I’m hired! Permanently! Forever! YAY!

S 78/04: TILSETTING I STILLING SOM F?òRSTEAMANUENSIS I HUMANISTISK INFORMATIKK
Vedtak: Arbeidsutvalget tilsetter Jill Walker i utlyst stilling som f??rsteamanuensis i humanistisk informatikk med virkning fra 01.10.2004.

I’ve been teaching here at Humanistic Informatics on temporary contracts for over a year and a half, and it’s been looking very likely I’d be staying for quite some time, but it was only just made official. I don’t have the contract yet, but it’s definitely decided: the minutes of the last meeting in whichever committee decides these things confirms it.

In Norway we don’t do tenure the way Americans do. (Do any other countries? Australia doesn’t, anyway.) University employees have the same rights as any other worker in the country, and it’s illegal to keep the same person in the same job on temporary contracts for longer than – two years, I think? If you want someone to do a job for that long, you have to hire them permanently. I’m glad we don’t have the American system. Sure, the years of uncertainty before tenure is (hopefully) granted may produce more frenetic publication, but I know I work better when I’m less stressed and less anxious.

An added bonus is that in Norway there’s no intermediate step between a nice fresh lecturer like me and a full professor. I suppose that means I’ll have a longer wait till I can go for my next promotion, but it also means that my title right now, f??rsteamanuensis, translates to English as associate professor. Dr Jill Walker, Associate Professor. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Wow. I could stay here for the rest of my life if I wanted. I think it’s highly unlikely that I will, but I love knowing that I can keep this job at least until my daughter’s grown. That’s, like, a whole decade!

28 thoughts on “hired!

  1. Beernd

    Cool! Congratulations! I’m glad Norway has a ‘flexlawt’, as we call it in Holland, too. 🙂

  2. steve

    Well done! Now you can use your secure position from which to write tyranical tracts of paranoid venom without fear of reprisal. Or, um, not…

  3. mjones

    Congrats! Yours sounds like a much better system. (Of course, I’m up for tenure this year so I’m not rational about it.)

  4. noah

    Yay!

    Congratulations, Jill.

  5. Jason

    Congratulations!

  6. Lars

    Congratulations, Jill!
    By the way, it’s actually illegal to temporarily hire anyone for more than twelve months. Which is why an astonishing amount of temporary positions (“engasjementer”, “prosjektstillinger”) happen to last for eleven months or so. It is not uncommon in the business I’m in to work on contracts like that for eight to ten years. By then, you’re too old to be considered for a permanent position…

  7. Matt

    Congratulations! Don’t let it de-incentivise you. I’m sure it won’t.

  8. Jill

    Oh, it’s twelve months? Yes, that would be why they unemployed me for two weeks last summer. At first I thought it was mere cheapskateness of not wanting to pay me for a fortnight, but I’ve realised since that of course it’s mere cheapskateness cos they didn’t want to suddenly HAVE to give me a permanent position by mistakenedly hiring my temporarily for too long… There are many ways of breaking the spirit of the law…

    🙂

  9. Matt K.

    Well, I’m not surprised–they’re lucky to have you!

  10. Greg

    Go Jill!

  11. Elin

    Gratulerer! Na blir det vel fest?
    Klem,
    Elin

  12. Seb

    Fantastic! Congratulations Jill!!

  13. LiL

    Congratulations!

  14. Trond

    Gratulerer Jill! Glimrende b?•de for deg og for oss andre her i byen!

  15. vika

    That’s wonderful news! Congratulations, Jill!!1!

  16. hilde

    Gratulerer kollega! 🙂

  17. Julie

    Your blog is brilliant, and you deserve this position! Congrats!

  18. Sean

    Huge congratulations. It’s great to see someone get a permanent position and also reach out through a blog or otherwise.

  19. Francois Lachance

    Felicitations.

  20. Scott

    Crack open the bubbly! You won’t find me defending the American system, too busy updating my reappointment file . . . Bergen couldn’t hope to have a better or more productive Associate Professor than you, and you’re kinda cute besides.

  21. diane

    Hooray! Well done!

  22. Jill

    Oh, you darlings! I really should have a party for all us bloggers! Wouldn’t that be fun!

    🙂

  23. Thomas

    Congratulations – the last step on a long road… Nok ?§r det m?•l och mening med v?•r f?§rd, men det er resan som er m??dan v?§rd. (fritt etter hukommelsen – Karin Boje)

  24. George

    Fantastic!

  25. Joanna

    Congradulations!

  26. yenayer

    F?©licitations. Tu seras ainsi plus motiv?©e pour te replonger dans l’apprentissage du fran?ßais 🙂

  27. Jill

    Mais oui! Hier soir j’ai parl?© beaucoup de fran?ßais, avec l’Alliance Fran?ßaise ?° un bar. C’etait formidable!

    🙂

  28. fivecats

    Congrats! Well earned and deserved!

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