Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Small Downer

I wrote a while back about applying for a summer job on campus advising incoming students; today I got the word that I didn't get chosen. As I had just opened and read it, standing in the department office, my chair walked by and expressed her disappointment for me. It's nice to be supported, but I am disappointed for myself. I'll get over it. (I have to admit to fantasizing a bit about quitting my job the day before classes start. I wonder what would happen to my retirement account? Would the state hold onto it, or would they pay it out into an IRA of some sort, or would they pay out when I am really old enough to retire?)

A friend of mine who's teaching a mid-winter course got told today (the first day of classes) that since some students had dropped, the university is paying her a lot less money. She should have the opportunity then to say that she's not teaching the class, right? Because she signed up to teach it based on a given pay, and they're not paying her that, so she should have some recourse to say she's not willing to work for less. (That would put the students in a bind, of course.)

My moral for the new semester has dropped by 40 points.

3 comments:

  1. How disheartening. Sigh. Hope spring gets better for you.

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  2. Oh, bummer about the summer job and your friend's course clawback. Usually in those contracts, there's a clause that says "if enrollment is below X, your pay will be prorated according to Y scale". Which sucks so very much!

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  3. Ugh! And I know how much you care about advising; you'd surely be a really good choice for that gig. That said, I know that those kinds of decisions get made all different ways, many of them not necessarily about what's good for the students, I'm afraid. I'm sorry.

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