Changing Godfathers

I had a resident in my department, who was low profile, until I realized that it was a pseudo-low profile. This resident was posted in rotation to work at an affiliated institute, where the work was so little, that she wanted to come back to our institute at any cost. So the resident's influential father called our that time chief and the chief rang me up and asked me to see if the request could be met. The rotation was such that the said resident was scheduled to come back to us anyway. So I informed the chief that it would be done. A few days later the father called the chief again and requested placement of the said resident with a particular Professor, who was the teacher of the resident too. By that time the schedule had been put up on the notice board. So I advised the chief that it would be inadvisable to change anything at that stage without sound reason, and the father's request was not sound enough a reason. The chief agreed and that was that. After the resident qualified and came to me for clearance certificate, I signed it and then asked her why she used parental influence to achieve personal goals. She said she was sorry, that she had not known her father had done that, and that she would not do such a thing again. I thought I had changed one person for better. I was naive, as many people have said time and again but I had not believed to be true. She appeared for Senior Resident's job in Insurance Hospital, with a pay scale that would make our Associate Professors long for that job. Her father got the same chief to tell the expert conducting the interview to select her. I met that expert in another selection interview, where this resident turned up as an aspiring candidate. He mentioned this casually. Though I was upset, I did not let that interfere with our selection, and allowed her to be selected. After she joined duty, I asked her why she did that. “I did not exert any influence this time” she said, “or I would have topped the list instead of being near the bottom.” “No. It was not this interview. It was the insurance hospital interview” I said. She remained silent. I left it at that. Six months later there was another interview, where this person turned up again. I was not wondering how she would manage it this time, because she had not been able to manage the civic body interview in the past. I had underestimated her parents. This time she had brought about the influence of one time civic body chief or at least so were the interviewers told. When I narrated this story to my wife, my final line was “I am glad our son achieved what he wanted on merit, and did not make me do what this girl's parents have to do. I would have failed miserably, and if I had succeeded, I would have died of remorse and shame a thousand deaths.”