Back to MPSŠC. The big staff session, where we'd see the results of the enrollment and how many hours a week we get per subject. This was a somewhat touchy subject, because we were, on one hand, paid by points, and the more work you did, the more points you scored; the money budgeted to us by the SIZ was then divided by total points of everybody in the school, and thus we shared it. Though, there was the money made by the school's workshop, actually three of them - the metal, the car repair, the electronics repair, but this never amounted to anything much. And then sometimes the enrollment didn't go as planned - we'd get too many locksmiths, or not enough; there would or would not be oil rig workers' classes; the shipyard or the railways would require one class of ship plumbers or locomotive mechanics or maybe not. So sometimes there would be not enough work, or not enough people of certain profiles.
Then there was a bit of a party. A colleague, whom I sort of knew from that one semester last year, because I was working the semester before with his daughter there in Perlez, was retiring. There was a speech, and a gift, and drinking. Didn't get to drink much, because the chief of staff got me aside after about the 2nd drink and asked "did you ever do the schedule". "Nope, but I'm playing solitaire since age of six."
He liked the answer and said "You're in, this guy was doing it so far and has just retired". Took me across the hall to one smaller room, where he showed me the big board. It was riddled with holes, in neat rows of six times eight columns and about sixty rows. Each column was one class - the pre-class at 7:05, the 1st 8:00-8:45, 2nd 8:50-9:35, 3rd 9:45-10:30, 4th 10:45-11:30, 5th 11:35 - 12:20, 6th 12:25-13:05 and the post-class 13:10-13:55 (but it usually ended five minutes before that). I couldn't start right away, of course, because the classes weren't formed yet, and the distribution of subjects to professors hasn't even begun. Which was accomplished over the next couple of hours, and I got my data.
Amazingly enough, I got it done on time. Thinking it over, it was actually easy. This being the "directed education" (usmereno obrazovanje), I had only 14 classes of III grade (that's 11. grade US) and maybe six or seven of the IV, with about 30 rows, i.e. people. That was easy. The real mess would begin the next year.
I worked on it all day the following four days. Had to have it ready and the translation onto the big sheet posted in the staff room a day or two before the first bell. I sometimes stayed until dark, which doesn't happen until 19:00 this time of year.