California Logic, Parte the Firste: Wherein I Am Hired.

FOR the last several weeks, I have been virtually incommunicado via telephone and email. While I occasionally read posts on various mailing lists, and I might (very rarely) respond with a one word sentence about my plans for attending this or that event, the fact is that I've been quite a ghost, lately.

Part of this has to do with the very difficult situation at work. A few months ago, I was hired as an adjunct professor at a local University. I suppose, based upon my experiences at Graduate School, I should have been convinced that my relatively tame, straightforward experience as an Undergrad at Ball State had been the exception, rather than the norm, when it came to colleges. But boy did I go into this with a bit more idealism than was, perhaps, immediately appropriate.

There were countless miscommunications from the beginning. First, information was shared that led me to believe it'd be a full time position. Then I learned that the position would be part-time ('Contract Faculty' is the appropriate term, though it has a slightly different meaning in the Midwestern and Eastern United States). Then, it looked like they wouldn't need me after all, and after telling everyone I had the job (every indication was that I did, indeed, have it), it looked like I didn't.
Somehow, about three weeks before the semester started, I suddenly had the job again. Perhaps this should have prepared me for what was to come.

Perhaps not receiving my first paycheck for three months would have had something to do with it, too. You see, the school district I work for is theoretically required to pay the employees on the tenth of every month. However, it has become accepted that paycheck is always at least one month late with your initial pay, when you're hired on as a prof. Not a big deal, right? Well, it's become so accepted that, in fact, "one month" is the minimum window, whereas two or three months is more likely, and to make things even better, the first check you receive only covers your first few WEEKS of teaching. Why? Because, I was told, they traditionally do things a little late, and it's easier to keep track of records that way.
(If YOU are keeping track, dear reader, then this means you've realized I received pay for a few days of August, and September, in the middle of November. Yep. November. Why? Because it's 'easier for paycheck' that way). No-one seems to know where my paychecks for October, November, or (eventually) December are. All indications are that I will receive my final check for this period "some time in January or February". I'm glad that I'm not the only person providing income at the moment. Worse yet, I know a couple other profs in my department who ARE providing income this way, and are probably pretty concerned right about now.

Then there was the matter of my being hired again. In case you aren't familiar with Contract Faculty, it essentially means that, instead of being hired on as a full time instructor, you are hired on a semester basis. They hire you to teach X number of courses, in exchange for which you receive an hourly wage. If you do well, in theory, they will re-hire you for an additional semester or more. They might even make you a full time type. Just about anybody can get a position as a contract instructor, if they have a degree that qualifies. Masters Degrees and Doctorates are more likely to get full time positions. And so it continues.

In the Midwest, at least when I was going to Ball State, it was a bit different. Same basic concept, except that most Contract Faculty were hired on a YEARLY basis, and the point was to be hired along a tenure track. Minor distinction, but sort of important.

The problem is that, in California, money for full time professors simply isn't there, especially at Community Colleges, and because of certain hiring laws, it's much less profitable to re-hire an adjunct for a subsequent semester (among other things, because of increased benefits, and the potential for the formation of Unions, along with a bunch of other stuff that I don't want to bore you with). As a result, most adjunct profs here work at multiple universities, reasoning that they will most likely not be re-hired for the next semester, no matter how well they do, and perhaps realizing that the pay system for government employees (all profs at the Community level are state employees) is a bit screwed up out here, anyway. That's why they call them "freeway fliers" here.

It's not so much that I mind the last bit - though I think it's fairly typical of the half-assed way the state works on many levels - but what I do mind is not being notified about being hired/laid off until the end of the semester, at which point it's too late to be hired by any other University for the next semester. You see, it took the department several months, even waiting until the final schedule was published, to inform us that all twelve new contract faculty for our department were being laid off.
Instead, a new full time prof was being hired, and other individuals who "had priority" (Ie: they'd taught at my institution before) were being offered the first shot at the remaining adjunct slots. Isn't that wonderful?

You can imagine how well I felt about it when I discovered that most of my student evaluations had come back positive. You can further imagine how I felt when a couple of my students informed me that I was the first teacher they'd had in a very long time at the community college level who treated them like college students, and not like thirteenth graders.
Yea. I felt great about not being rehired.

There are other things driving me nuts, of course, about the job. Most of my students show up an hour late for class on a regular basis. Several of my colleagues are "stunned" that I assigned my students a research paper. I have one student who didn't know where Rome was. (Think about that, for a moment - a college age, High School educated student, who doesn't know where Rome is). I suppose it's not as bad as being able to identify your home state on a map, but it's still pretty bad, I think. To my mind, it's all a product of teaching to test scores rather than actually educating students, but... that's California for you. And to a lesser extent, it's the rest of the United States.

I won't continue to bore you with details, but a few nights ago I sat down and tried to figure out how many hours I was spending, including the bureaucratic nonsense, the time spent grading exams and tests, curriculum planning, and actual classroom time. I was amazed. I teach two days a week and I spend ALMOST the same amount of time prepping for this class than I did as a High School teacher. In fact, my work at home has significantly increased. It's pretty amazing to me. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. But this certainly isn't the easy job that some might lead you to believe it is. (Of course, having only a week or two to plan before the semester's start, pick books, do all the reading, etc... didn't help, either.)

I feel confidant that, had I been rehired, I might have been able to make time for other stuff, and friends continue to assure me that there is more freedom as one goes higher on the professorial chain. But it's been pretty enlightening. I suppose you can't do something well until you start from the bottom, right? The whole Animus and Entropy thing. Everything has to be broken down to be rebuilt.

Or something like that.

There has also been family drama. What would my life be without family drama? As some of you know, my father had a heart attack last year. He's much better now, but several of my other family members have gotten sick in the interim, and the recovery for all has been slow. At one point, my father, my mother, and my youngest sister were all in the hospital in varying stages of bad health. Thank God, all of them have much better prognoses than they did six months ago. But again, recovery has been slow.

So now, here I am, first night in months that I've had to sit down and WRITE, and I'm faced with the next choice: what to do? As some of you know, I'm blessed with a pretty good situation in that I can do what I want to do without fear of bankrupting us, but I also feel incredibly guilty about all that, and need to choose my path carefully. Suffice it to say that there are several options on the table, and some of them do involve cutting short our sojourn in California. (I'd elaborate, but I don't want to give a false impression, and she'd probably kill me anyway.)

In the meanwhile, there is wargaming. I must admit that I haven't done as much of it lately as I would like. I have received my Gripping Beast Saxons (thanks again, guys), and they are absolutely beautiful, but I've had NO time whatsoever to paint. Last time I picked up a brush was the night before my mother arrived in August. I have also begun hosting a Naval Campaign for the local group here (as I think both I and the wife have mentioned in other forums, in fact I posted about it earlier this year), but my family visits, the interesting situation this semester, and the fact that I've got the flu TWICE In the last two months has really slowed that down. Hope to have it moving along at a good clip, soon. Thankfully, everyone's been very patient with me.

J. and I have also been considering the possibility of getting into roleplay again. We had originally intended to start up another LARP (that's live action roleplay) again. We met at the LARP I ran in college. But we've encountered a number of difficulties. Not so much with time, but with costuming and, more importantly, getting folks to answer questions, approve/reject character concepts, etc. I think we both agree that we do want to get back into the LARP scene again. And we may do it no matter where we are at the end of next year. But more on LARP another time.

At any rate, I'm about to turn into a pumpkin. Much more to come.

-A.