I Hate Mondays, Part 357
I know the year is not even halfway over, but I have come to the firm conclusion that this will go down as one of the worst years of my life. Why? If I had been keeping up with my blog since the beginning of the year you would understand. A lot of it did not have to do with me directly, but more along the lines of my family members. What do I mean? One almost ended up in jail for being $45,000 behind in child support. Another is potentially getting a divorce because he found out his wife was cheating on him with her boss. As I am extremely empathetic, I felt all of their pain. What was worse was that I could do nothing to help them. That alone was bad enough.
On a more personal note, I promised myself that in 2010 I would take better care of myself. I have lost 25 pounds so far this year and my doctor gave me a fantastic bill of health with my physical (outside of the "you still need to lose a lot of weight" bit). It is the stress part that I can't seem to get a grip on.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that I still believe the "Protestant Work Ethic" actually means something in the world today. What ever happened to the old belief that if you work hard you shall reap the rewards? Over the past four years, I have worked my ass off with my teaching gig. I've taken on an insane amount of overload classes, became a faculty advisor for a club, taught professors how to teach online, and even joined up on a stupid committee that I had no interest in whatsoever. The point of all this? Show the higher ups that I am a qualified candidate for any future tenure-track positions that open up. Did it work? Oh nay, nay. It seems that all of this was worthless. Why hire the lowly little contingent faculty--someone who will only ask for a small raise, already has a repertoire with the students, and is looking for a lifelong career at the college--when you can get a shiny PhD--someone who will not only require a rather ridiculous salary, but have no patience for the struggling community college student and will bolt the minute a position opens up at a four-year college?
I realize that in this economy, there are going to be hundreds of people applying for one job. However, if you are going to tell someone that they didn't get it, don't fuck with their heads. Just come out and say "sorry the competition was too strong and you didn't have the qualifications (e.g., the shiny PhD)." Is that difficult to say? Of course not. Don't fuck with my head and give me all of this crap like "we can't say anything because the HR department says we can't" but at the same time follow that up with "well we wanted someone serious, you know someone with a PhD who shows that history isn't a hobby to them." What the fuck?! From this intimation, you are telling me that even though I work 60+ hours a week for this college that this is a "hobby" of mine? Or better yet, follow that up with the even more poignant "we won't be doing any more 'courtesy interviews.'" Are you saying that you only interviewed me to be nice? Come on. I'm a big girl. I can take rejection. You don't have to rub it in and be a dick about it.
This whole thing has really just pissed me off. Originally, I planned on going for a PhD starting in Fall 2011 if this tenure line thing fell through. However, I'm starting to really rethink that. So far half of my experiences with academia have been a living hell. Do I really want to spend the rest of my life doing this? Then again, what is a 40 year old supposed to do when all her experience is in teaching? Oh and no, I would never teach high school. At least with college I don't have to deal with parents.
On a more personal note, I promised myself that in 2010 I would take better care of myself. I have lost 25 pounds so far this year and my doctor gave me a fantastic bill of health with my physical (outside of the "you still need to lose a lot of weight" bit). It is the stress part that I can't seem to get a grip on.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that I still believe the "Protestant Work Ethic" actually means something in the world today. What ever happened to the old belief that if you work hard you shall reap the rewards? Over the past four years, I have worked my ass off with my teaching gig. I've taken on an insane amount of overload classes, became a faculty advisor for a club, taught professors how to teach online, and even joined up on a stupid committee that I had no interest in whatsoever. The point of all this? Show the higher ups that I am a qualified candidate for any future tenure-track positions that open up. Did it work? Oh nay, nay. It seems that all of this was worthless. Why hire the lowly little contingent faculty--someone who will only ask for a small raise, already has a repertoire with the students, and is looking for a lifelong career at the college--when you can get a shiny PhD--someone who will not only require a rather ridiculous salary, but have no patience for the struggling community college student and will bolt the minute a position opens up at a four-year college?
I realize that in this economy, there are going to be hundreds of people applying for one job. However, if you are going to tell someone that they didn't get it, don't fuck with their heads. Just come out and say "sorry the competition was too strong and you didn't have the qualifications (e.g., the shiny PhD)." Is that difficult to say? Of course not. Don't fuck with my head and give me all of this crap like "we can't say anything because the HR department says we can't" but at the same time follow that up with "well we wanted someone serious, you know someone with a PhD who shows that history isn't a hobby to them." What the fuck?! From this intimation, you are telling me that even though I work 60+ hours a week for this college that this is a "hobby" of mine? Or better yet, follow that up with the even more poignant "we won't be doing any more 'courtesy interviews.'" Are you saying that you only interviewed me to be nice? Come on. I'm a big girl. I can take rejection. You don't have to rub it in and be a dick about it.
This whole thing has really just pissed me off. Originally, I planned on going for a PhD starting in Fall 2011 if this tenure line thing fell through. However, I'm starting to really rethink that. So far half of my experiences with academia have been a living hell. Do I really want to spend the rest of my life doing this? Then again, what is a 40 year old supposed to do when all her experience is in teaching? Oh and no, I would never teach high school. At least with college I don't have to deal with parents.
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