I had a nightmare last night about my job. Or at least, I think it was about my job. I couldn’t really tell. It was such a hodgepodge of things, like my parents moving away and abandoning our house to bankruptcy (which happened when I was 18); being told that I was going to be fired from my job with no terminal year contract (where the hell did that come from???); and having to teach as an adjunct at my Former Grad School while working at McDonald’s just to get by (uh, I have never worked fast food).
This part of the blog message may self-destruct in 48 hours…
I suspect this dream was rooted in my wacky Friday … where I interviewed a potential candidate for a job, was an (phone) interviewee myself, and had to represent our department at a university-level meeting. That last item was especially annoying, as I was instructed to take a leadership role in developing a certain project for our department. Now, I am not the chair of my department — and I have no chance of being chair here in the future (too “young,” too female). I’m not paid a chair’s salary. In fact, when I compared salaries with another junior professor (a male/1 year behind me), I make exactly $100 more a year — and I am a graduate program director while he is not.
In what world does this sound fair?
Needless to say, I am probably more worked up about this than I should be. While they directed me to start immediately, I can wait until we get the written report. If it’s like anything else at the U of Sorta’ Cosmopolitan, that could take at least 6 weeks. By then, I could have either (a) my tenure decision or (b) a new job. At that point, you can guess what my response will be. {Insert Evil Laugh Here}
Even if I don’t get tenure or a new job, the answer is going to be a big “I don’t think so.” I have research to do, my friends, and I’m not getting drawn into this particular planning drama. Not happening.
Sidebar: Right now, I am teaching a 2-2 load because I get 3 credits of administrative prep time. So far, this has not been enough time to get all of my work done because I keep getting drawn into these inane meetings that really have nothing to do with my particular program. On Friday, when someone found out I was only teaching a 2-2, she said: “If I had know that, I would have made you do more interviews for the XXXXX committee.” WTF?
