[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.I’d told Dana, the departmental assistant, that unless the Dalai Lama or the pope called, not to bother me.I’d been joking, but representatives of both were on the phone to the ROM within twenty-four hours of Salbanda’s revelations in Brussels.As much as I wanted to dive publicly into the fray, I couldn’t.I didn’t have the time to spare.I stood bending over my desk, trying to sort through the papers on it.There was a request from the AMNH for a copy of that paper I’d done on Nanshiungosaurus; a proposed budget for the paleobiology department that had to be approved by me before the end of the week; a letter from a high-school student who wanted to become a paleontologist and was looking for career advice; employee-evaluation forms for Dana; an invitation to give a lecture in Berlin; galley proofs of that introduction I wrote for Danilova and Tamasaki’s handbook; two article manuscripts for the JVP that I’d agreed to referee; two quotes on the resin we needed; a requisition form that I had to fill out to get the damned lighting for the Camptosaurus in the Dinosaur Gallery fixed; a copy of my own book that had been sent to me for an autograph; seven—no, eight—unanswered letters on other topics; my own expense-claim form for the previous quarter that had to be filled out; the departmental long-distance bill, with calls that no one had yet owned up to highlighted in yellow.It was too much.I sat down, turned to my computer, tapped the E-mail icon.Seventy-three new messages waiting; Christ, I didn’t have time to even begin to wade through that many.Just then, Dana stuck her head through the door.“Tom, I really need those vacation schedules approved.”“I know,” I said.“I’ll get to it.”“As soon as you can, please,” she said.“I said I’ll get to it!”She looked startled.I don’t think I’d ever snapped at her before.But she disappeared out into the corridor before I could apologize.Maybe I should have just dispensed with or delegated all my administrative duties, but, well, if I stepped down as department head, surely my successor would claim the right to be Hollus’s guide.Besides, I couldn’t leave everything a mess; I had to wrap things up, complete as much as I could, before.Before.I sighed and turned away from the computer, looking again at the piles of stuff on my desk.There wasn’t enough time, dammitall.There just wasn’t enough time.19Many employees have no idea how much their bosses make, but I knew to the penny what Christine Dorati was pulling down.The law in Ontario required public disclosures of all civil-service salaries of over a hundred thousand Canadian dollars per year; the ROM had just four staff members who fell into that category.Christine made $179,952 last year, plus $18,168 in taxable benefits—and she had an office that reflected that stature.Despite my complaints about the way Christine ran the museum, I understood that it was necessary for her to have such an office.She had to entertain potential donors there, as well as government bigwigs who could boost or slash our budget on a whim.I’d been sitting in my office, waiting for my pain pills to settle, when I’d gotten the call saying Christine wanted to see me.Walking was a good way to get the pills to stay down, so I didn’t mind.I headed off to her office.“Hi, Christine,” I said, after Indira let me pass into the inner sanctum.“You wanted to see me?”Christine was looking at something on the web; she raised a hand to tell me to be patient a moment longer.Beautiful textiles hung from her office walls.There was a suit of armor behind Christine’s desk; ever since our Armour Court—which I’d always thought had been a rather popular exhibit—had been scrubbed to make room for one of Christine’s trademark feed-them-pablum displays, we’d had more suits of armor than we knew what to do with [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]