Thursday, August 29, 2013

This Week's Big Thirsty on Envy.

Q: Who is it? Who's that colleague who has the better teaching schedule? Who's the grad school pal who got the better job? Who wrote that piece of shit article that's no better than yours who's in the best journal? Why is it that the universe rewarded them and fucked you?


12 comments:

  1. Envy is a deadly sin, yet higher education can't live without it?

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  2. Damn all of you people who managed to get your kids bundled and off to school twenty minutes earlier than me and get ALL the freaking parking spots.

    And where the hell were all of you two weeks ago, when the lot was EMPTY all summer?

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  3. Ah... you address THE question: Why bad things happen to good people? (and viceversa). Four answers, courtesy of (the early) Northrop Frye:
    a) Everything is fine, and what about which you complain is unimportant or, in any case, is an opportunity to explore your consciousness [idilic vision]
    b) Everything will be fine. Eventually, virtue will be rewarded [comic-romantic vision]
    c) The fact that some people suffer injustice is necessary for the instauration of a state of justice (eggs-omelette) [tragic vision]
    d) Life is a beach [ironic vision]

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  4. This year, it might be me. I (and a few other people in a particular situation) got fairly large raises, while others (in an arguably parallel one) apparently got much smaller ones. I suspect there may be some unhappiness over this. If so, I understand, and agree it's not fair. On the other hand, I've had enough experience with being in the opposite situation to take what I can get, and not feel guilty. Besides, I really need the money (and the possibly-unhappy people are making more than I do -- and have been for a long time. Which, of course, is the problem. Stagnant salaries are really frustrating, and, in the long run, represent decreasing real wages. I'm sure it's not much fun to be a tenure-track faculty member being reminded by contingent faculty how little we make, either. But it's still a problem, especially when the contingent faculty are teaching more sections of classes that actually fill, because they're required).

    In lean times, one of the difficult things is to avoid turning on the people immediately around you, who are more often than not just as unhappy as you (in their own way), and not responsible for the situation. Figuring out who is responsible for the situation (and, most important, who can change it, and how they might be prodded to do so) is even more difficult.

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  5. The state government hasn't provided money for faculty raises since 2008, yet the university president got a $50K raise last year.

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    Replies
    1. That's horrible. I hope faculty donated to help the poor guy. $50,000 is probably not even a 10% raise. Those second vacation homes don't just buy themselves, you know.

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  6. One of my fellow grad students. Her dissertation is dazzling. Earlier, her seminar papers were dazzling. She presents and publishes in the best conferences and journals, and wins prizes and fellowships. She has hobbies, friends, and a wonderful husband. To top it all off, she has the face of an angel and the body of a model. She would be insufferable, but she's so humble and sweet. I have no idea how one person can be all these things. I think it's time to relinquish my envy and see her as a role model.

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    Replies
    1. I bet she feels similarly about you. :) Once when I expressed admiration to a fellow student who seemed to have it all together, she said she had thought similarly of me. Oh, wait... she was probably just being nice... and humble... I hate her.

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    2. Oh, she is just the worst! She shows genuine delight in others' successes, mine included!

      I do have to say that her example spurs me to produce better work than I would otherwise. Thank heavens for that, I suppose.

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  7. She has a programmer husband that freed her from grad school poverty.
    She has two kids.
    She just got a job at Cold Springs fucking Harbor.

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  8. I don't envy any of my colleagues at work or from grad school, but I do envy some colleagues at College Misery:

    Agnes of Dog for having the best pseudonym.

    Bella, Stella, and Contingent Cassandra for having more courage than I do to speak their minds.

    Frog and Toad for always being right on the money with her posts.

    Greta and Professor Tingle for turning misery into actual poetry.

    Compound Cal for having way too much talent including being funny.

    Froderick Frankenstien and Strelnikov for their imaginative uses of staplers and other instruments of mayhem.

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  9. The person the hired instead of me. She is quite nice, but the email sending out the syllabus we should all use...made me lose it, irrationally! After hearing everyone else grumble about the new syllabus standards at my SALC, I am grateful, but damn I still feel like she has my job!

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