Invisible Adjunct

"Well, *I* had a good [marriage|grad school experience]. What happened to you?"

"Well, I knew what I was getting into. Why didn't you?"

"Really, it was obvious from the beginning that s/he/it was no good for you. How could you not see that?"

"What's wrong with you, that you couldn't make it work?"

I am painting in rather broad strokes here, obviously, but I think my point -- that before there can be deprogramming, there must be programming -- may well stand on its merits.

Ah yes. I am familiar with all of the above, and more...

IA,

Your skills are impeccable. You could succeed in either the forprofit or nonprofit realms. What you have learned the hard way about organizations and how they work could be applied as a manager, or as an advocate, or an organizer. You could readily get a decent job as a writer, trainer, coach, prep school teacher, PR person, or in these roles within a nonprofit.

Read and blogged an interesting book on "dignity," "recognition" and "rankism." The hardest part is the first social gathering. Now you can say, when asked what you do, "I am a professor, or I reach at Yale (or wherever." Instand dignity, respect, recognition. Tomorrow you will have to say, "I am writer for Time/AOL." And they will say, "Yes, and what do you there?" And they will mean, "What is your rank, are you a Somebody or a Nobody?" And, for a long while you will be a Nobody. You will probably, as I have, or really my wife embarassingly has on behalf, say "Well, he used to teach college." That approach leads to, "So why did you leave." Answer -- "I failed."

Suggestion, become a Noboday ASAP. Get over the withdrawal symptoms. Today, even though you call yourself an Invisible Adjunct, you are not like Ellison's Invisible Man, you are more like the artist in a garret, or the Priest or Nun. You have in the eyes of others taken holy orders. When you enter the world of truly alienated labor, all that matters is how much you make, how many report to you, your rank, and whatever favors you have to trade. And, on low rungs, you really are invisible. (I got 3-4 promotions, and a transfer to another city, before I was out of the clerical paygrades.)

But I regret not having made the transition sooner. You have great talent and you now want to be "recognised early," you want a Guardian Angel in your new org, to see your talent and bring you along quicky. The younger you are the higher you can go, and the better investment you are for those who mentor you. Don't get old and gray in a dead end position.

Can't help but think that the first step is to change the title, or the tagline of this site. You are creating a wonderful community -- Candidia would say -- of losers. Now create a community of winners. Harsh, hunh? Don't define your Identiy around something that is over, when so much lies open before you. Like Eve, you are leaving the Garden to make your living by the sweat of your brow. But you can do it a way that makes the world a better place by investing yourself in your job, by helping others around you at work, and staying online as a citizen, blogging about alienated or invisible labor, right down the hall or one floor down in every skyscraper.

You will soon by someone's brilliant hire.

IA,

Your skills are impeccable. You could succeed in either the forprofit or nonprofit realms. What you have learned the hard way about organizations and how they work could be applied as a manager, or as an advocate, or an organizer. You could readily get a decent job as a writer, trainer, coach, prep school teacher, PR person, or in these roles within a nonprofit.

Read and blogged an interesting book on "dignity," "recognition" and "rankism." The hardest part is the first social gathering. Now you can say, when asked what you do, "I am a professor, or I reach at Yale (or wherever." Instand dignity, respect, recognition. Tomorrow you will have to say, "I am writer for Time/AOL." And they will say, "Yes, and what do you there?" And they will mean, "What is your rank, are you a Somebody or a Nobody?" And, for a long while you will be a Nobody. You will probably, as I have, or really my wife embarassingly has on behalf, say "Well, he used to teach college." That approach leads to, "So why did you leave." Answer -- "I failed."

Suggestion, become a Noboday ASAP. Get over the withdrawal symptoms. Today, even though you call yourself an Invisible Adjunct, you are not like Ellison's Invisible Man, you are more like the artist in a garret, or the Priest or Nun. You have in the eyes of others taken holy orders. When you enter the world of truly alienated labor, all that matters is how much you make, how many report to you, your rank, and whatever favors you have to trade. And, on low rungs, you really are invisible. (I got 3-4 promotions, and a transfer to another city, before I was out of the clerical paygrades.)

But I regret not having made the transition sooner. You have great talent and you now want to be "recognised early," you want a Guardian Angel in your new org, to see your talent and bring you along quicky. The younger you are the higher you can go, and the better investment you are for those who mentor you. Don't get old and gray in a dead end position.

Can't help but think that the first step is to change the title, or the tagline of this site. You are creating a wonderful community -- Candidia would say -- of losers. Now create a community of winners. Harsh, hunh? Don't define your Identiy around something that is over, when so much lies open before you. Like Eve, you are leaving the Garden to make your living by the sweat of your brow. But you can do it a way that makes the world a better place by investing yourself in your job, by helping others around you at work, and staying online as a citizen, blogging about alienated or invisible labor, right down the hall or one floor down in every skyscraper.

You will soon by someone's brilliant hire.

While you were off selfishly enjoying yourself I've had a couple of run-ins with some of those most enthusiastically recommending the non-U private sector, but I actually agree with them on the main point. Of course if a tenure-track offer comes in the mail tomorrow, you should accept it, but really you should be looking elsewhere.

Dealing with being Nobody will be an enormous problem and it won't go away. The university is not friendly to people outside the system. I solved the problem by befriending real nobodies and leftist schismatics, but that probably won't work for you. My pay never got out of the clerical range.

One advantage of writing outside the university is that you don't have to be paranoid. You can actually use your own judgement and think of your ideal reader, rather than looking over your shoulder. I just read a bookified thesis about something of great interest to me. The slim 200 page book was 40% apparatus and methodology. When the topic was discussed at all (beginnings of Chinese shih poetry ca 200 A.D.) it was at a polemical meta-level. "Some say that the rise of shih poetry represented X (long exposition), but I say that it was Y (longer exposition). The guy ended up discussing, I'm not kidding, one single poem and listing the titles of about 20 others.

Writing while working and having a family is a bear, especially if you want to have normal amounts of fun and present yourself as respectable. Choices must be made. (There was something in Eric Alterman just now about book publishing. Authors are just as screwed as teachers).

A community of winners? Huh?

(my tribal connection to the Boston Red Sox must be showing, whereas you must be a ... *gasp* ... Yankee fan--ick)

:)

Yeah, "community of winners" sets me on edge too. (I'm a Mets fan -- sorry about '86!)

zizka, you're the best. Your description of the "bookified thesis" had me rolling in the aisles. Thank god I don't have to read that kind of thing any more!

IA: It's a long, slow, painful process, but you're getting there. Keep the name, lose the (metaphorical) marriage!

"You are creating a wonderful community -- Candidia would say -- of losers. Now create a community of winners. Harsh, hunh?"

This does strike me as harsh, HT. And since Candidia is entirely your creature/creation, I'd say it was you who was calling me (and whoever else you have in mind) a loser.

In any case: win, lose, or draw, at the moment I'm not up to the task of creating any sort of community.

I think you're building a community without trying, IA. Anyone (several of your frequent commenters are no doubt thinking) who can get *me* to comment on these issues in what is by and large a non-inflammatory fashion...

As for the somebody/nobody winner/loser game -- I quit playing it. Some time ago. I did it, as HT suggests, by openly embracing a Nobody identity, and I've gone about gleefully creating cognitive dissonance in folks who think they're Somebody ever since.

Not a bad gig, if you've the intestinal fortitude for it. Remarkably freeing, in fact. But only if you embrace it -- *not* when you feel it forced upon you.

I never really expected this thread to draw so much free-market self-help language. Most of us are aware that we could be making more money doing something else. To me the tragedy of adjuncting is that there's no future, and that the working conditions make the scholarly endeavor hard to pull off. Few here will ever meet Ms. Albicans (Candidia's) exacting standards, but the feeling is mutual, so no harm.

Sorry, Zizka, just callin' 'em as I see 'em, with some forlorn hope that it might help.

I don't know if "future" is quite the right word, though. "Growth" might come closer. A lot of us, myself not excepted, will put up with quite a bit for the sake of learning. But adjuncting doesn't seem to teach much.

Actually. Dorothea, it wasn't you at all. Embracing the Nobody identity, which I've also done, is at the opposite end from free-market self-help.

Totally off topic, but it just occurred to me that the "free" market is awfully expensive for those of us not holding the whip hand.

Back to the "marriage" metaphor -- this isn't the first time I've run across this in academic job-hunting circles; the job search, in particular, is very much like a dating game, in which the "prize" is an "engagement" to get "married" (tenured) at some point in the future. The notion of adjuncting as common law marriage is very apt, I think -- it can have the passion -- and abuse -- of a formal marriage, but with none of the security or benefits.

A question -- which is, no doubt, a variant of a larger one about the nature of academe -- why is this metaphor so apt? What does it say about the relationships between scholar-teachers and the institutions which employ them? I can't think of people in other professions talking about their employment like this, the phrase "married to your job" not withstanding.

How about the 4F metaphor? Find 'em, fool 'em, fuck 'em, and forget 'em. The business is dependent on a steady flow of suckers.

This has been going on forever. I don't know if anyone here has read "The PhD Trap", but it came out ~1987. A friend of mine who got his PhD in ~1975 went through the same stuff.

I looked for "The Ph.D Trap" in my local library. I looked in my university library.

It ain't there.

Ain't that curious. Especially since there's apparently a companion volume/update "The Ph.D Trap Revisited."

interesting......vERy interesting...heh heh