0225 it's been educational
so I've left my job of 17 years and my last day job paycheck came today.
it was a good job for 11 years, then 5 years of it being a great job and 1 year of the whole thing falling to shit for reasons that are likely connected to a university-wide restructuring and not me.
Fine. That's life on late-capitalism Earth. but the part I can't stomach is that the administration, including the person that took me from good job to great job, completely ghosted me during the whole process and never had the courage or the decency to explain things to my face (or in any way at all), despite my efforts to find out. They got rid of every course I created from scratch, all of which were popular and always had students on waiting lists to enroll.. hoping (presumably) that I would tire of the crap courses they offered me and leave of my own accord or suck it up and eat shit until I reached retirement age. They were right about one thing.. and I quote the aforementioned person here.. "Artists are all alike.. they don't want to be tied (sic) [down]."
Let's go back a bit..
When they offered to "promote" me to a position which required I basically live to do their every whim for "significantly more pay" and practically live on campus, but declined to ever tell me what that pay raise might be.. I declined, of course. Since then I'd felt a frosting over from the department, though no complaints were cast about me from students or admin alike. Then they lied about why my courses were dropped from the curricula. They said, "students simply were not interested in taking the courses".. which seemed odd to me considering they were perennially popular and I was pretty consistently on the Dean's List (top 10% collegewide scores on student's evaluations for professors). Shortly after being told this, I got several emails from students asking why they couldn't take my courses. The administration had lied to me and the students. They had removed the courses before the registration period had ended. I was forced into a position where my number of teaching hours had fallen below the contracted amount, by no fault of my own. They were boxing me out. I still don't know why, officially.
But being the drama-averse, nonconfrontational fellow that I am, I quietly planned my escape. I did my few remaining courses with dignity and enthusiasm as always, kept my head down around the office, and when the time came to opt to renew my contract for next year, I did not. No raised voices, no speeches, no fingers. I didn't even make the rounds to say goodbye. The office staff, upon my formal declination to sign a new contract, acted surprised. One asked, "But why?" to which I calmly said, "I'm not going to work here anymore." They looked as if no one had ever done this before retirement age. I guess they were too used to being the hangman, or too used to the enjoyed advantage of everyone being terrified of not having a job. ("Worker insecurity", as Allen Greenspan included as a main factor for the strong economy in mid-90s U.S.). I didn't give them the satisfaction. My wife and I have always believed in trading a bit of "security" (but what is job security anymore, really?) for a lot of freedom, within reason, of course.. and this is well within reason to us.
Only a few of my colleagues know I've left. I mentioned it to a couple of them who are good friends of mine just the other day. They didn't know. Some I expect will wonder why they haven't seen me around and I'm a little curious how long it will take before I get texts from them.
At least I left with my dignity intact. Financially, we will be fine. Better than fine, in fact, due to good planning and always having lived within our means. (no kids, no car, no mortgage or rent, no crushing debt (anymore) and no expensive habits or routines) Now I don't have that feeling of "oh man, what crap are they going to tell me to do that's outside of my expertise this semester?" The semester begins next week..
..for them.
[today's piece's video features scenes from campus over the years]
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