Das Schloss

It was back in September 2005, while visiting the lab for the first time. I was in Barcelona for a short stay which included an interview with my current boss(es) when two of my current colleagues kindly offered to take me to lunch. At some point the discussion came to the unusual "structure" of the Institute, which even to the ears of a Greek, accustomed to bureaucracy, sounded quite weird. People belonging to two or more Institutes at the same time, while being paid by a third one, some of the centers affiliated to the state, others simultaneously forming part of a semi-private University, most of them overlapping with each other, being reciprocally part of each other and all of them at the process of being incorporated into the Biomedical Research Park of Barcelona (PRBB, also known as the "Alcatraz of western Mediterranean").
"I am telling you it's Kafka's wet dream". My witty colleague and compatriot Karolos could not have come up with a better description of the situation.

Two and a half years later, I officially belong to the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG), which is part of the Biomedical Research Park of Barcelona (PRBB), my boss is a group leader in the CRG, also belonging to the Grupo de Reserca en Informatica Biologica (GRIB), which is part of the Instituto Municipal de Informatica Medica (IMIM), while he teaches as a prefossor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). All of the above institutes, groups, entities share the common roof of the building you see in the photo. In this labyrinth of names and entities, it is difficult that someone doesn't remember Karolos' words. PRBB is since last week the closest I can think to Kafka's Tower. "Das Schloss"!

Last week I was expecting a package sent by mail from a musical store in Galicia. As I had to attend a PhD thesis defense (my first as member of the tribunal) I was not at the building when the package arrived. I received a phone-call from one of the Tower's receptionist. As her name was not mentioned we cannot resist the temptation to call her "Barnabas", a strange name for a receptionist but not for a messenger in the "Tower". In fact for someone with so little efficiency and such a big mouth, "Barnabas" falls just a little short of perfect. Anyway, the message of Barnabas was that there was a package for me, Mr N. at the reception of IMIM on the first floor of the Tower. When I asked why the package was at her hands since I belonged to the CRG, Barnabas employed the most stylish of the "towerish" accents to inform me that I was Mr. N. belonging not to the CRG but to the IMIM and that I should therefore look for the package at the mailbox of the GRIB!!!

Mr. N., myself could not but feel puzzled. Like some other Mr in a different tower I thought to be working for someone else than I actually was. Upon arriving to the Tower the same afternoon I went to look for my package at the designated mailbox, as the law-respecting Mr N. I am. Not to my surprise it was not there. Nor was Barnabas. And neither was I surprised when the secretary occupying her spot -we can call her Olga- told me she knew nothing about the package, or who I was, or where I worked at. She advised me to look for the parcel at the GRIB, so I went up to the 4th floor to do so. The package was not there and the secretary of the GRIB -whose name could be Amalia, although it is not- suggested that I looked for the person responsible for purchases at the CRG, -I shall call him Gerstacker-. Although this was not a purchase that the CRG would know anything of, I went up on the 5th and after a brief conversation with Burgel, the CRG receptionist I went to look for Gerstacker. By that time I was getting close. My assistant Jeremiah -she's a girl, but "Jeremiah" IS the proper name for Mr. N's assistant- had joined me in my quest and we managed to talk to Gerstacker together. At the beginning he was reluctant in helping me. It was late in the afternoon and most of his colleagues must have been having beer at the "Herrenhof Inn" already -which could also be called Bitacora but is not, not in this story at least-. The only thing he could tell me is that he would look for it and that I should send a message to Barnabas. As I told him that Barnabas is the messenger and that it would be silly to send a message to the messenger he looked at me with an angry look so me and Jeremiah decided to go. It was late and I had flight to catch.

Needless to say I never found the package myself. It just appeared on my desk two weeks later. When I asked how it got there nobody could tell me. Neither Hans, Frieda, Pepi or the Teacher knew how it got there. I tend to think it was Galater, the one who assigned Jeremiah as my assistant but somehow I would like to think that it was not him. I 'd like to think it was Klamm. The one I am supposed to be working for and never get to meet. The one that everybody claims to know, but cannot really describe.

Standing by my desk, looking at the un-opened parcel, I could not stop thinking about my life in the Tower after 30 months. How a lot of things that sounded so clear when I came here now seemed to be completely out of reach like Klamm, or so complicated like getting a package on your desk.

I remembered another tower I had read about once and a distant relative of mine, a distant relative of all of us. Mr K. Was I to end up like him, working as a janitor instead of the land-surveyor I was once destined to be?