issue which was addressed to & settled by deducting certain amounts from
the monthly salary of Afsana by the previous dean again was been given life.
Afsana who had no idea about this addressed issue was performing her duties diligently,
suddenly got to know from a colleague that dean said faculties who could not
fulfill the required working hours which is thirty five hours in a week would
be going under serious scrutiny which would lead to job termination. Now this
news was nothing short of a catastrophe to Afsana. She was petrified with the
probable effect of this. A job sack would mean her income would stop; her kids
would no longer be able to attend school, no medicine for elders in the family,
no ability to meet up any sudden emergency cost.
These thoughts attacked Afsana in
such a way that she lost her zeal & enthusiasm for work. With each passing
day dean started to spread this news that soon Afsana’s job will be sacked.
Afsana got support from her colleagues as they observed her in those difficult times
when she had to rush home after conducting classes regularly. Her younger child
was suffering from a prolonged disease.
When Afsana got to know that such
news is known to everyone & all are talking to her with sympathy, she broke
down & went to meet the dean but dean seemed indifferent to the rumor that
was being circulated. Afsana realized that things are not good for her. Her job
security was at stake as dean was showing cold vibe. Suddenly, two of her
colleagues got to know that soon a dismissal letter was going to be released by
the recommendation of dean. Those colleagues called for a meeting & went to
meet dean & vice chancellor appealing to retain Afsana considering her
consecutive brilliant performance for seven years & how Afsana covered up
for those missing hours. Finally after the discussion & appeal decision was
made to retain Afsana canceling her annual increment. With some investigation
it was evident that dean wanted to sack Afsana in order to bring in some other
person of his acquaintances.
The issue was solved but it left
a scar in Afsana’s personality. Afsana changed & the changes were:
· - She
became severely affected & afraid of the dean & the job environment.
Nothing seemed to get her back to normal psychological condition.
·
- When this case was widespread Afsana who
worked for more than seven years was re-introduced as a weak faculty member in
front of everyone. Not only faculty members but administrative staffs also used
to talk about her perceived faults which hurt her ego & she lost self
efficacy.
· - She
got highly frustrated. She kept asking
everyone if there was any news about her dismissal once again. She had accepted
the fact that there was no hope in her professional life. No matter how honest
of a performer she was, nobody would recognize & appreciate her for that.
With such drastic & traumatic
change in her job life regarding job insecurity, it affected her personal life
big time. She herself admitted that she was not that well behaved in the family
with all the dear ones any more. She gets agitated frequently & tensed
which brings her nightmares regarding job loss & the broke condition of
life as the consequence.
Author:- Abu Md. Abdullah
+8801818276710
abdullah.du@gmail.com
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