The Past Year's Postdoc--and its aftermath

I tend to think big when I think of blog posts, which is why they're not coming as frequently as they used to. When I have something that I consider "bloggable," it ends up being not only voluminous, but also an emotional journey of sorts. Lately, rather than commit to the time it is going to take to write down the thoughts, I tend to push them aside, add a quip to Facebook, and go on. But some things can't be contained in a quip, and I'm committed in a way to working out professional issues here--insofar as I can do so. I have been thinking a lot about the past year, first because I was feeling better about my prospects and potential for really following through with getting a tenure-track position and all it entails, now because I am feeling like I'm caught in a downward spiral and wonder where it all went wrong.

For the past year, my position has been a hybrid one. I have had an administrative position of sorts, in Writing Programs, which means working with composition in various ways, and then a teaching load of 2-1. I was approached about this position last Spring by my adviser, who know that he can pretty much talk me into anything. I believe that's what he meant by "versatile" in my letters of recommendation. I may be bitter about this, but I don't want to seem like I blame him, really. He has a number of factors to consider, including the needs of the department and what he considers my best interest in terms of landing a tenure-track job. So he casts it as something that I have been specially selected for because of my ability and something that will help me out because I will not have to spend as many hours actually on campus (a real concern with a baby who was only 6 months or so at the time the assignment was awarded, and who would not yet be a year by the time the appointment began). And I fell for it. I was also coming off of what was supposed to be a similar task, revising a syllabus, or rather, making the syllabus appear to have been revised--but that's another story. So anyway, it didn't sound too bad, and since I was really burned out and just needed a job, I didn't really care.

I started to care, though, when I started thinking about the job market. After I actually had the degree in hand, things started seeming possible. Why shouldn't I get a job teaching literature, I wondered. And what have I done all of this work for if it doesn't mean that I can do something I enjoy? If I have to have a 4-4 load of composition, why didn't I stop with a Master's degree? There were other considerations. I was convinced to agree to a 2-course load in the fall, because the initial job search was easy--just write a perfect letter and a perfect teaching philosophy and send them out! In the spring is when I would have to worry about campus visits, and it is easier to get one course covered by a substitute rather than two. Hah!! Also, because I would be working with composition as "Inquiry," I would have to teach composition. With a new syllabus. To honors students, no doubt. I was originally to be given the Intro to Lit also, which made me very depressed because those were the two courses I had had over, and over, and over, and the point of a postdoc, in part, is to give the recent graduates teaching opportunities in their field. Well, the assistant department head agreed that there was no use putting me in two courses I had already had, so I was placed in Children's Lit, which I had taught with some success in the summer--big mistake, but I didn't find that out until later, and I am only now finding out how bad a mistake that was.

Meanwhile, my Intro-to-Lit-as-Inquiry project was being handed over to someone else at the "assessment" stage. With my Intro to Lit course taken away from me, I was not to be involved at all, and I would be given someone else's pet project, the composition. Working on something I didn't like that I was not really involved with revising was not my cup of tea. For me to be able to work on something, I really have to feel like I'm intellectually or otherwise invested in it in some way--a failing, perhaps, and one that does not suit me for administration! At the same time, I was realizing the dread that I had for administration, and not wanting to be pigeonholed into Writing Programs. But although I had been told that if I had any reservations, I should let my advisor (and department head) know, I wasn't quite sure I could back out at that point.

I should probably mention here that my first encounter with said advisor was one in which I was accused of "not behaving in the spirit of graduate study" because I was "unwilling to learn from any position in which I was placed." I would LOVE to have seen some of the graduate students who came AFTER me told any such thing! It wouldn't have happened. Why was I told this? Because I was assigned to grade for two of the most high-maintenance people who taught large section classes while I have been in this department--and he knew it. Also because I tried to transfer out of a "Feminism and Postmodernism" class that I registered for under "Women in Literature." So I should probably note that for the past 8 years, I felt that my job was to demonstrate that I could do what was asked of me. On a level, it broke my spirit and squelched my creativity. It was an exercise of thinking within the box, or at least, being boxed back up when I tried to think big. Especially when I agreed to stay for the Ph.D. But that's another story.

So because I wasn't comfortable backing out, I spoke to the placement coordinator, specifically about how I kind of felt trapped in this assignment, I knew I was being groomed for Writing Programs, and I didn't want to be. Her advice was that a postdoc is a "little gift from Heaven" (I have the uncomfortable gift of a memory for exact phrasing) and that I should essentially be thankful and take it.

It's hard to describe the implications of the decision to take that advice. But let me say that when I teach, I am aware of what needs to be accomplished when, and I don't really answer to anyone else for my pacing, etc.--except the students. Not so in administration, besides that there is no concrete reason why this or that thing should be accomplished before the other thing over there. So I constantly felt like I couldn't prioritize because everything was pretty much stupid and pointless, except the things I needed to do for my classes, which had to come first. Oh, and the job search, because that had deadlines. It is a terrible feeling to know that there are things that people expect you to be doing, that you have tasks waiting to be completed regardless of what urgently needs to be done now. I always felt like I shoudl be doing something other than what I was doing, which made me miserable. Since most of this was accomplished at home, I felt like work overshadowed all of my interactions with my family. And then, I was probably very anemic, which accounts for the periods when all I could do was sit in front of my computer and click...click...click.... And then there were the grad students in the office, who I'm sure resented me for not having to track hours, for seeming to get little accomplished, and whose work was always infinitely better than mine. Then there was the small matter I raised of whether it was appropriate for us to use abortion as an example on department sanctioned materials, especially when the material in question assumed the enlightened nature of the pro-choice position over pro-life.

Anyway, I was never "in the loop," always feeling lost, always feeling like I was shirking some important duty, and when I had something to say, no one wanted to hear. I had things piled on that I didn't feel qualified to do or able to handle with the constraints I had, though luckily the grad students were willing to take on some things that I didn't feel able to do. Then there were those classes. The honors students got along fine, but my children's lit education majors HATED me--and said so, apparently. I was too demoralized after the semester was over to look at course evaluations. But I must say--for the most part, the feeling was mutual. One student emailed me after the semester was over (yes, after grades were posted) to express her enjoyment of the class, and tell me how much she had learned and how what I taught was relevant to literary study (as opposed to whatever education classes do). She wanted me to end the class on a positive note, since the other students were so uninvolved & hostile. She was one of the few English majors I have EVER taught in my 8 or so years of teaching. So when the search committees ask me how I would teach this or that to English majors, my mental response is, "How the hell would I know?"

So here we come to the end of the term of the postdoc. My students this semester do not hate me, but I have been obliged, because of illness and travel, to miss more than I would have liked. I set up appointments with them at the end, as I think I mentioned, to try to make some fast progress--and I think it worked. Now I just need to grade the papers. The ones who showed me drafts after our meetings looked like they had improved greatly. Last week I had that assessment project for comp to analyze, a report to write, and a presentation to make. All done. We have accomplished very little in terms of making the course "Inquiry," which to me is not a surprise because what we were doing was whitewashing the course rather than working from the inside out. We pile more "stuff" on--more than anyone can accomplish--change the wording and call it done--ummmmm. . . no. Well, I still haven't received anything from the person I worked for to say it was well done. Luckily, I did receive some indication that I had done a good job from a higher up--or I would feel REALLY dejected. I agonized over the project and had no real guidance, but I worked my butt off at the end and got it done--as I usually do. Some time in the middle of the most stressful period of analyzing data, writing a report, and grading papers, I was asked to make an appointment to speak to the assistant department head about my possibilities for next year, including the possibility that I had a job offer. I wondered by what stretch of the imagination anyone thought I would have a job offer, since I pretty much said that I wasn't going to, but that's another story. Immediately after the presentation, I had the meeting.

I was given, apparently, the same spiel that everyone has had. We're letting lecturers go. We're looking after our postdocs. We're $250,000 short in our budget this year. We're opting to run a more expensive department so we can take care of the 8 newbies and the 4 people who we still have kicking around because they didn't get jobs this year. You've had your golden opportunity for us to help you develop your teaching areas, so you get comp next year, no chance of renewal after next year, and oh by the way, you need to publish and your evals sucked from the children's lit course.

Okay, some of this I was prepared for. I was not prepared to have the course from hell thrown back in my face. It took me 2 days to recall the full misery of that course because I had so completely blocked it out. I had nothing to answer for that accusation. They hated me. Yes. I know. Later, I remembered why--I tried to make them think and not intuit fuzzy classroom interaction possibilities. And then there was the implication that I got my chance to be special. I had my opportunity to teach my subject field. Ummmmm. . . No. No I didn't. I got stuck in a crummy position that I didn't want that they needed to fill. I was being groomed and didn't want to be. And I didn't feel like I could say so directly. Except that I did say some of it. And, "Oh, so we prepared you for a job you don't want?" "Pretty much, yes." "Oh, sorry." And there it stayed.

I'm forgetting another facet of the story, in which I intervened in a trashing-the-undergrads-fest on Facebook, which of course was only a joke. A violent, bigoted joke. I defended a student I did not know--and by extension the dignity of all students--and then, by the way, found out how badly my own students from the fall had trashed me. And they were education majors, and prone to the kind of attitude that children need to be filled with life issues so they can be programmed to think correctly--just the kind of attitude that I was fighting in my son's education and in my encounter with FB. But that's all I can say about that. It was horrible. Even people who don't accept my view of things would agree that it was horrible. It represented a serious disrespect for the common dignity of students. I was appalled, and very emotionally involved. I don't compartmentalize well. This series of events happened beginning the Friday before the report presentation, which was a Wednesday.

Well, the next day, my class turned in their papers and completed evals. But before the class, I walked into the office where I needed to turn in materials related to the assessment. I was hoping to fish for a "job well done," but nothing was forthcoming. I waled into the office of a colleague to say hello, was asked how I was doing, and realized that I was going to have a breakdown right on the spot. There was nothing I could focus on to keep from crying, and so I said, "I'm about to have a complete nervous breakdown, apparently," and was told to sit and I pretty much spilled most of the job-related things that I have related here. There was the added pressure that my advisor/dept head thought he had found an admin position that he wanted me to apply for. Thankfully, the search was postponed.

That morning, I had left the house on my normal "bringing people to school and work" routine. I went to the grocery store and came back with $200 in groceries, including 4 bottles of wine. Now, we just don't drink that much wine--or any alcohol, really. I almost bought 6 when I remembered that I could get a 10% discount. I picked up my sister and made jokes about cracking one open for breakfast instead of eating, since I wasn't really hungry. I got things together and went to campus. I thought I was o.k., if a little moody. I thought I had decided to pursue a nonacademic career in writing or publishing. I still like the idea of writing, but I'm not happy with the lack of stability--everyone's a writer, it seems. I spent much of the previous night looking at such jobs and coming to terms with that decision. Why should I want to deal with students, I wondered? It's pretty thankless, after all. And my fate rests in their hands to a large degree, both in terms of evaluations and classroom dynamic. And for what? Do they really learn from me? I was feeling like a poor researcher, and a poor teacher, and a poor mother to boot, but I knew one thing--I'm a good writer. And writing comes easy to me. So writing what people tell me to write shouldn't be so bad. Unless it involves analyzing data. And even then. . .

So I showed up late and a little bleary-eyed for my class, and if they noticed, I don't know. They were very upbeat and very nice. I was to meet someone after picking up the papers, but she couldn't make it and cancelled. So I was sitting, recovered, or so I thought, and my advisor approached me. I'm not even going to go into the weirdness of the relationship, but it fluctuates between friend, professional authority figure, and authoritative male family member. He would probably be hurt if he knew I didn't include "colleague," which probably also adds to the weirdness of it. So he came up suddenly and sat next to me. I clapped my computer shut. And he said we needed to talk. Great, cause I needed a lecture. Not now, but maybe this afternoon? Or make an appointment? Great, so I can get an "official" lecture. About "whether[I] want a job, and what kind of job [I] want." Well, I don't want Writing Programs Administration. I told him I would be dead of a heart attack before 40 if I took such a job. Blah blah blah talents, blah blah blah opportunities I've been given. And then, what kind of a condescending, unprofessional move is it to tell me as I'm trying to recover from the emotional implications of the week from hell that I look like my 12-year-old son when I make an expression like that????? No, thank you very much. HE looks like ME!! I wish I would have thought to say so. Eventually, I had to leave the building to avoid being seen, but not before I walked past the assistant department head and was offered a hug by a friend.

Believe me, had I been able to get a job and out of this department without compromising my integrity, I would have done so. As it was, I didn't even have the opportunity to compromise my integrity.

I think I am back to imagining myself in academia, but I do wonder why. Mostly, I think, because I don't know how to search for a writing job, or because I don't want to settle for an entry-level salary, or because only an academic job search offers sufficient security (possibly) to justify a move across country (or wherever).

So I'm all set for to be lectured on Tuesday (or whenever). This is the only professional support I am to expect from my adviser, since any questions I might have, I should (apparently) know already, and all I receive is a one line response generally. I might still try to get a panel proposal together on Wednesday for a conference next Spring.

I had some conclusions about how to proceed with the job search, but they're about personal integrity rather than selling my soul, so I guess they're irrelevant at this point. I fluctuate between hope and despair, when presumably the correct attitude is stoic resolution masked by false enthusiasm.

So yeah, I have no idea where to go from here. Except to find someplace to live that is cheap enough to allow me to put my youngest in mother's day out 3x a week, and to allow me to spend too much to go to the big meat market for the language professions where all good postdocs go if they want to get jobs. My advisor and my mom would most likely tell me I'm being too negative. But my mom wouldn't say it these days, because she understands my frustrations, so that's apparently why I have an advisor.