SEB Bulletin January 2006 - Ratbag
It's cold, it's dark and it's early on a Monday morning in January. Dr Workhard lies in bed, fully aware of the need to prepare for the day ahead, but he is finding it difficult to motivate himself. His knees are playing up again. Fortunately there will soon be an operation to repair the torn cartilage and a couple of ligaments. He shivers with embarrassment as he remembers his wild dancing at the end-of-conference disco: how could his attempts to draw himself to the attention of those impressionable Ph.D. students have yielded such an ignominious result? Fortunately, Workhard's colleagues seemed to have no trouble believing his account that the visible hobbling was the recurrence of an old footballing injury, and this story did no harm to Workhard's efforts to give credence to his man-of-the-people image.
But a new year has begun. Workhard reassures himself that although his physical frame is falling apart with age, his intellect is still there - aggressive as ever and able to compete with the best. With all the scientific achievements, it is such a shame that no particular honours or prizes have resulted. There have been, it is true, occasional overseas invitations. Just last month he'd been in Stockholm examining a doctoral thesis and had enjoyed an extra day as a tourist exploring the magnificent Royal Palace. He had noted with pleasure the reception room where the King hosted Nobel prizewinners.
“Of course”, Workhard admits to himself, “I'm not in the Nobel league. But just some sort of official recognition will do: establishment acknowledgement or a medal or something”.
But there's a huge problem, Workhard reflects. As a relatively senior scientist, Workhard finds himself increasingly distracted by social events: a seemingly endless list of local receptions, dinners and presentations. This evening, for example, he'd foolishly committed himself to attending a dinner in honour of a delegation from Thailand that is visiting his department to discuss potential for collaborative research on global environmental change.
The evening arrives, and Workhard finds himself sitting at the dinner. The food is sumptuous, and the wine is flowing and having emerged from his grumpy reflections of the morning Workhard finally decides he ought to speak with the relaxed Thai visitor to his left. She gives him her business card which Workhard carelessly displaces among the multiple wine glasses. Dr Preeyanan seems to have some interesting ideas on energy and the environment - so challenging, indeed, that Workhard finds himself out of his scientific depth quite quickly. “But she's only a civil servant: merely a Deputy Permanent Secretary in some ministry or other”, Workhard reminds himself.
Workhard picks up Dr Preeyanan's business card during a lull in the conversation. On the card is a photo of Dr Preeyanan - not as she appears so elegantly now in her dinner dress, but in a rather militaristic-looking uniform: a white jacket with gold braids, a tie, a sash.
“So”, Workhard begins rather patronisingly, “is this the uniform you graduated in or qualified in or… ummm.. something?”
“No,” replies Dr Preeyanan in a matter-of-fact way, “it's simply what I wear when I meet the King.”
Workhard almost chokes on his chocolate flan. The King! Regrouping quickly, he decides that probably the King meets everyone in this seemingly far-flung country. He probes a little further, regaining the patronising posture. Pointing to a medal with a blue ribbon pinned to Dr Preeyanan's right shoulder in the photo, Workhard says,
“And I suppose the King gave you that medal too?”
“A king, yes”, replies Preeyanan, calmly, “but not our King. This medal is from the King of Sweden”.
“Awarded in the Royal Palace, I suppose?”
“Exactly so and in the same reception room where the Nobel Laureates gather. It was great fun!”
Workhard lies in bed at the end of a strange day. His knees are still giving pain, but the mental torment is worse. He is certain that there are some lessons in professionalism, respect and snobbery that can be drawn from the day's events. But sleep beckons, dreams of medals will ensue, and Workhard is sure that early on Tuesday some conclusions will emerge.