I've closed the library today so that JROTC can host part of a blood drive. They also have a van outside doing some of it. Since we are smaller than last year and the shelves have been rearranged, there is less open space to set up, hence the van.
I overheard this big red cross guy say, "Yeah because we are so overflowing with space," in a sarcastic tone and I'm thinking, fuck you dude we can just not have it in here at all if you want and I can have an open library instead. How would that be for your extra space then?
Why on earth would you host a blood drive in a library in the first place? I mean is PE really so important that they couldn’t clear out the gym for one day?
Short answer: yes
Long answer: It is winter and there is no where int he school to put the displaced PE classes and also they raised a huge stink the last time they got displaced for the blood drive and I'm trying to be helpful.
Also, you can use the blood to open some of t he more ... difficult grimoires you have hidden in the back room
Shhhhh. The demonology section is well hidden in the 130s.
It's really weird how so much of society looks down on important jobs in government and civil service and infrastructure cause they're boring and people take them for granted and the pay reflects that a lot
Fucking Ayn Rand but for the civil servants and infrastructure engineers and maintenance workers.
I still can't stop laughing about the fact that the GOP are so disorganized and incompetent that they've barely been able to get anything done in a full year while controlling the presidency and entire legislature.
The really :tell_me_more: about it is that they're the reason you have to have 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate now. They could have just played ball after 2008 and they'd still be able to do most of the dumb, awful stuff they want to.
I've closed the library today so that JROTC can host part of a blood drive. They also have a van outside doing some of it. Since we are smaller than last year and the shelves have been rearranged, there is less open space to set up, hence the van.
I overheard this big red cross guy say, "Yeah because we are so overflowing with space," in a sarcastic tone and I'm thinking, fuck you dude we can just not have it in here at all if you want and I can have an open library instead. How would that be for your extra space then?
Why on earth would you host a blood drive in a library in the first place? I mean is PE really so important that they couldn’t clear out the gym for one day?
Short answer: yes
Long answer: It is winter and there is no where int he school to put the displaced PE classes and also they raised a huge stink the last time they got displaced for the blood drive and I'm trying to be helpful.
Also, you can use the blood to open some of t he more ... difficult grimoires you have hidden in the back room
Shhhhh. The demonology section is well hidden in the 130s.
I greatly appreciate you took the time to be accurate with this joke.
I've closed the library today so that JROTC can host part of a blood drive. They also have a van outside doing some of it. Since we are smaller than last year and the shelves have been rearranged, there is less open space to set up, hence the van.
I overheard this big red cross guy say, "Yeah because we are so overflowing with space," in a sarcastic tone and I'm thinking, fuck you dude we can just not have it in here at all if you want and I can have an open library instead. How would that be for your extra space then?
Why on earth would you host a blood drive in a library in the first place? I mean is PE really so important that they couldn’t clear out the gym for one day?
Short answer: yes
Long answer: It is winter and there is no where int he school to put the displaced PE classes and also they raised a huge stink the last time they got displaced for the blood drive and I'm trying to be helpful.
Also, you can use the blood to open some of t he more ... difficult grimoires you have hidden in the back room
Shhhhh. The demonology section is well hidden in the 130s.
I greatly appreciate you took the time to be accurate with this joke.
It's really weird how so much of society looks down on important jobs in government and civil service and infrastructure cause they're boring and people take them for granted and the pay reflects that a lot
Fucking Ayn Rand but for the civil servants and infrastructure engineers and maintenance workers.
Every once in a while I have students who shit-talk sanitation employees, and every time I have to lecture them that they'd be really lucky to get one of those jobs.
I've closed the library today so that JROTC can host part of a blood drive. They also have a van outside doing some of it. Since we are smaller than last year and the shelves have been rearranged, there is less open space to set up, hence the van.
I overheard this big red cross guy say, "Yeah because we are so overflowing with space," in a sarcastic tone and I'm thinking, fuck you dude we can just not have it in here at all if you want and I can have an open library instead. How would that be for your extra space then?
Why on earth would you host a blood drive in a library in the first place? I mean is PE really so important that they couldn’t clear out the gym for one day?
Short answer: yes
Long answer: It is winter and there is no where int he school to put the displaced PE classes and also they raised a huge stink the last time they got displaced for the blood drive and I'm trying to be helpful.
Also, you can use the blood to open some of t he more ... difficult grimoires you have hidden in the back room
Shhhhh. The demonology section is well hidden in the 130s.
I greatly appreciate you took the time to be accurate with this joke.
Bravo, sir.
You say like he had to look it up and didn't just know it off the top of his head.
I found that one person. The one who lives under a rock, doesn't know anything about current events, is totally disconnected from news despite interacting with society daily.
She didn't know what Sandy Hook was. No bell to ring, no memory to jog, just complete and total "What's that?"
HOW?!
Whatever you do, do not remove her rock! Let her continue unburdened by the knowledge we all bear, and let us know that least one woman is at peace. So that we can wistfully dream we had her gift.
This thread couldn't just let my own rock be and had to yank it off when the topic of the Duggars came up.
A job is a job and it sounds like you're both good at it and doing really well in the field. I hate when people look down on jobs. We need all those jobs to keep shit running, a plumber is just as important as a doctor just in different ways.
My grandfather and mother in law are the worst.
My grandfather was a career academic. He spent decades teaching exclusively graduate electrical engineering at a named university, and worked with the CIA on special projects several times. So, lots of accomplishments.
My youngest cousin got a 4-year marketing degree, while I flunked out of school and then got a little English associates, and my other cousin ended up a heroin junky (now in recovery, wants to be a piano tuner). This youngest cousin wants to become a beer brewmaster, which doesn't have much to do with that degree, and is currently unemployed.
Grandpa will waste no time waxing philosophic about this youngest cousin, because he got a 4-year degree. When I try to talk to him about cutting 30% of our resource overhead by negotiating better deals, or mediating employee crisis, he almost turns his nose up. The last time he visited, he cut me off mid sentence when I was telling a story about getting one of my guys a raise after months of coaching him on new skills, and wanted to talk about youngest cousin's aspirations. I was just us (Grandpa, my wife, mother, and I) around the dinner table.
Mother in law actually scoffed and said: "Why would you go back to that job?" when I told her I had secured my job for when we got back west.
I take a dim view of folks who look down on someone due to their job. Both of Grandfather and MIL had no small amount of luck to get to the station they were at, and I've learned a lot about both of their "work ethic" over the years. I'll put on the gloves and lift the heavy end. My Grandfather held a department academically hostage so he didn't have to publish for the last 15 years of his career.
+30
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Academia is a toxic sludgepool filled with even more toxic people, with a few genuinely good folks trapped in there (but they tend to eventually get pushed out via backstabbing and politics). My wife and I both fled it as soon as we finished graduate school.
A job is a job and it sounds like you're both good at it and doing really well in the field. I hate when people look down on jobs. We need all those jobs to keep shit running, a plumber is just as important as a doctor just in different ways.
My grandfather and mother in law are the worst.
My grandfather was a career academic. He spent decades teaching exclusively graduate electrical engineering at a named university, and worked with the CIA on special projects several times. So, lots of accomplishments.
My youngest cousin got a 4-year marketing degree, while I flunked out of school and then got a little English associates, and my other cousin ended up a heroin junky (now in recovery, wants to be a piano tuner). This youngest cousin wants to become a beer brewmaster, which doesn't have much to do with that degree, and is currently unemployed.
Grandpa will waste no time waxing philosophic about this youngest cousin, because he got a 4-year degree. When I try to talk to him about cutting 30% of our resource overhead by negotiating better deals, or mediating employee crisis, he almost turns his nose up. The last time he visited, he cut me off mid sentence when I was telling a story about getting one of my guys a raise after months of coaching him on new skills, and wanted to talk about youngest cousin's aspirations. I was just us (Grandpa, my wife, mother, and I) around the dinner table.
Mother in law actually scoffed and said: "Why would you go back to that job?" when I told her I had secured my job for when we got back west.
I take a dim view of folks who look down on someone due to their job. Both of Grandfather and MIL had no small amount of luck to get to the station they were at, and I've learned a lot about both of their "work ethic" over the years. I'll put on the gloves and lift the heavy end. My Grandfather held a department academically hostage so he didn't have to publish for the last 15 years of his career.
My BIL throws shade about my job, my mams job and my sisters job because we work for the government and he just assumes we do nothing all day because we're not doing manual work like him.
It's incredibly rude and he makes snide comments all the fucking time about it.
Academia is a toxic sludgepool filled with even more toxic people, with a few genuinely good folks trapped in there (but they tend to eventually get pushed out via backstabbing and politics). My wife and I both fled it as soon as we finished graduate school.
Academia is a toxic sludgepool filled with even more toxic people, with a few genuinely good folks trapped in there (but they tend to eventually get pushed out via backstabbing and politics). My wife and I both fled it as soon as we finished graduate school.
hmm.
I have no idea what this means.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Academia is a toxic sludgepool filled with even more toxic people, with a few genuinely good folks trapped in there (but they tend to eventually get pushed out via backstabbing and politics). My wife and I both fled it as soon as we finished graduate school.
hmm.
I have no idea what this means.
You will be first against the wall when the robots come.
+14
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Academia is a toxic sludgepool filled with even more toxic people, with a few genuinely good folks trapped in there (but they tend to eventually get pushed out via backstabbing and politics). My wife and I both fled it as soon as we finished graduate school.
hmm.
I have no idea what this means.
Just a pretty obnoxious blanket statement that manages to target most people I know.
Academia can be ok. I was super deep into the undergrad academia with departmental honors, taking part in department workshops and luncheons with donors. I enjoy history, but the degree was a means to an end: an interesting job that moves fast and I'd enjoy. Which I got and everything I hear from people makes it seem worth it and is why I'm going back to get a professional masters rather than a doctorate
Two kids came in and are sitting across the room from me and keep glancing at me and keep chuckling and their eyes are red and yo I can tell your high from here you chuckleheads
Academia is a toxic sludgepool filled with even more toxic people, with a few genuinely good folks trapped in there (but they tend to eventually get pushed out via backstabbing and politics). My wife and I both fled it as soon as we finished graduate school.
hmm.
I have no idea what this means.
Just a pretty obnoxious blanket statement that manages to target most people I know.
I dunno. When it comes to faculty, I'm ... inclined to agree? I wouldn't say they're all toxic, but somehow the overall trend of their output tends towards toxicity. Trying to reconcile the "good people" faculty members I know with the scumbaggery that comes out of the faculty as a whole and the inaction of these "good people" faculty members has been a real struggle for me over the years. Whether it's their numbers, or their power, or moral fortitude, or institutional culpability, or whatever, the number of shrugs or "What are you gonna do?" or just checking out of the system I've received from these "good people" professors has dealt a huge blow to my own desire to stay in academia. I don't ever want to be like one of them and I'm terrified that it might just be one of those things that happen without your noticing.
Shit, when I think about #MeToo, I think about all the dirty stores about faculty around here I've learned over the years from staff, about the sexual predator professors who are defended as being really brilliant etc., and sometimes I think I really get what it must be like to work in Hollywood.
I've increasingly come to view the faculty in my department as essentially Walmart middle managers. They'll say what their moral consciences suggest they should say, but ultimately, when push comes to shove, they're too comfortable in their positions (in more ways than one), and more than happy to step out of the way and let the bullshit rain down on you from above (if not force it down your throats). And I just want to scream at them, "Weren't you graduate students too at some point?!"
Here's an example: was in a faculty meeting where a financial staffer came in to explain the financial consequences of post-doc unionization. FIRST QUESTION: "How can we hire an un-unionized post-doc?"
hippofant on
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Academia is a toxic sludgepool filled with even more toxic people, with a few genuinely good folks trapped in there (but they tend to eventually get pushed out via backstabbing and politics). My wife and I both fled it as soon as we finished graduate school.
hmm.
I have no idea what this means.
Just a pretty obnoxious blanket statement that manages to target most people I know.
The last two months are the first time I haven't been woken up by sheer stress in two years (and I graduated in 12/16) and I'm currently watching a lot of friends and colleagues at different institutions struggle to stay happy and motivated or even find jobs; it's been almost uniformly negative for me and the people in my life. I'm sorry that I made an insensitive, glib remark about it.
I work as a 2nd shift front desk clerk at a state university hotel. I am a state employee, with all the benefits that come with it, making ~$15/hour. I do not have a college degree of any kind, and all things considered this is a hell of a good job for someone in my position in life.
At least once a night someone will cheerfully ask me what I am studying in school. When I tell them I am not a student and this is my full time job, the change in their expressions is incredibly disheartening. I literally keep a 137 room hotel operating all by myself during my shift, but because I do not have or am not actively working towards getting a degree I am someone to be looked down on.
In other news, I was told the front desk supervisor position is going to be posted soon and that it was being tailored specifically for me. Sucky part is that it's supervisor and not manager because I don't have a bachelors degree, and university policy says you can't have a manager title without a bachelors.
For the record, my supervisor's a good guy. Really soft-spoken and tolerant and open-minded with us. We're an extremely diverse lab, in particular in age; he takes on a lot of mature students with families and such, despite the fact that they don't grind their noses to bone to publish because they have spouses and families.
In turn, he's completely checked out of the institutional processes of the university. If there are abuses happening elsewhere, he doesn't want to know about them. And this was his advice for me when I was struggling with a lot of this shit as a student president, trying to reconcile myself with some of the scumbaggery I was observing directly. (Which, to be fair, was a relatively minor component of the idiocy I observed on a regular basis, which was probably more attributable to (wilful) ignorance, (feigned) haplessness, and plain old out-of-touch-ness. Which... I don't know if that excuses the toxicity of the output or makes it worse, frankly.)
So maybe saying that academia is full of toxic people is unfair, but there are definitely toxic people running absolutely wild in academia, and there's certainly toxicity built into academia's social superstructure. (Hell, the whole damn thing is constructed on a foundation of exploitation of young graduate students and post-docs as cheap labour, while waving the far-off possibility of tenure at them, while gating them behind ever-increasing qualifications and resolutely clinging to the few tenured positions that do exist until they die.)
For the record, my supervisor's a good guy. Really soft-spoken and tolerant and open-minded with us. We're an extremely diverse lab, in particular in age; he takes on a lot of mature students with families and such, despite the fact that they don't grind their noses to bone to publish because they have spouses and families.
In turn, he's completely checked out of the institutional processes of the university. If there are abuses happening elsewhere, he doesn't want to know about them. And this was his advice for me when I was struggling with a lot of this shit as a student president, trying to reconcile myself with some of the scumbaggery I was observing directly. (Which, to be fair, was a relatively minor component of the idiocy I observed on a regular basis, which was probably more attributable to (wilful) ignorance, (feigned) haplessness, and plain old out-of-touch-ness. Which... I don't know if that excuses the toxicity of the output or makes it worse, frankly.)
Fuck that. Shit like your bosses attitude towards abuses elsewhere is how people like Nassar at MSU are able to continue their abuses.
Academia is a toxic sludgepool filled with even more toxic people, with a few genuinely good folks trapped in there (but they tend to eventually get pushed out via backstabbing and politics). My wife and I both fled it as soon as we finished graduate school.
hmm.
I have no idea what this means.
Just a pretty obnoxious blanket statement that manages to target most people I know.
The last two months are the first time I haven't been woken up by sheer stress in two years (and I graduated in 12/16) and I'm currently watching a lot of friends and colleagues at different institutions struggle to stay happy and motivated or even find jobs; it's been almost uniformly negative for me and the people in my life. I'm sorry that I made an insensitive, glib remark about it.
Don't get me wrong, universities and academia in general have a huge number of systemic problems. I could honestly be here all week. And the grad-student mill varies from 'pretty shit' to 'totally inhumane', depending on institution/country/funding structure. The situation is fucked, and while in some ways it's getting better, in others it's getting worse. There's a crisis brewing.
But
- I'm also surrounded by a great many people trying their fucking best to make the world better, and getting paid pretty poorly for it.
- working in the private sector in robotics meant I got to hear a great deal of shit being flung at anyone with the arrogant temerity to get a PhD
- the specific problems you run into (if any) vary wildly by faculty, let alone institution, so condemning the entire not-for-profit research sector based on a singular experience rubs me the wrong way
Basically it all needs fixing. Calling everyone who works there toxic sludge doesn't go anywhere towards fixing it, it just lets governments write off the whole endeavour as an anti-capitalist waste of money, which then reinforces a lot of the issues that lead to the problems in the first place.
you academia folks need a larger cut of the pie that your administrators are taking too
the kind of money we throw at it is obscene, but almost none of it goes to the people who matter, and instead goes towards bigger stadiums and ugly shit that draws in bigger crowds to milk for more money
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
+19
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Academia is a toxic sludgepool filled with even more toxic people, with a few genuinely good folks trapped in there (but they tend to eventually get pushed out via backstabbing and politics). My wife and I both fled it as soon as we finished graduate school.
hmm.
I have no idea what this means.
Just a pretty obnoxious blanket statement that manages to target most people I know.
The last two months are the first time I haven't been woken up by sheer stress in two years (and I graduated in 12/16) and I'm currently watching a lot of friends and colleagues at different institutions struggle to stay happy and motivated or even find jobs; it's been almost uniformly negative for me and the people in my life. I'm sorry that I made an insensitive, glib remark about it.
Don't get me wrong, universities and academia in general have a huge number of systemic problems. I could honestly be here all week. And the grad-student mill varies from 'pretty shit' to 'totally inhumane', depending on institution/country/funding structure. The situation is fucked, and while in some ways it's getting better, in others it's getting worse. There's a crisis brewing.
But
- I'm also surrounded by a great many people trying their fucking best to make the world better, and getting paid pretty poorly for it.
- working in the private sector in robotics meant I got to hear a great deal of shit being flung at anyone with the arrogant temerity to get a PhD
- the specific problems you run into (if any) vary wildly by faculty, let alone institution, so condemning the entire not-for-profit research sector based on a singular experience rubs me the wrong way
Basically it all needs fixing. Calling everyone who works there toxic sludge doesn't go anywhere towards fixing it, it just lets governments write off the whole endeavour as an anti-capitalist waste of money, which then reinforces a lot of the issues that lead to the problems in the first place.
so. Hmm.
That really was directed at the exact systemic issues you're referencing, I promise. I fully agree that a great many number of the problems are systemic issues, and that academia is facing an actual collapse in the next 50-100 years if it doesn't get its shit together.
Academia is a toxic sludgepool filled with even more toxic people, with a few genuinely good folks trapped in there (but they tend to eventually get pushed out via backstabbing and politics). My wife and I both fled it as soon as we finished graduate school.
hmm.
I have no idea what this means.
Just a pretty obnoxious blanket statement that manages to target most people I know.
The last two months are the first time I haven't been woken up by sheer stress in two years (and I graduated in 12/16) and I'm currently watching a lot of friends and colleagues at different institutions struggle to stay happy and motivated or even find jobs; it's been almost uniformly negative for me and the people in my life. I'm sorry that I made an insensitive, glib remark about it.
Don't get me wrong, universities and academia in general have a huge number of systemic problems. I could honestly be here all week. And the grad-student mill varies from 'pretty shit' to 'totally inhumane', depending on institution/country/funding structure. The situation is fucked, and while in some ways it's getting better, in others it's getting worse. There's a crisis brewing.
But
- I'm also surrounded by a great many people trying their fucking best to make the world better, and getting paid pretty poorly for it.
- working in the private sector in robotics meant I got to hear a great deal of shit being flung at anyone with the arrogant temerity to get a PhD
- the specific problems you run into (if any) vary wildly by faculty, let alone institution, so condemning the entire not-for-profit research sector based on a singular experience rubs me the wrong way
Basically it all needs fixing. Calling everyone who works there toxic sludge doesn't go anywhere towards fixing it, it just lets governments write off the whole endeavour as an anti-capitalist waste of money, which then reinforces a lot of the issues that lead to the problems in the first place.
so. Hmm.
@tynic I don't know how connected you are with your department as a post-doc, but do you guys have a that professor? We have a that professor and all the senior female undergraduate students know about him.
That really was directed at the exact systemic issues you're referencing, I promise. I fully agree that a great many number of the problems are systemic issues, and that academia is facing an actual collapse in the next 50-100 years if it doesn't get its shit together.
yeah i think we're on the same page. Over the last few years I just got over-sensitised to hard-nosed mechanical engineers calling everybody who worked at a university (and unlike you they did mean the students/post-docs/junior faculty) ignorant and overpaid.
but hell, I only intended to come back for a short gig and then get the fuck out again, for exactly the reasons you and @hippofant mentioned.
That really was directed at the exact systemic issues you're referencing, I promise. I fully agree that a great many number of the problems are systemic issues, and that academia is facing an actual collapse in the next 50-100 years if it doesn't get its shit together.
yeah i think we're on the same page. Over the last few years I just got over-sensitised to hard-nosed mechanical engineers calling everybody who worked at a university (and unlike you they did mean the students/post-docs/junior faculty) ignorant and overpaid.
but hell, I only intended to come back for a short gig and then get the fuck out again, for exactly the reasons you and @hippofant mentioned.
Hahahaha hooo man oh boy okay
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
That really was directed at the exact systemic issues you're referencing, I promise. I fully agree that a great many number of the problems are systemic issues, and that academia is facing an actual collapse in the next 50-100 years if it doesn't get its shit together.
yeah i think we're on the same page. Over the last few years I just got over-sensitised to hard-nosed mechanical engineers calling everybody who worked at a university (and unlike you they did mean the students/post-docs/junior faculty) ignorant and overpaid.
but hell, I only intended to come back for a short gig and then get the fuck out again, for exactly the reasons you and @hippofant mentioned.
Hahahaha hooo man oh boy okay
Yeah I don't know how that hilariously ignorant perspective exists, grad students basically live paycheck to paycheck and post docs are little better off (and if they are, there's usually some terrible catch that screws up their quality of life in other ways).
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Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
Pfff. Any librarian that doesn't know that demonology is 133 in Dewey off the top of their head is bush leauge.
Unless they use Library of Congress then it is some bullshit like BF1501 or something.
@tynic I don't know how connected you are with your department as a post-doc, but do you guys have a that professor? We have that professor and all the senior female undergraduate students know about him.
I actually don't know, partly because I'm paid by a privately endowed institute and thus separated from a lot of the actual departmental day-to-day. My own professor is amazing, but she's had to fight like hell to get where she is.
That said, it's a big place, I'm sure there's lots of them, and I definitely could rattle a few just off the top of my head from previous jobs.
But that's actually one of the things I think is getting a little better - when I started grad school, I was advised not to publish under my name, just initials, because of bias against female researchers. Nobody gets told that any more. When I did my undergraduate, lecturers would openly mock the idea that women could be engineers - i won't say that's gone away, but it at least wouldn't fly in my current department. Harassment has gone from being totally ignored, to being swept under the rug, to having formal handling policies, prevention policies, and (occasionally) being taken seriously - it's nowhere near enough, but the needle has shifted.
Posts
Shhhhh. The demonology section is well hidden in the 130s.
Fucking Ayn Rand but for the civil servants and infrastructure engineers and maintenance workers.
The really :tell_me_more: about it is that they're the reason you have to have 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate now. They could have just played ball after 2008 and they'd still be able to do most of the dumb, awful stuff they want to.
I greatly appreciate you took the time to be accurate with this joke.
Bravo, sir.
Joke?
Every once in a while I have students who shit-talk sanitation employees, and every time I have to lecture them that they'd be really lucky to get one of those jobs.
You say like he had to look it up and didn't just know it off the top of his head.
Highlights include:
-Referencing non-existent contracts
-Demanding I change the signature pane on a contract from what is now to the exact same thing it is now
-Sending us a template to redline for us to send material out (not how it works, friendo!)
It's a continent-wide case of Friday Brain, I tell you hwat.
But seriously I don't think I'd turn that job down. I don't think I have the stamina for it though, since it looks exhausting.
This thread couldn't just let my own rock be and had to yank it off when the topic of the Duggars came up.
My grandfather and mother in law are the worst.
My grandfather was a career academic. He spent decades teaching exclusively graduate electrical engineering at a named university, and worked with the CIA on special projects several times. So, lots of accomplishments.
My youngest cousin got a 4-year marketing degree, while I flunked out of school and then got a little English associates, and my other cousin ended up a heroin junky (now in recovery, wants to be a piano tuner). This youngest cousin wants to become a beer brewmaster, which doesn't have much to do with that degree, and is currently unemployed.
Grandpa will waste no time waxing philosophic about this youngest cousin, because he got a 4-year degree. When I try to talk to him about cutting 30% of our resource overhead by negotiating better deals, or mediating employee crisis, he almost turns his nose up. The last time he visited, he cut me off mid sentence when I was telling a story about getting one of my guys a raise after months of coaching him on new skills, and wanted to talk about youngest cousin's aspirations. I was just us (Grandpa, my wife, mother, and I) around the dinner table.
Mother in law actually scoffed and said: "Why would you go back to that job?" when I told her I had secured my job for when we got back west.
I take a dim view of folks who look down on someone due to their job. Both of Grandfather and MIL had no small amount of luck to get to the station they were at, and I've learned a lot about both of their "work ethic" over the years. I'll put on the gloves and lift the heavy end. My Grandfather held a department academically hostage so he didn't have to publish for the last 15 years of his career.
Sidenote: those people should fuck off
My BIL throws shade about my job, my mams job and my sisters job because we work for the government and he just assumes we do nothing all day because we're not doing manual work like him.
It's incredibly rude and he makes snide comments all the fucking time about it.
hmm.
I have no idea what this means.
You will be first against the wall when the robots come.
Just a pretty obnoxious blanket statement that manages to target most people I know.
"I didn't get out of this dank hellhole until 4:20 yesterday"
I dunno. When it comes to faculty, I'm ... inclined to agree? I wouldn't say they're all toxic, but somehow the overall trend of their output tends towards toxicity. Trying to reconcile the "good people" faculty members I know with the scumbaggery that comes out of the faculty as a whole and the inaction of these "good people" faculty members has been a real struggle for me over the years. Whether it's their numbers, or their power, or moral fortitude, or institutional culpability, or whatever, the number of shrugs or "What are you gonna do?" or just checking out of the system I've received from these "good people" professors has dealt a huge blow to my own desire to stay in academia. I don't ever want to be like one of them and I'm terrified that it might just be one of those things that happen without your noticing.
Shit, when I think about #MeToo, I think about all the dirty stores about faculty around here I've learned over the years from staff, about the sexual predator professors who are defended as being really brilliant etc., and sometimes I think I really get what it must be like to work in Hollywood.
I've increasingly come to view the faculty in my department as essentially Walmart middle managers. They'll say what their moral consciences suggest they should say, but ultimately, when push comes to shove, they're too comfortable in their positions (in more ways than one), and more than happy to step out of the way and let the bullshit rain down on you from above (if not force it down your throats). And I just want to scream at them, "Weren't you graduate students too at some point?!"
Here's an example: was in a faculty meeting where a financial staffer came in to explain the financial consequences of post-doc unionization. FIRST QUESTION: "How can we hire an un-unionized post-doc?"
The last two months are the first time I haven't been woken up by sheer stress in two years (and I graduated in 12/16) and I'm currently watching a lot of friends and colleagues at different institutions struggle to stay happy and motivated or even find jobs; it's been almost uniformly negative for me and the people in my life. I'm sorry that I made an insensitive, glib remark about it.
At least once a night someone will cheerfully ask me what I am studying in school. When I tell them I am not a student and this is my full time job, the change in their expressions is incredibly disheartening. I literally keep a 137 room hotel operating all by myself during my shift, but because I do not have or am not actively working towards getting a degree I am someone to be looked down on.
In other news, I was told the front desk supervisor position is going to be posted soon and that it was being tailored specifically for me. Sucky part is that it's supervisor and not manager because I don't have a bachelors degree, and university policy says you can't have a manager title without a bachelors.
especially if they're not really required to do jobs
In turn, he's completely checked out of the institutional processes of the university. If there are abuses happening elsewhere, he doesn't want to know about them. And this was his advice for me when I was struggling with a lot of this shit as a student president, trying to reconcile myself with some of the scumbaggery I was observing directly. (Which, to be fair, was a relatively minor component of the idiocy I observed on a regular basis, which was probably more attributable to (wilful) ignorance, (feigned) haplessness, and plain old out-of-touch-ness. Which... I don't know if that excuses the toxicity of the output or makes it worse, frankly.)
So maybe saying that academia is full of toxic people is unfair, but there are definitely toxic people running absolutely wild in academia, and there's certainly toxicity built into academia's social superstructure. (Hell, the whole damn thing is constructed on a foundation of exploitation of young graduate students and post-docs as cheap labour, while waving the far-off possibility of tenure at them, while gating them behind ever-increasing qualifications and resolutely clinging to the few tenured positions that do exist until they die.)
Fuck that. Shit like your bosses attitude towards abuses elsewhere is how people like Nassar at MSU are able to continue their abuses.
Don't get me wrong, universities and academia in general have a huge number of systemic problems. I could honestly be here all week. And the grad-student mill varies from 'pretty shit' to 'totally inhumane', depending on institution/country/funding structure. The situation is fucked, and while in some ways it's getting better, in others it's getting worse. There's a crisis brewing.
But
- I'm also surrounded by a great many people trying their fucking best to make the world better, and getting paid pretty poorly for it.
- working in the private sector in robotics meant I got to hear a great deal of shit being flung at anyone with the arrogant temerity to get a PhD
- the specific problems you run into (if any) vary wildly by faculty, let alone institution, so condemning the entire not-for-profit research sector based on a singular experience rubs me the wrong way
Basically it all needs fixing. Calling everyone who works there toxic sludge doesn't go anywhere towards fixing it, it just lets governments write off the whole endeavour as an anti-capitalist waste of money, which then reinforces a lot of the issues that lead to the problems in the first place.
so. Hmm.
the kind of money we throw at it is obscene, but almost none of it goes to the people who matter, and instead goes towards bigger stadiums and ugly shit that draws in bigger crowds to milk for more money
That really was directed at the exact systemic issues you're referencing, I promise. I fully agree that a great many number of the problems are systemic issues, and that academia is facing an actual collapse in the next 50-100 years if it doesn't get its shit together.
@tynic I don't know how connected you are with your department as a post-doc, but do you guys have a that professor? We have a that professor and all the senior female undergraduate students know about him.
yeah i think we're on the same page. Over the last few years I just got over-sensitised to hard-nosed mechanical engineers calling everybody who worked at a university (and unlike you they did mean the students/post-docs/junior faculty) ignorant and overpaid.
but hell, I only intended to come back for a short gig and then get the fuck out again, for exactly the reasons you and @hippofant mentioned.
Hahahaha hooo man oh boy okay
Yeah I don't know how that hilariously ignorant perspective exists, grad students basically live paycheck to paycheck and post docs are little better off (and if they are, there's usually some terrible catch that screws up their quality of life in other ways).
Unless they use Library of Congress then it is some bullshit like BF1501 or something.
I actually don't know, partly because I'm paid by a privately endowed institute and thus separated from a lot of the actual departmental day-to-day. My own professor is amazing, but she's had to fight like hell to get where she is.
That said, it's a big place, I'm sure there's lots of them, and I definitely could rattle a few just off the top of my head from previous jobs.
But that's actually one of the things I think is getting a little better - when I started grad school, I was advised not to publish under my name, just initials, because of bias against female researchers. Nobody gets told that any more. When I did my undergraduate, lecturers would openly mock the idea that women could be engineers - i won't say that's gone away, but it at least wouldn't fly in my current department. Harassment has gone from being totally ignored, to being swept under the rug, to having formal handling policies, prevention policies, and (occasionally) being taken seriously - it's nowhere near enough, but the needle has shifted.
The institutional inertia is depressing though.