Petty Schadenfreude

Just before I arrived on the scene, the Petting Zoo got a freebie they just couldn't pass up: The use of a major public venue to host an event that would normally cost about fifteen grand for use just in the morning. Now, that's pretty sweet, but the catch (of course there's a catch!) is that we could only have it on a certain day. Planning such an event would normally require at least four months. Six would be better. What did we have? Two.

Yes, TWO months to put something together that would normally take SIX. On the plus side, this event is in DC, whereas we expect future events in the series (this is the first) to be held around the country with partnering orgnizations or institutions or even museums. So, we don't need to coordinate those types of logistics. However, the hard part, as far as I can tell from these my first six weeks on the job, is getting Important People to participate.

For better or worse, the public part of the event is coming together reasonably well. Important People like media attention, right? Most of those speakers are confirmed, with the exception of a Republican keynote. We have a Democrat, but it's proving rather ... well ... "difficult" to find a moderate Republican counterpart. That is, someone who would please certain organization higher-ups who think there needs to be more talking with "others" without causing donors to barf up their breakfast.

People are working on this, however, and, well, it ... just isn't really my problem becase -- in this town where who you know counts more than what you now -- I am a nobody and know nobody.

Which is not to say I'm not making efforts to make this event a success anyway. My role is to work on the non-public portion of the event, which is a workshop thingie of sorts, in the afternoon following the public part. It's in the same venue. In a beautiful conference room, in fact, overlooking the Capitol. Lunch will be catered by Fancy Celebrity Chef's Catering Company (leftovers will go to Mama Duck and her gourmet-fed babies who live in a wading pool on the roof, but I digress!).

We're trying to get 20-30 Important People to show up and talk at each other for a couple hours and come up with a sort of public document that everyone signs on behalf of their Fancy Very Important Organizations and which is ultimately presented to the next administration as a set of policy recommendations.

Turns out it's hard to get 20-30 Important People to show up and talk at each other for a whole afternoon when all you're giving them in return is Fancy Celebrity Chef's funburgersandmixedgreens, which they can very well go buy for themselves should they wish to eat such things.

So, the petty schadenfreude ... Yeah, well, so we divied up the list of people we want to invite. I had a handful of possibilities and alternates to pursue. A few academics and a few other types. The academics, surprisingly, have been relatively easy to get in touch with and talk to. We'll have a few of them. The "other types" I volunteered for are in an industry dealt with frequently by Think Tank. I figured I'd at least have an excuse to send an email and do some friendly name dropping.

The result? Total. Cold. Shoulder. As in, no response at all or a blatant blow-off: "Sorry, who-the-fuck are you again and why are you bothering me? No, I'm not available. I'm traveling. Can't rearrange. Now, go fuck yourself."

Not sure how that's going to work out. It kinda reminds of high school, actually. The social dynamics of it, that is. Whatevs.

But, so, the schadenfreude ... Yes, well, turns out it's not just me, Dr. Nobody Who Knows Nobody, that's gotten the ole fuck-off reponse. People Who Know Important People aren't getting their repeated and increasingly desperate voicemails answered, either. Woohoooo!!!??!!!???!

Is it totally perverse of me that I take some pleasure in this? Probably ...

I do, sincerely, want this event to go well. And, the truth is, it probably will go just fine. We have far from exhausted the list of possible participants in this workshop-thingie-do. It just amuses me in a sick-ish way that these people who think they're Special are being ignored, too -- and by people they expected would talk to them.

At least I was expecting to be ignored. Water off a baby duck's back ...

"Quack, quackk! Aren't we teh cutest?"

Blue Flamingos and Pink Elephants

This next "next" job hasn't been too bad so far for the past month and a half since I started. As you may have surmised from my relative lack of blogging, I've at least been busy enough. But I have a few minutes to spare today, and since I originally started the blog for purposes of venting, I shall vent.

At the time I started, The Petting Zoo (that's what I've decided to call this new place where I'm now working in my new, non Think Tank, non secretary job) was experiencing a time of significant transition. Upheaval, some might call it. A new program (Habitat Expansion, let's say), the one I'd been hired to work on, was eating in its entirety another, older program (let's call that one Survival in Captivity). Noobody from Survival in Captivity lost their jobs during the transition, but there was some reordering of priorities. And, maybe more importantly, Director of Survival in Captivity had made a bid for the job of Director of Habitat Expansion but an external candidate ended up getting it.

Transitions can be good times to start new jobs because there's a lot of flexibility in terms of the roles you carve out for yourself. I'm still grappling with all that and think in the long run it will work out for the best, but it's a little hard to know where I fit in right now, especially given the under-the-surface yet still perceivable tensions between Survival in Captivity and Habitat Expansion, which are now one and the same.

Add to these tensions the fact that one of the more senior people from Survival in Captivity is a Pink Elephant, only hires other Pink Elephants (including interns -- there's a stableful), and seems to find it weird to have to deal with Non Pink Elephants.

I happen to be a Blue Flamingo. If I were a Blue Elephant or a Pink Flamingo, there'd be less of a problem.My elephant-ness or pinkness would provide common ground.  But no. I am a Blue Flamingo and can not change either my blueness or my flamingo-ness. While I have no problem personally with Pink Elephants, it irks me that Semior Pink Elephant, while capable of interacting superficially politely in the course of getting work done, seems to despise the presence of Blue Flamingos and wish them to go away or at least not have to be bothered with their stink and feathers in the Pink Elephant Stable.

So, amyway ... I don't really have a purpose here other than to vent. I'm not going anywhere, and Pink Elephant isn't going anywhere. But the stableful of Pink Elephant interns is emptying out at the end of this month when they mostly all go back to school, and Senior Pink Elephant and I will probably have to intereact more then. And that will be annoying. Maybe Senior Pink Elephant will have gotten used to me by then????

Meh, I doubt it ... Right now, I just wish SPE, who is a loud talker and a hall walker, would STFU!!!

Race, Gender, Class, Culture, and Climate Change

This study analyzing social and cultural obstacles to climate change found that among the "six Americas" (alarmed, concerned, cautious, disengaged, doubtful, and dismissive), those people most dsimissive about addressing climate change because they are convinced either it doesn't exist or isn't a problem are most likely to be

high-income, well-educated, white men. They are also more likely to be very conservative Republicans who are civically active, hold strong religious beliefs and are the segment most likely to be evangelical Christian. They strongly endorse individualistic values and oppose most forms of government intervention.

Hmmmm. Fancy that! In other words, the group whose social, cultural, and economic dominance is most likely to be challenged by A) the environmental consequences of climate change and B) collective actions to mitigate those consequences is the group most resistant to the facts.


It's also interesting that the group most likely to be "alarmed" about climate change is older, well-educated white women with higher than average household incomes, while lower income women of color are the most likely to be "disengaged" from the issue altogether. In other words, socioeconomically privileged women can afford to overlook the "dirty" sources of their status (e.g. the oil company executive husband) while personalizing the exploitation of the environment (recall, traditionally Nature = Woman). However, socioeconomically underprivileged women have more pressing priorities, like reliable jobs, healthcare, and childcare, and cannot necessarily afford to question -- no matter how valid the basis for their questions -- the status of the ruling class.

*     *     *     *     * 

While the majority of Americans actually fit into the categories "concerned" or "cautious," rather than "dismissive," "disengaged," or "alarmed," I'm still pretty well convinced we're screwed.



Why? Because even poeple who are "concerned" enough to do things like bike to work and maintain a compost bin in the office kitchen are only willing to accept inconveniences they deem appropriate -- it's great having low-flush toilets, you know, as long as everyone still gets to eat factory farmed burgers for lunch.

*     *     *     *     *

Like I said. We're screwed.



Via

Shit. I may have just convinced myself to give up cheese. 



Post-Academic Quote of the Day

I never thought about Jane Goodall as a post-academic before, but despite all the honorary degrees she has earned since finishing her actual Ph.D., I think she still counts, given that her research was all done outside the bounds of a traditional academic appointment. Here's a little nugget of wisdom from an interview with her that speaks to what we might do with all that academic learning once we've left the campus behind:

So when I got to Cambridge, I wasn't there because I wanted to be a scientist, I was there because Louis Leakey felt I needed a Ph.D. and he was right. But I didn't actually care about academia, and I knew they were talking rubbish. I knew they were wrong, so what I did at Cambridge was learn how to express what I knew in a way that did not leave me open to be attacked.

Being able to think critically about the world around you and express yourself to people who might not want to hear what you have to say but need to -- asking impertinent questions in the right kinds of situations without getting your ass kicked or getting fired -- these could be the most valuable takeaway from academe.

What do we do with this knowledge? I don't know ... I guess it's up to us to figure out.

I can haz suitcase?

Is this not the cutest thing you ever saw? Poor Lucky missed me so much he jumped into my open suitcase as I was unpacking:

And wouldn't leave! As if, Stoopid Evillll Hooomin, I might can packed up clothez right aways and abandon teh poor kittehs more again!!!!!

At least somebody missed me :)

What's cuter than one fatass orange cat lounging on your couch?

Why, of course, TWO fatass orange cats lounging on your couch!

Lucky (left) and Hobart (right)

There's been a lot going on at work this week, as you might imagine from some previous posts, but nothing I really feel like blogging about. Nor is there any immediate post-academic griping I care to share.

The next "next" job, it seems, pretty much comes down to a a not unpleasant shifting of positions, so to speak:

There is also a next NEXT "next" job I've alluded to cagily before. Let's just say there were some interviews a few weeks ago, a phone interview before all the Think Tank shit hit the fan and an in-person interview right in the thick of it. They went well. References were checked. And now I'm waiting. I expect it'll be at least another week or two before I hear anything. I don't want to say too much about it until I know one way or the other, but if I were offered this position, it would mean leaving New Think Tank just as it is getting its feet off the ground, something I hadn't imagined would be happening when I originally applied. And it's exciting to be at the start of a new venture, even if it's one in which my role is primarily "support." Leaving wouldn't be entirely easy ...

But, if you've figured out what the whole Think Tank shitstorm was about, you might find it interesting in a truly ironic way to note that one of the people at the in-person interview was one of the lead authors of the IPCC 2007 report. The job isn't an academic one but would involve working with academics, both scientists and humanities and social sciences people. It would, likewise, be the start of a new venture, a new initiative essentially, albeit within an existing and well-established organization. And it would mean moving beyond a "support" role.

So, one way or the other, there's much to happen ahead, new ventures both here and there, wherever I end up. We'll have to wait and see.

For now, though, it's teh weeekendzzzz!! And I intend to spend a good part of it encamped peacefully wit teh kittehs ... peacefully, that is, until Hobart decides to bite Lucky on his fat ass, which he inevitably will do, and then Lucky will smack the shit out of Hobart, which he inevitably will do, and then there's a kerfluffle ... and then everybody settles down  ... until it starts all over again.

MeeeeeeeooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Funny

After reading about A Post-Academic in NYC's recent encounters with the dean at the place that could suck her like a giant vacuum back into academe, I was reminded of a certain undergrad prof I had who HATED university administrators with a vengeance. How did ze deal with these negative feelings without getting fired? Ze had pet snakes. The snakes ate live mice. Undergrad Prof named these mice before putting them into the snakes' cages ... after university administrators.

Nice, huh? Sorry about the light posting lately. I suppose I could just post random shit. Sometimes I do that anyway! But ... well, just stay tuned. Hopefully, the number of things I both want to blog about and can blog about will get back to normal soon.

Via

Stuff Fluffy Ate

The following are the most common surgically removed items from dogs and cats:

1. Socks
2. Underwear
3. Pantyhose
4. Rocks
5. Balls
6. Chew toys
7. Corncobs
8. Bones
9. Hair ties / ribbons
10. Sticks

(And no, don't ask me how and why I know this ...)

This and That

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. The weather is beautiful here, always a distraction, and there's this and that to do at work. But I figured I owed you something since it's been a week now. A little something is better than nothing, eh?

One of the recurrent themes on these post-academic blogs of ours is the fabulousness of having weekends you can actually enjoy. Of course, you should never disrupt that fabulousness by trying to take your cat out on a leash:

If my cat had been like the one in the cartoon, all would have been well because I would have given up and taken him in. But Hobart, the Evil Bastard, was more like this one:

And, once outside, he got himself out of the leash in less than a minute. I won't bore you with the details of how that afternoon went, but, suffice it to say, there are a lot of cats in my neighborhood, a few look like the Evil Bastard from a distance, and I spent a good half hour chasing the WRONG CAT. Oh, you have no idea! Truly, I was herding cats -- and that's no metaphor!!

Via

*     *     *     *     *

On a more serious note, the blog has been getting a lot of hits lately from people searching the phrase "adjunct quit mid semester" or some variation on it. If you're here because you want to quit adjuncting and you want to know if quitting mid semester is the right thing to do, see my post on the subject here, if you haven't been there already. The bottom line is that if you have another job waiting and you know you aren't ever going to adjunct again once you get out, then take that ticket the hell away and never look back. Trust me, your department will have your classes staffed with another adjunct in less than a week.

Peace out, for now.

Aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghh!

Just look at this:

Isn't he just the cutest? Ha! Don't be fooled!! Look at those demonic eyes. He's an evil bastard, I tell you. As Peaches was leaving for work this morning and I was just about to, SOMEBODY decided he had spring fever and made a mad dash for the door. Then this same SOMEBODY climbed the neighbors' 8 foot fence, dug holes in the garden, tried to down the bird feeder, and hissed at the neighbors' kitty watching enviously from the window. (Ironically, the neighbors put this fence up in the first place to keep the feral cats ... from digging holes in their garden and stalking the birds.)

Neither Peaches nor I could get in the yard to bring him back because there's a lock on the 8 foot tall gate and nobody was home. Eventually, the Evil Bastard wearied of the yard, dug his way out from under the fence, and bolted across the alley. Coaxing, treats, and catnip were all to no avail.

An hour went by. The Evil Bastard sang to the birds, ate grass, knocked over a trash can, scuffled with one of the ferals, and kept a minimum of 30 feet between himself and anything human.

What finally got him in?

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeow!!!

Three Blogs for 2012 (and Some Dead Turkeys and a Rat, Too)

I have a million things on my mind but few fit for expression here. I don't feel like doing a banal New Year's "Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012" post. The rest of the blog already tells the 2011 story. Go back and read the posts you missed if you want a retrospective. And 2012 is still anybody's guess. I also tried to do an entertaining review of Christmas dinner with the Tea Party Branch of the Family of Peaches, but I ended up on an angry vegan rampage with nothing to show for it but pictures of factory farmed turkeys (Ha! You get those anyway!):

But lest I further spoil your appetite and until I come upon thoughts of my own more fit for blogging, go check out, if you haven't already, new postacademic blogs by:

Currer Bell at Project Reinvention 2012 and WTF have I done with my life at Unemployed PhD for Hire. Both add to the growing chorus of academics -- for a host of excellent reasons -- who are beginning to walk away.

Also, I stumbled on Notes from Babel today, which I recommend visiting if you love words like I do. Although the author is a conservative and the political posts are distasteful (yet thoughtful), the language posts illustrate that just because we might disagree about what's good policy doesn't mean we can't wholeheartedly agree about what's good English. I was poking around the Internet to see if someone else might have an explanation for why my brain dead, 5:00 PM self found the phrase "yeoman's work" out of place in a Think Tank "annual report," and this post nails it. Although the author appears to be migrating here (and it is unclear if he will continue writing about language), go read this post and this post at the very least.What was it 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School said waaaaaaaay back at the beginning about the smart people being somewhere else?

*     *     *     *     *

And, well, this is just a cute little something in case you need something to make yourself feel better about eating dead turkeys:

Vegan Thanksgiving

Every year, Peaches and I go to our local vegetarian society's vegan Thanksgiving feast. Here's what I ate this year:

Starting with the salad at the top left:

• organic mixed greens with avocado, toasted pine nuts, and some sort of vinagrette
• tofu fritters (tofu, celery, onions, herbs, some sort of crusty coating)
• cranberry relish
• wild mushroom ravioli (yes, there's no dairy in them) with a light sauce of tomato and spinach
• stuffing
• baked sweet potatoes
• collard greens

We also had vegan pumpkin pie for dessert, but I was too busy eating it to take a picture. Here's a recipe instead.

Every year, there's a speaker who talks about mindful eating for a healthy, peaceful planet. This year's speaker ended his talk by reading this poem by Shel Silverstein:

Point of View

Thanksgiving dinner's sad and thankless
Christmas dinner's dark and blue
When you stop and try to see it
From the turkey's point of view.
Sunday dinner isn't sunny
Easter feasts are just bad luck
When you see it from the viewpoint
Of a chicken or a duck.
Oh how I once loved tuna salad
Pork and lobsters, lamb chops too
'Til I stopped and looked at dinner
From the dinner's point of view.

If you look behind the scenes of your dinner and you're OK with what you see there, if it doesn't make you lose your appetite or feel even just a little sorry for the animals that you see there who will find their way to your plate -- if you can look here and find no trace of guilt -- then, go ahead and eat as you've always eaten.

But ... we have so many other choices today! Instead of featuring dead cows, chickens, turkeys, and pigs at your next big meal, why not try some of these delicious, healthy, and cruelty-free dishes instead? If you need a cookbook, there are even more recipes here (vegan) and here (vegetarian) and here (vegan).

 *     *     *     *     *

Food should be a celebration of life, don't you think? 

*     *     *     *     *

Cheers to you an yours for a holiday season full of good food, good drink, and much merry making!

Via where you will find yet another yummy recipe for vegan pumpkin pie

Halloween 1994

Halloween is sometimes fun, sometimes crazy, and sometimes boring. Rarely is it truly scary.

*     *     *     *     *

Halloween was on a Monday that year, like this year. All the parties had been over the weekend. Lots of people I knew had gone to a rave called Glow on Saturday night. It was out on a farm in the middle of nowhere. We danced until the sun came up and our phat pants were caked with mud up to the knees. I remember riding back to Undergrad Town in the back of someone's pick-up truck -- packed in with two other people lying flat under a tarp ...

Monday night, mostly fully recovered, I was pacing around the courtyard outside the dorm smoking a cigarette and thinking about the paper due the next day that I didn't want to write and had yet to start.

"Hey," said Mike. "Do you want to go to Arbutus?"

"What's Arbutus?" I asked. Mike was more an associate than a friend. He was a shady character, a music major who sat last chair second violin and showed up to rehearsals, like regular classes, ... rarely. He shared a last name with a famous beatnik poet and claimed to be related. Total bullshit. Pretty much everything about Mike was total bullshit, except that he seemed to know a lot of people, and if there was something going on in the local underworld of 1990s rave culture, he knew what it was and where it was. And that was pretty much the only reason I associated with him. My mistake.

"Arbutus," Mike said, "is a special place. You'll just have to go there to find out."

"I have a paper to write," I said, "Where exactly is this place?"

"Just write it when you get back. Come on!" And he was already heading off campus ... towards the bus stop. Why was I following? It was already 7 PM. My paper was due before lunch the next day. But I kept following. It was Halloween, after all. Who wants to write a paper on Halloween?

My mistake.

*     *     *     *     *

We got on a city bus, all bright lights with the darkness blanketing the outside around us. I recognized where we were going at first, but then we headed off down an unfamiliar road and drove on and on and on for almost an hour. I had no idea where we were. In the suburbs somewhere, but I wouldn't have known how to get back.

The bus was relatively empty. A few people got on and off here and there. Mike was chattering nonsense for a while. He picked up some papers on the floor that looked like some poor kid's handwritten homework and was reading it aloud, making fun. Then he took out his lighter and acted like he was going to set the papers on fire until the bus driver yelled at him. I was already regretting coming along ...

Eventually, we got off at an intersection that Mike seemed to know. We walked about a half mile in the dark along a road without sidewalks and up to a house.

"We're picking up Mike," Mike said. "And then we're going to Arbutus."

"Who's Mike?" I asked. "And will you please tell me what Arbutus is?"

"We're almost in Arbutus," Mike said. It turned out the other Mike was somebody I'd met before, a harmless enough kid, tall and lanky with sad eyes sunken in their sockets. I think he was still in high school. The two of them smoked some pot, and then all three of us left the house and walked for another mile or so. It had started to rain. At some point, we crossed a street, and Mike announced we had reached Arbutus. It was just the name of a suburb.

A few blocks later, we walked up to a house. The light on the front porch was on and some people, raver types, were standing around smoking cigarettes. They waved us in, seeming to know both Mikes. They looked vaguely familiar.

Inside the house, someone was spinning records, something with a house-y beat. Incense burned. People, maybe 12-15, sat around on couches talking. Mike sat down on the floor by the coffee table and took out a sketch pad. The other Mike went over to talk to the people spinning records.

I parked myself on the couch near the door. I had my backpack with me, which contained the books I was supposed to be writing my paper about and a notebook. It was after nine already, and I figured I'd be stuck here for a while. Some party! I toyed with the idea of starting the paper. Whatever I wrote here I could always revise and type up when I got back.

I lit a cigarette and thought about what I wanted to say ...

*     *     *     *     *

All of a sudden, the front door, just to my right, burst open. Three men stormed in. Their boots shook the floor. Their voices drowned the music. All I saw were the guns pointed, it seemed, at our heads.

"FREEZE!!!!" commanded an authoritative voice. "Put your hands over your heads AND DO NOT MOVE!!"

I felt a surge of adrenaline and, shaking, put my hands over my head. The notebook was still in my lap.

They had entered through the front door. Several more had come in through the back. They all had their guns out, pointed at us. All I could see were those guns. We sat motionless. Several of them, stationed strategically around the room, kept us at gunpoint. The rest tore apart the house, searching drawers, closets, cushions, the panels in the drop ceiling -- every conceivable place.

*     *     *     *     *

The police had a search warrant, it turned out, for the three tenants renting the place. I didn't know any of them, but, allegedly, they had been selling ... stuff. The cops had been watching the house for some period of time, figured they had enough evidence, and must have assumed Halloween would be an ideal time to catch these Evil Drug Dealers in the act.

All they found, after all that searching, after scaring the living SHIT out of most of us (out of me, anyway), was some paraphernalia. It was a Monday night, after all.

But ... they weren't finished yet. Having searched the house, it was now time to search each of us individually. First they went through our belongings, backpacks, purses, and whatnot, while they questioned us.

"What's this?" the cop searching my bag asked, eyeing me suspiciously as he examined, one by one, each cylindrical wooden piece that had been nestled in a padded case.

"It's a flute, a baroque flute. I'm in the early music ensemble," my nerdly self said. I also had sheet music in my backpack to prove it, too. "Do you want me to play?"

He put it back, looked through my books and folders and notes, and found nothing. In my wallet, he found my ID for Undergrad U.

"You go to Undergrad U?" he asked. I nodded. "Do you have a scholarship?" I nodded. "You do know that your scholarship will be revoked if we find anything on you? What's a nice kid like you from Undergrad U doing here with these dummies?"

I looked at him blankly. He didn't find anything.

*     *     *     *     *

You'd think it would be over after that, after they searched the premises and each individual person and found nothing of consequence. But no. Things got even better. You'd think having several guns pointed at you would be the worst of it. But no. It was Halloween, after all.

Sometime around 11 o'clock, they decided they needed to strip search us. All of us. I'll spare you the details, but, one by one, we each went into a room with an officer. All of the original cops were men, but they called in a female to search the women. We had to take off each article of clothing, underwear included, and hand it to the cop, who, wearing latex gloves, examined it thoroughly. The process took about three minutes. If they found nothing, you put your clothes back on and went back to the room where everyone else was to wait until whenever it was they decided this horrowshow would be over.

They found nothing.

*     *     *     *     *

Sometime after midnight, I was allowed to leave. They kept Mike, the last chair second violin (I had lost track of the other one), for further questioning (he had been mouthing off a bit once he figured out they weren't actually going to shoot him), but the buses had stopped running anyway. I got a ride back to campus with a crazy kid who talked to aliens and thought I wanted to know all about what they told him. He was 20, he said, but wasn't in school.

He worked full-time in a lab.

*     *     *     *     *

I don't remember how late it was when I finally got back to my room, but I was too upset to sleep. So ... I wrote my paper. Sometime around seven in the morning, I crashed, waking up just in time to run to my 11 AM class, paper in hand.



*     *     *     *     *

Being strip searched at gun point ... that does take the cake for frightful nights. I'd rather write a paper any day, Halloween or not!!

In retrospect, I can't say the experience haunts me in any particular way. After all, it turned out OK. But there is something deeply disturbing, grotesque even, about the threat of violence -- deadly violence -- in contrast to the actuality of the circumstances.

Because ... whatever the suspicions were, whether founded or not, no one at that party was armed. No weapons were ever found. In the end, they even let Mike off, despite his big mouth. No one was arrested.

And yet, they were POINTING GUNS AT ALL OF US. Presumed guilty until proven innocent?

It's not a feeling you ever quite forget ...

Hobart sez, "Are you finish wid teh scary stories? I can stop teh hiding? I can haz kandy now??! Happy Halloweeeeeeeenz, my peeplz!!"

Misconceptions

In case you've missed it, over at 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School, there's a superfantastic shitfest going on in the comments to this post. I wasn't going to get involved, but the Honey Badger summoned me (just go read the comments) to rebut something and I couldn't resist. What occurred to me -- as I went blathering on in comments of my own -- was that, while the academic job market may have a fair lot of myths surrounding it, there are also a lot of myths and misconceptions that academics have about nonacademic work and vice versa.

The hostility and acrimony expressed in those comments say more about what academe does to people than anything else. On the one hand, you have the people who have gotten out (either before or after grad school) who try to convince themselves they made the right choice but still harbor some regret and a lot of insecurity. On the other hand, you have people committed to getting the Ph.D. and/or who now find themselves stuck on the adjunct track (with or without degree) and need to convince themselves they're happy and have settled for the lesser of two evils -- even though they may have tried and tried to get out! The nonacademics piss on the academics for being stupid losers who can't get their lives together, and the academics piss on the nonacademics for being superficial, money-motivated jerks who never belonged in academe to begin with.

It's sad, really, that the conversations degenerate like this. Because the issue we should be focusing on is Academe itself. Because ... really? We need educated citizens if democracy is going to function properly. The current system is destroying the next generation of faculty while charging students more and more every year. If we can't have a rational conversation about what's wrong with academe without flinging poo at each other, we're never going to get to the point of talking about solutions.

So. I've digressed a bit already. What I wanted to say is that there are some common misconceptions about nonacademic work among academics (and would-be academics) that prevent them from both accurately assessing their current situation and figuring out how to get out -- if getting out is what they want to do.

Misconception #1: There's a secret "inside track" for all the good jobs. If you're not on it, you'll forever be stuck in retail or restaurant work.
While it's absolutely true that networking helps and that your connections may give you access to jobs unavailable to others, it's also true that many people do gt interviews and jobs just from answering job ads. Personally, I'm terrible at networking. It's something I really need to work on, but, while I've seen people over the last few months come and go because of their connections, I got all of my interviews and this job by answering an ad. At the same time, this so-called "inside track" is one people work hard at creating for themselves. There's nothing magical about it. It's accessible, but you have to take the initiative.

Misconception #2: All nonacademic jobs are boring. Adjuncting isn't great, but it beats spending the rest of your life in a cubicle as a corporate slave.
I don't even really have a response for this other than maybe ... grow up? If you're happy enough adjuncting, then keep on adjuncting. I'll be the first to point out your complicity with the system, but I'll also be the last to tell you to quit -- if you're really satisfied, that is. But don't cheat yourself by using the "boring" excuse to avoid exploring other kinds of work. Sure, there are plenty of corporate, cubicle jobs out there, but there are also plenty of non-corporate, non-cubicle jobs. Even the corporate, cubicle ones are probably not in practice what you imagine them to be in theory. Broaden your horizons.

Misconception #3: The economy is bad everywhere. Other industries treat their workers poorly. Adjuncts should be glad to have any job at all, especially if they like what they're doing at least a little.
It's true that the economy is bad and that other industries treat their workers poorly and that -- to a certain extent, with almost 10% of the population unemployed - a job is a job is a job. But looking at the issue in these terms sidesteps some of the problems unique to academe. The trend towards casualization began several decades ago (as the "I told you so" tenure-track types are fond of saying ... except not to their bright-eyed, bushy-tailed undergrads). It's been exacerbated by the recession and certainly mirrors problems we're seeing elsewhere in the economy, but the "market" for jobs in academe is grossly distorted in ways it is not in other industries. Academe has figured out that it needs workers and that a great many people will work for far less than they are worth -- a great many people who could be doing other things but believe they are destined for Living the Life of the Mind. Class is a factor, too, for many. You may be on food stamps, but, as faculty, you're middle-class in a way that your uncle Joe the Plumber never will be, even if he earns 10 times your salary. I'm sympathetic to this position, but, on the other hand, if your work as a teacher and researcher has so much more "class" value than being a plumber does, why aren't you getting paid accordingly? In my book, that's Catch-22: You like what you do but that's how you're getting screwed. And your exploiters know it, and that's why they're continuing to exploit you. Do you really like adjuncting THAT much? Are you SURE you wouldn't like being a plumber even a little bit ... or maybe a secretary?

Misconception #4: I don't really like adjuncting that much, but all my efforts to find another kind of job have failed. Nobody wants to hire someone with an M.A. or Ph.D. in the humanities.
As I understand it from reading around the blogosphere and talking to people, there is a lot of geographic variability here. If you're someplace that's been particularly hard hit by the recession, the odds of you finding even a secretary job like mine are probably much lower. You might want to consider relocating, if that's an option. If geography isn't your problem, take a good, hard look at the kinds of materials you're sending out and the kinds of jobs you're applying for. I've said before but I'll say again, I didn't start getting responses until I started marketing myself as a career changer. It puts you in a different category in the minds of those doing the hiring and makes you eligible for positions above the entry level, even if you have not worked in those particular occupations before.

Misconception #5: The nonacademic world doesn't have anything to offer me. I'm smart and talented, and my gifts would be wasted outside academe. I'm not really happy with what academe has to offer me, but I'd be even more unhappy outside academe.
This is a narcissistic variation of #2. No wonder you're unhappy. Really, the nonacademic world doesn't have anything to offer YOU? No wonder nobody is calling you back about those applications. It's not about what they have to offer you but the opposite -- what you have to offer them. They don't want your narcissism and arrogance. They don't want someone who thinks they're too good for the job they're applying for ... or the company or the industry. They want someone who not only has smarts and talents but is willing to creatively use those smarts and talents to DO something productive within the organization. If you're willing to use your smarts and talents creatively and positively, they won't be wasted, and you won't feel like you're wasting your time.

If you fall prey to these misconceptions, you will be more like the Slowass Sloth than the Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger:

I Can Haz ...

Weeeeeeeeekende!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Lucky sez, "ZZzzzzzzZZZzzzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz ... "

A Blue Gorilla Picking His Nose

Lest you think this blog is too serious, just look at what I saw on my walk in to work today:

Lions and Tigers and ... Bears?! Holy $hit, A BEAR!!!

Yesterday, Peaches and I were enjoying a nice day of hiking (basically, where our "staycation" ended up) in Shenandoah National Park. It was a bit misty:

I took that one out the car window at one of the "scenic overlooks" along Skyline Drive, but the clouds and mist kept things reasonably bearable (pun intended) on the trails on what would otherwise have been a too hot day.

The deer even came up close enough to photograph:

I know you rural and even suburbia people aren't that excited about deer (they eat your geraniums and whatnot), but they're a novelty for us city folk.

Another, slightly scarier novelty of woodland critterdom, of course, are the bears, black bears, to be specific.

As we were hiking back along a lonely stretch of trail, we were nearly scared out of our wits when we SAW ONE, NOT TWENTY FEET AWAY!!! He (or she) was in the woods, just off the trail to our right and was looking right back at us!!!

Oh, you know for sure I'd have a picture, but we weren't sure what to do and getting the heck away from there as quickly as possible, before that bear got any ideas, was what we did.

Too bad, because as it turns out, black bears are rarely dangerous to humans. Here is a visual:

Via

I didn't take this picture, but the bear here looks very much like the bear we saw. Scary, no? But I guess, they're not prone to attacking ... next time, I will take my own.

The feeling of looking at another creature like that, though, sizing him up as he does the same to you, one animal to another, is something pretty spectacular. You don't have any particular advantage for being human, especially if you don't know anything at the time about the other creature's habits and behavior ...

Faulkner, in that great and terrible tale about the bear and the boy, puts it this way:

Then he saw the bear. It did not emerge, appear: it was just there, immobile, fixed in the green and windless noon's hot dappling, not as big as he had dreamed it but as big as he had expected, bigger, dimensionless against the dappled obscurity, looking at him.

Go Down, Moses (1940)

Monday Morning AcademiCat

Hobart says: "Kittehs as handsome as I is don't need to be smart. Teh peoplz luuvs you even if you does dumbstupid tings like eat sandalz (Mmmmmmm!). But I iz handsome AND smart (even if I duz dumbstupid tings sometimes), and I like you to pleaze tell me so many times every day."

Saturday PsychedeliCats

Lucky says: "Pleazed down't takeh meh picture right now. Teh alienz iz coming. Don't you seez dem iz rights ovver therere?

Hobart says: "Piss off peoplz. I haz places to go!"

Later:

Hobart says: "Sandalz! Oh how I luvs me teh smelle of some summerre sandalz!"

Your Monday Afternoon Ugly

Today, I offer you something of an antidote to yesterday's Sunday Morning Cute:

A preserved alligator head, Think Tank Boss's souvenir from New Orleans (I did ask for something bizarre, grotesque, and/or reflective of the local culture), which now sits atop my office printer:

Unlike Hobart, I don't think this creature has anything much to say, since the (ahem) preservationists had to cut out her tongue to keep her looking so fresh-as-a-daisy mean and spiteful.

If she could, she'd probably say something along the lines of: "You'd better be damned glad I'm dead."