Tuesday, April 12, 2016

All the stuffs, Pt. 1--The Negative

Here's an update on life:

1. Annual Eval. In some ways, one of the better ones I've had. Boss must have been in a good mood. However, there are a few things about the meeting that bothered me. When she asks what I'm working on and I tell her, these are the two responses I get: "That's a lot. I don't think you'll have time for that." (Wow, thanks for the encouragement and support). "That's probably not really worth working on unless you have something else because people are going to look down on that." (Oh, I'm sorry I'm not writing for an internet magazine like you. Again, thanks for your support). "Well, X is the minimum. You're going to need more than that." (Really. So for the last four years when you've been telling me all I need is X, I now need more). In response to "this will put me over the minimum"--"Well, yeah, but only if you can do it." (Again, thank you for the encouragement and support).

There's nothing like being excited about your work and having a plan and your boss indicating that a) what you're doing is unreasonable while exerting pressure about how much you have to do and that b) what you're doing isn't worthwhile anyway. And I should point out that her degree isn't even in English anyway and is removed from literature and totally and completely ignorant of my field. However, I understand that she probably knows the the feeling of the committee, so I'm not discounting what she says, but some support by way of encouragement would be nice.

Another thing that is bothering me is the comment she made on how I've "done nothing" since having the baby and how that's going to look and it doesn't matter if she's been sick the last 2.5 years or not. Because I guess a sick child isn't given the same weight as all those people who miss work to care for their aging and sick parents. I digress. First of all, that's a loaded statement on her part. It's true that I've not gotten anything published since having the baby, but to say that I've done nothing is disingenuous. Unlike the other person going up for tenure, I present at the major conference in my field every.single.year. No, it doesn't have the same weight as publications at all, but it's not as if I've just been sitting back not doing anything. But that's not even the part that really bothers me about all of this. Prince Colleague has the minimum because he has a publication from grad school that they're counting. And only one work since he's been here (if you want to look at page count, mine's higher total regarding work here), albeit in a nice journal (the other pub from grad school isn't "high end"). But of course that makes all the difference. However, what bothers me is if people are going to judge me based on what I haven't done post-baby, why is no one saying "Why hasn't Prince done more? He's single. Not married. He should have a much more solid publication base." If my lack of work is going to be challenged/penalized by my family status, that should his not be?

I think the assumption is that a) he puts so much energy into teaching and b) publishing is hard! he's probably been trying.

This angers me.

I'm busting my ass with little encouragement and support (not to mention that my boss and my "mentor" look at me sideways when I mention my research as if I'm making stuff up--seriously. My boss's eye starts twitching when I talk about my work. Her eye twitches when she's angry or displeased), and Prince gets one nice pub (three years ago) and they're ready to honor him at the faculty research day (to be fair, he didn't make the cut, and hasn't failed to mention the research day at all, like 5 times I've heard about this and how's he's soooo happy he doesn't have to participate).

Perhaps I'll be less antagonistic when I actually get my stuff finished. But I feel like my boss has set up a hostile place for me where I see everything as antagonistic. I'm trying not to though. I don't want to shoot myself in the foot.

2. Boss has mentioned a couple of times how popular Prince's and Other Colleague's (who is way super supportive of me, so I have no beef with him at all) classes are, indicating that mine are not. I think it has less to do with me than the group of majors that thankfully are getting ready to graduate. I have a couple of students who are loving the stuff in the women's lit class right now. But the one's who are Prince's groupies mostly just zone out. For example, one emailed me yesterday to tell me that she is going to miss my class because she not only hasn't bothered to read for my class but she's skipping my class so that she be prepared for her other class (offered by Other Colleague). So not only are you telling me that you haven't bothered to do anything for my class but you're emailing me the night before to tell me that you're still not even going to try to get anything done for my class, but you are going to skip my class so that you can keep reading for your other class? I don't know what it is. The first group of students I had were great. This group just has no respect for me at all. I don't know. Maybe I am less engaged post baby? Maybe it's because my boss has me so stressed and anxious that that is carrying over into my teaching? I don't know. Oh well.

Anyway. I can only do what I can do. I actually think the class I'm teaching right now is one of the best classes I've taught. I'm never struggling for stuff to say. I've got all of this material to talk about. I'm better at breaking the supplementary material up so it's not like a whole hour of lecturing. I think it's pretty amazing. From my end. The students seem to be the ones aggravated by the class. So why take it? I love this stuff. And I'm super excited about the class I'm doing in the fall. So I will teach to those who are excited about the current class and who are getting something out of it.


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