The Pancake-maker and elites, part 44b

So off I went to the Elite Research Institution. The weather was surprisingly warm and I found myself overdressed and sweating, but enjoying the blue sky all the same. I arrived at the place way too early and spent a while sitting in the sun.

Exclusive Eden
I step in, following two young, cheerful and bubbly female researchers who are coming back from their lunch break or a walk. The doorman explains to me how to get to the office of the Hiring Woman, and I step out again, this time on the other side of the building, into the green, grassy inner-garden. The terrace on the other side is covered with further cheerful bubbly academics who are enjoying the last of their sunny meal in communicative clusters around little round tables. They have coffees, capucino. Two women are sitting on the steps and talking casually and pasionnately. It looks more like a scene from a cafe than a work place.
I cross the lawn and walk among these talkative people, then step into the Long Building. The Hiring Woman is standing in the corridor, I recognise her from her internet picture, she perhaps recognises me from my work internet picture too. We walk towards one another uttering the other one's name and greet. I'm still early. She looks friendlier and younger than on her picture. I probably look less a drunken mess than on mine.

She asks me to wait in the kitchen - an orderly and roomy place with a sofa, tables and chairs, and space for about 10 people to enjoy expressos in the same communicative manner as the people outside. She comes back with a bottle of water and a glass, and leaves again. I finally understand that the glass is meant for me and not for decorative purposes.
A young guy comes in, I smile and say hello, so does he. I'm not sure what language he speaks, he stutteringly offers me an expresso. I thank and refuse and understand he's probably not part of the job interview team.
The Hiring Woman comes back and says she's sorry to have to make me wait, but the union person and the woman's rights woman also need to take part in the interview, and they haven't arrived, which is why we can't start yet. Lovely Germany. I say no problem. Drink water and read my draft paper.

Eventually she comes back with the union woman, and we go down to the office of Casual and Soft-spoken American Phd. There, the woman's rights person is also waiting, and the five of us sit down around a table, me at the end, position of honour.

After I've introduced myself in German, American Phd tells me about the position, asks questions. We talk in English. It's very clear that we have very different academic perspectives - realist vs. constructivist, quantitative vs. qualitative methods, political economy vs. political sociology.
He asks if I'd want to work more than the 15 hours a week they offered in the add, I say ideally 16 for more money. That had been my plan all along - my mantra over the last days. Only take the position if they give you 16 for more money. 16 for more money. 16-more money. The idea was to work less than presently, but not lose too much money and get the same amount I would get now if I were to work 16 hours.

The union woman cuts that short and says the Institution is flexible on a lot of issues, but not on the hourly wage. The hourly wage for students working in academia is fixed by a union contract. I'm all for the union-contract for students. It's great. But still, I'd always understood these contracts to set minimal wages, not maximal. She sticks to it, I reply I'd have to think about it.

There is more talk with American PhD. Am I scared of statistical data? Would I accept to work with annual reports of companies, or did I have a marxist perspective forbidding me to use such data? Am I not scared by statistical software? And mathematical symbols? What else do I do besides working and studying?
Eventually, he passes the floor to even softer-spoken women's rights woman. She sweetly but unpassionately tells me about the advantages of working in the institution, even if I only get union-contract wages and I have a different focus than American Phd- access to the large library, to contacts, to events... She sounds like she's doing her best to get me in, she wants to convince me it's good for me - now I realise it's because she probably needs/wants to ensure more women are taken on.

Eventually the interview is over, we have no more questions for one another, I leave with Hiring Woman. They will get in touch tomorrow. I walk once again across the sunny lawn, this time empty. Further away, two young people are sitting at an isolated table, having a large cream coffee and half reading the paper, half chatting.
I exit the communicative researchers' little paradise.