Quotations from Brunei

Quotations with responses. Quotations are given as accurately as I can recall them. My clever replies come some months after I heard the quoted comment, after my mind had been cleared of distress.

‘As a teacher here, you will be the servant of two masters.’
The important word here is ‘servant’.

‘Sometimes mediocrity is something to aim for.’
You, as an expat teacher, of course, will be policed, scrutinised and held to the highest standards at all times, on pain of harassment and eventual dismissal.

‘Why haven’t you completed [this item of paperwork]? It is a Ministry requirement.’
I was too busy preparing lessons, researching and photocopying materials, teaching, marking papers and adapting to life in a new country.

‘What the school would like for teachers to do is to “cooperate”, which means, erm, that you will sometimes be asked to do things that in other circumstances you might not really want to do.’
In a fair workplace you would simply refuse to do such things.

‘This place is going downhill.’
Agreed.

‘It was never like this ten years ago when I first came. We had so much fun back then.’
The ‘ten years ago’ bit wasn’t mentioned in the brochures. Typo?

‘The Ministry really needs to get over its paperwork fetish.’
The Burmese military junta needs to get over its dictatorship fetish, but I don’t think it will do so voluntarily, that is, ever: do you?