If the following is the sign posted in the office, how can I have faith in the work being done?

[All spelling, odd capitalization, and phrasing is directly quoted from the sign, sadly. Italics are mine to add emphasis to the numerous mistakes]

Dear Customers, Visitors, and Friends,
Due to Problems in the passed we no longer do payment arrangements.
Please understand that your payment is due at the time you pick up your vehicle.
Any Vehicle left Un-payed for more then thee days will be subjected to a storage Fee of [$#] a day, unless prier written arrangements are made for long term holdings.
ALL [state name] inspections are due at time of the Bill pass or failed.
Please note: the price of a [state name] inspection is determaned by the DMV computer system and is out of the hands of [business name] automotive.
Failer to pay will be turned into collections.
Understand that if you bill goes to collections there wil be a [#%] fee added to your overall total bill.



I got to move. Seriously.

I have so much on my mind

What do I want to blog about first?

I guess what I am most angry about should go first. I read some blogs frequently, but I am religious about my reading of Rate Your Students. I am climbing an uphill battle with some students and I feel better when I realize I am not alone and that I don't have it as bad as others. That having been said, a recent post has me pretty pissed. This post argues that Junior faculty should just suck it up and be happy where they are and not do their respective schools a disservice by looking for and taking a better job. WTF? Really? That is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard.

What about fit? When I was on the job market, I couldn't have a conversation with a faculty member or administrator that didn't mention 'fit.' It is arrogant and self-focused to assume that a person could choose a job that is a perfect 'fit' for them after a brief interview (some of mine were less than one full day, all were less than two full days). It is not just the interviewee on his or her best behavior. The faculty strategically pick who should interact with the interviewee, putting their best, brightest, or perhaps least orny faculty members into the limelight. And the students we meet on interviews are always top 5% students, the best, the brightest, the most involved and not necessarily the most representative. Labs are cleaned, offices are straightened, and everyone is polite. Then you arrive on the job and within a year experience this, this, this, and of course my melrose place drama, summed up here. What I bought when I took this job is not what was advertised. I should get the opportunity to evaluate the 'fit' from my end. Hell, I am evaluated by every student that shows up to the day I pass out evaluations in every course. My chair and dean pour over these evals scrutinizing every word to decide how good of a teacher I am overall. That means the worst of my students get equal voice to my most respectful students. Just this week alone, I had a student call me a stupid B!T@H. This student gets an equal voice in evaluations that my chair takes to heart. Further, I am observed in roughly 10 hours of teaching time each semester. Finally, I am on a one year renewable contract. You guys here at TBU evaluate me and decide if I get to keep my job every year. The administration meets with every member of my department individually to discuss my (mainly) pros and (very few, thankfully) cons. So you are doing plenty of evaluation about me--Why don't I get to evaluate you? Why don't I get to make the decision each year if I stay--you get to voice your decision each year about if you want to keep me?

I left hometown city to take this job. I left every friend I have (almost all are within 4 hours of hometown city), I left a thriving social life where I actually got to date and enjoy the company of men, I left my family. I started over new somewhere alone. I think sometimes people forget how hard that is to do when you are alone. I didn't have a husband to help unpack and I spend each Friday and Saturday night alone. TBU is located in the tinniest town in the world (that, of course, is an exaggeration). But it is not an exaggeration to say that I can count on one hand the number of single men in this town (not counting students, because that is against the rules, and because YUCK). I have less than 3 friends in town. You would think with such a small, safe, quiet little town, everyone would have been knocking on my door bringing me vegetables from their garden or pie. How many people have came by to say hello to me in the years I have lived here. Zero. Not one. Not a single neighbor. You get the feeling that it is high school all over again (not high school for me, which I enjoyed because of the dear friends I left to come here--more like high school stereotypes with the cliques and unfriendliness and loneliness--lifetime movie high school). Everyone has friends and there is no need to let the new kids in town play in your sand box. So I have no friends here and no chance at any dating or social life.

So the person who wrote the post in question at RYS said this:

" [I] let loose on some selfishness I saw among a group of junior faculty who were spending a good deal of time congratulating one another on working in tenure track jobs while slaving like mules to get better jobs in more attractive situations - close to Mommy, warmer weather, a place where their own peculiar preciousness will be admired by all."

Kiss my ass! There. You want to 'let loose' on someone like me--go for it, because I have been pushed around enough. Now I get to let loose. If I want to be closer to my family, Ill do it. When my dad went to the hospital last week because he collapsed at work and people thought he was having a heart attack--I was over 25 hours away. There was nothing that I could do. I couldn't help my mom, and I couldn't be there--It was like I wasn't even part of the family. How dare you criticize someone for wanting to support and be close to those they love. My parents are partially responsible for my getting through graduate school and in my family we take care of each other. It is what we do.

I don't want my 'peculiar preciousness to be admired by all', but some fricken' courtesy would be nice. Don't scream at me in front of my department (happened this semester) and don't call me a stupid B!XCH (a student on Monday).

Most 'non-junior' faculty I know are not at the first position they took. How quickly they forget. They went back out on the job market and found a job that worked for them--but I am supposed to stay in a place that I am unhappy both personally and professionally. I am a lot of things, but I am not a masochist and I am not that weak.

Mountain man disappoints again

So, mountain man, you continue to disappoint. After a particularly sucky performance on your first major paper (no understanding of style (despite the multiple lectures and book devoted to this topic that you were assigned to read), grammatically poor writing, unclear, failure to do the necessary components of the paper (that were neatly summarized in a handout for you), you set out to work on the final paper for the semester. I instructed all of the students, you included, to choose a topic that was related to course material (my area of expertise). You have decided to ignore this request despite my warnings that I could not do you as much good as a guide to this paper if I am unfamiliar with the area. To be fair, I cast a very wide net of things that were considered 'my area'.

Mountain man, why do you come to my office with questions ("How can I narrow this down?, Can I discuss this aspect of X component?, Is this a good hypothesis?)--This is an entirely novel area of study for me. After advising as best I could, why do you fail to take my suggestions.

I explain to you that you need to begin reading the articles that you have and you say you are going to find 20 more sources.

I explain that you should outline and summarize what you read as you go, and you insist you read all of the articles and then sit down to write the paper.

I explain that it is difficult to have a hypothesis for this paper if you haven't first read the literature that is out there, you insist as soon as you have figured out your hypothesis, you will sit down and work on literature review.

Are you trying to make my head explode. Just when I thought I had it bad, I found this post on RYS. Enjoy--it sure made me feel better about my difficult students.

Really?

“Saying ‘I’m sorry’ is the same as saying ‘I apologize.’ Except at a funeral.”
-Demetri Martin

How can some people be so funny and so eloquent while I have students who today said, "I be having trouble remembering and stuff."

Somehow, I think this kid's memory is the least of his problems.

Drowning in a sea of red tape

So, one reason I like academia is I (perhaps, foolishly) thought I would experience less red-tape and bureaucratic nonsense in this world than in the 'real world.' [I love the insinuation that I don't work/live in real world--see RYS for eloquent rants about this issue]. Yet I spent the bulk of my morning adjusting my schedule to conform to University guidelines about how I spend my time in my office and how available I make myself to the students. The rest of my morning (when I wasn't in class) was spent emailing a student who despite our multiple meetings, agreed upon schedule, and tens of emails has proceeded to not make the necessary schedule changes to her schedule. Thus ensuring paperwork nightmares for me. Meanwhile, while in my office hours (expect one students that I asked to come by my office and one of my research assistants), the only visitors I got were the following:

[Open scene]

A professor is busily typing away at a key board. Surrounding her are files of various documents. Occasionally, she stops typing and looks curiously through the packet of papers. It is as if she is trying to figure out what tell a student who has messed up her schedule and refused (despite multiple meetings and emails) to fix it as instructed. A familiar face bounds in the office. Character is wearing a 'Hooters: Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined' t-shirt with no sense of the irony that Hooters gear is neither delightful or appropriate to wear around professors. The student bounds in...

Hooters: What's up?

Professor [trying, hopefully successfully, to hide both her disdain for the interruption and shirt, as well as her confusion as to who this familiar face actually is]: Just working, How are you? [Hoping the answer will provide details to the identity of this familiar face].

Hooters: I was wondering if I could use your printer.

Professor: For what exactly? [Still unsure of identity of Hooters]

Hooters: An statistics assignment that is due. My printer broke. If now is not a good time, I can come back.

[Character note: The professor does not teach statistics.]

Professor [With a strained expression]: You do know that there is a computer lab at the end of the hallway.

Hooters: No, I didn't.

Professor: Well, you need to use that lab, because I am in the middle of something that I needs to get done, so I cannot print out your assignment.

Hooters: Okay, thanks [Bounds out of office].

End scene.

As Hooters left my office, I realized how I knew her. She was the crappy, no-good, left me stranded, had-to-have-meetings-with-her-advisor, didn't hold up her end of the bargain Graduate Assistant I had last Fall. They are required to do 10 hours a week to stay eligible for their stipends. She was falling behind and wasn't completing anything I asked of her. She came to me begging for more work to make up the time lost. I gave her a project that I desperately needed done and it would have given her enough hours. It was perfect--she could do it at home (she has a tough schedule, poor baby) , the time commitment was pretty subjective (so she could fudge a bit on how hard she worked, and it was easy (perhaps a bit boring, but easy). I kept emailing her to ask for updates and to send me what she had accomplished. Finally at the end of the semester, I received all of the materials back. She had accomplished exactly 0% of the project. I was left high and dry (and screwed quite frankly). Did she have to return her stipend, make up those hours, or face any consequence from her department---nope.

Now she wants to borrow my printer and take my time away. Really?

The second visitor I got was a student looking for Dr. Frank Abstentia. This professor (who I have yet to blog about) is perpetually absent (hence his name). Much work of the department is done in his absence. He is wasted space (both literally, in that he has lots of claim to space in building, and figuratively). This student wanted to know where Dr. Abstentia was--like I know, like I care. So to Student Tight Pants, I say: Sorry your advisor sucks.

So to make a long story actually end--why do I need to be more available and more in my office? The students who need to see me, don't. And the time-suckers of the world always drop by. Not to mention that my being here mandates I deal with other people's messes.

Repeat working mantra.

Has anyone coined the phrase, blog-therapy---or perhaps blogapy. Because I always feel like I can let go of an issue once I have written about it here. [Perhaps, since I have been blogging for only a month, always is a misleading term. But you get the idea]

P.P.S. The student who I spent the morning is now on her way here to suck all of the remaining time out of my life.

Really?

Today at the caf a student in line ahead of me actually consulted with the person he was talking to on his cellphone about what he should put on his sandwich? Mayo or mustard? Lettuce?

Really?

My day so far + Random Thoughts

This morning began with a slew of emails in response to an email I sent out the day before. It's a long story and probably more detail than I want to reveal. Suffice it to say, things here at TBU are just that Tiny and Backwards. The status quo 'We've done it this way for 20 years' isn't a convincing reason to me. Dn't hire new people to 'bring new life to the department' if you don't want that 'new life' to accompany some changes on your part.

The heart of this problems is I am being micro-managed in who I implement a policy that I am in charge of implementing. Further, the policy was designed (and implemented) by the entire department last year and as such, complaints about it now fall on my very deaf ears. And DON'T scold me about implementing the policy as it is designed and as I (as the overseerer) see fit. Also, when you set out a plan that involves me and my students, but fail to tell me about it...don't then blame me for keeping you out of the loop.

I know that this doesn't likely make any sense, but I am so very pissed off.

Finally (really finally, at least about this issue), don't criticize me for being a person who is productive and moves things forward. This is my job, my career, my tenure expectations, my future. Just because all of you with tenure are content to sit on your asses and never challenge yourself (or your students) to be better, to be bigger, to be more doesn't mean that I will sink to your embarrassingly low standards.

I feel like developing a new serenity prayer for those of us in tenure track jobs looking for something more. But I will keep mine secular in nature.

"Please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage (and vitae and luck) to find a job where I don't have to change the things,
and the wisdom (and patience and lack of bitterness) to hold out until I can get another job."

Certainly, it lacks a little elegance (or a lot of elegance), but its a work in progress.