Not dead, just buried

I feel I owe an update to the dozens of spambots and the zero real, actual people who read this blog.

There has been news.  Kind of a lot of news, actually.  The problem is, I've been busy.  And when I'm not busy, my depression demands that I do nothing but sit here in my sweatpants playing Skyrim for 12 hours straight.

But enough about my crippling mental disorders, here's the news.  In the past 2 months I have had two interviews for full time jobs.  To put that in context, the last full time job I was interviewed for (not counting This catastrophe, which I don't and neither should you) was about 4.5 years ago.  So I went from nothing year after year after year, to two interviews for full time positions in two months.

I got my MLIS in 2008.  It is now 2013.  That's 5 years and change.  That was how long it took for me to turn a corner where my experience is now enough to get me looked at.  As you may recall, my experience all this time has been adjunct info lit instruction, so maybe it's not as bad if you're the lucky kind of son or daughter of a bitch who can somehow land a part time job that's actually in a library.  I don't know how such a thing as possible, but eh, people get lucky.  Maybe you did fieldwork where there just happened to be an opening.  Good for you.  You son or daughter of a bitch.  Anyway, if you're one of those people then I guess you probably didn't have as long of a wait.  If you're like me and your only job has been teaching info lit as an adjunct (I know I'm not the only one!), the the magic number you're looking for is 5.  Five years and just maybe your resume will start getting looked at (albeit, only for jobs with a heavy instruction component).

And if you didn't hit the jackpot and stumble ass-first into a part time position right out of library school, AND if you didn't make the connections to get a teaching gig at the very least (in which case you must think me the son or daughter of a bitch), then haha, wow, I have no idea what it's going to be for you.

I may be jumping the gun, though.  I'm aware that two interviews doesn't prove a pattern.  It could very well be that getting two interviews was luck, and the fact they were 2 months from each other is coincidence, and now I'll be back to another 5 year dry spell.  Could be, but honestly I don't think so.  It's kind of hard to admit, but I actually have a good feeling about this.

I got rejected from that first job, by the way.  The other one... well, we'll wait and see.

The ice is getting thinner

Please bear with me.  As I mentioned not long ago, I recently lost all of the posts I'd written out prior to starting the blog.  This style of typing up a post as I think of it instead of "perfecting" it weeks or months in advance is a little alien to me.  Hopefully this won't hurt the quality that I'm pretending my posts used to have.

I have just entered the new semester, and I hope to God it is my last.  Obviously I've always been hopeful of that just because I was hoping I'd get a full time job in the field.  By now I've given up on that hope and I'm looking for literally anything else so that I'll never have to teach at this place again.  If I can find a job flipping burgers at Wal-Mart I will take it and never look back.

I mentioned before the behavior issues the students have, especially in this post:

http://failedlibrarian.blogspot.com/2012/12/paying-dues-when-doing-doesnt-pay.html

(skip down to "the workplace environment...")

I would love to go into more specific details, but quite frankly I'd be giving away too much if I did.  In the off chance anyone who knows the school were to read this, they'd know which school I'm talking about, because this kind of crap couldn't possibly happen at any other college.

Next semester will be Spring semester, and I have never had a good experience in Spring.  I don't know what it is, maybe it's the heat, but for some reason Spring brings out the most antagonistic, combative, and hostile students, and every single one of them ends up in my classroom.  I can't face that again, I just can't.  I can't, I can't, I can't.

Unfortunately I'm still wrestling with one not-so-minor problem.  Being a librarian is all I know how to do.  I don't have extensive experience in anything else.  If anything, I'm pretty sure that having a Master's degree hurts my chances of getting a job at a gas station or something.  And much to my detriment, I'm one of the apparently few people who isn't smart enough to hide that kind of thing.  It would just mean too many white lies during the interview.  Maybe not all white.  Maybe a few greenish ones, or even a crimson one.  I'm just not very comfortable with lying.

This is all I know how to do, and all I've ever done for any serious length of time.  I'm a librarian, I'm not qualified to flip burgers.  Where can I go?  The clock to Spring has begun...

Paying dues when doing doesn't pay

The focus of this blog, really, is to to describe the employment situation our field is in, especially to new or potential librarians.  So when I bitch about seemingly personal issues, the message behind it is always: "this is what you will probably go through if you decide to become a librarian."

That being said, I hate my job.

This is the kind of profession where you may very well end up paying your dues in thankless and degrading ways for a long, long time in hopes to get the kind of job you someday want.

This is my current situation:

I work at a career college as an adjunct instructor.  I won't say where because obviously.

It was pretty good when I first started.  I liked my colleagues and boss, I liked the students, and I felt like I was contributing in a meaningful way.

I still like my colleagues and boss.  The ONE good thing I still have to say about this place is that the people I work with are very supportive, and I like to think I do my part to be helpful and supportive back.  It shouldn't be a surprise, it's a pretty common trait for a librarian.

However, when I started I was only teaching 1-2 classes, and I was doing it for the experience, not the money.  I had an office job that was my main source of income.  That business folded (through no fault of my own.... probably), and I was left with just the teaching job.

That's my brief history, now on to why you never, ever want to work in a place like this.

First of all, there is no work/life balance.  None.  The job follows you home.  You will spend your "days off" grading papers, replying to student emails, and preping lectures.  It is an all-consuming job you will be doing for.... hold on, let me move to my next point:

Second of all, the pay is garbage.  You will do this all-consuming job for no benefits and crap pay.  I am currently making $1126.13 per month after taxes.  Notice I said "making" and not "earning" because I earn far more than I'm given.  The powers that be have NO concept of how much work they're realistically asking.  This is not my personal experience, it is the experience of every single employee I've spoken to there.  Every one of them works far more hours than they are paid for.  This might be understandable in a high position where you're already making a large paycheck (I would not agree yet, but some could make that argument).  However, I repeat: 1126.13.

 By the way, this is the maximum (raises not withstanding-- I've gotten 3 or 4 since I started in 2009).  This is what I'm currently earning for teaching 3 classes, which happens to be the maximum I can teach.   Last semester there was only room for one spot on the schedule for me (which is pretty typical of Spring semester, and not uncommon of Winter either) and I was making 394.66.  Yes, that's per month.  On my Master's level salary.

So the pay is worthless and the workload sucks.  What about job satisfaction?  It started out ok, like I said I felt like I was contributing.  But more and more, the students are making things not worthwhile.  What I'm about to describe may not be typical of all schools, but it's typical at mine:

The students give exactly zero fucks.  Exactly zero.  I counted.  Twice.

At a normal school, a student who misses class will contact the instructor and ask what they missed.  That's what we did in college, right?

The students here won't do that.  So I email them.  At the end of each class, an email goes out to every one of my students with the work attached, saying "here's what you missed," and a re-hash of the instructions for the more in-depth papers.  Care to guess how many students can be bothered to take the initiative of checking their God damn email?  If you said "not a one" you are the lucky winner of this lovely set of not a damn thing, because I already told you what I get "paid."  But you would be correct.

I could understand meeting them halfway, but we don't just meet them halfway.  We go up to their door and knock.  And they can't be bothered to put on a pair of pants and answer it.  That's just their attitude: they don't want to take even a minimal amount of personal responsibility.  And yes, we all explain to them how college works.  Admissions does it, the advisors do it, the instructors do it.  We all tell them "seriously, you need to go to class."  And "seriously, you need to do your work."  They've all heard it, they don't care.

The problem with job satisfaction is, it's now to the point where most of the students are not putting in a serious effort, and the few that do are often the ones who don't really need a ton of help anyway.  I feel like all I'm doing at this point is weeding out the students who are wasting their time, and "angel of death" is not a very satisfying job.

And when they bother to show up?  Well that brings me to the last complaint, the workplace environment ranges from "borderline hostile" to "fucking hostile."  This job involves far, far more degradation than I am being paid to take.  The students fight and push back at you at every turn.  No matter how much you lower your standards, it's not enough to make them happy.  I gave up on trying to get them to stop swearing in class, all I asked is that they not use racial slurs.  I tell a guy not to say it, he immediately repeats it to my face.  I had a student rant and argue about every rule I tried to enforce, telling me "I don't like this class and I don't like you." And it wasn't just me.  He put 3 instructors through his brand of terrorism before being removed from the school. I had a student (not even one of mine) come into my room and start swearing as every other word out of his mouth.  Particularly something that started with "Mother" but then took a pretty hard left turn.  I ordered him out, and he walked out swearing at me now with a huge grin on his face, obviously very proud of himself.  And he was right to think he got one over on me-- he did.  I have no idea who he was, and thus no way to report him.  I went to a noisy room next to mine (more loud abusive language.  Of course plenty of racial slurs) and asked them to be quieter.  The whole time I'm talking to them one of them repeatedly barks "NO!" at me.

...I could go on.  For pages.

Even the students who aren't complete assholes by nature wear you down.  There's only so many times you can pass out the most dumbed-down research paper you will ever see-- (4 pages long, and we give the students a list of suggested sources.  They don't even have to find or evaluate the sources themselves, and we call it a "research" paper, because we've given up expecting more of them)-- and being consistently and unanimously told that "you're giving them too much work" and hear about how cruel you're being before you lose any shred of sympathy for the students, and for humanity in general.

Now to bring the point back around: yes, I'm venting.  It had to be done.  But this isn't all about me talking about myself.  The other point I want to make is this: this has been my job for four years now.  This is what I'm putting myself through week in and week out, because as terrible as it is in every aspect (unreasonable workload for crap pay and utter degradation), this is the best I can do in the library world.  This is exactly the kind of thing you may find yourself doing for years on end, week in and week out, in hopes of MAYBE one day being able to land something better.  How many years?  Well, four isn't enough for me so far.  I'll keep counting.

How badly do you want to be a librarian?

Subterranean homelife blues

You may now be wondering, if I’m really making so little money, how is it possible that I’m, you know, alive?  I wouldn’t be a proper failure if I couldn’t tell you, without a trace of jesting, that I still live with my parents. 

I am 29, nearing 30, and live with my parents.  That doesn’t make me sound like a failure yet?  You say there’s an increasing trend of adults post-college who are being supported by their parents, and I’m in fairly good company and not completely pathetic?  Ok, wait a second.  Let me be more specific.

I’m currently 29 years old, almost 30, and I live in my parents’ basement.

I have no idea why living in their basement makes me a bigger loser than living with them in general.  I know it does, but I’m not sure why, and I find it interesting that it works that way.  When I meet people I will tell them without hesitation that I live with my parents.  Might as well, you know?  But if I even remotely care what that person thinks of me, I will intentionally avoid giving them any kind of indication that I live in the basement.  There are people who have known me for years and know that I live with my parents, but still don't know I happen to be underground.

It’s not like I’m in the basement because I happen to think it’s good to be there or anything.  It’s just that after I initially left during college, my sister got my old room and her old room became a computer room.  The basement is just where there was room for my bed, that’s all.  Not that I’m making excuses, it's just a fact.

And it's not like I spend all of my time down there taking drugs and playing video games, as per the stereotype.  I've never so much as tried illicit drugs, and.... ok, I do enjoy video games, but not at the expense of having a job or trying to have one.  I play when I have time, and it's not that often these days.  I still realize that doesn't make it sound any better.

Either way I live with my parents because I’m a grown adult who is more or less a waste of a life.  Would this situation really be improved if I slept across the hall from them rather than downstairs?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the perception, I’m just wondering where it comes from.

In any event, that’s my life.  I work as an instructor at a college, then I come home to my parents’ basement and grade college papers.  Imagine if my students knew that.

So what do I do?

This may not be the most interesting post, but I feel I have to get it out of the way.  As I lay my life before you, it will be relevant to know where I'm currently working.  I did mention already, after all, that I have 3 years of experience in my field.  You may already be wondering where I was able to find it.

I teach semester-long courses on information literacy at a career college (I also taught technology literacy, before they did away with the course).  “Teaching at a college?,” asks my reader (I know better than to pluralize that) with genuine surprise.  “Why that sounds rather sexy, what are you so bitter about?” 

Oh, well I’m sorry to have come off as bitter.  I was aiming for honest, it just happens that honesty always sounds like bitterness.  If it doesn’t, you’re not being fully honest.  These writings come from a place of sincerity, I assure you. 

But in answer to your question, the problem is that I’m an adjunct, and the job is less than part time.  How many classes I teach, and consequently, how much I get paid, depends on the semester.  At best, I’m less than half-time.  At worst, I’m breaking even after paying for student loans, gas, and car insurance.  And I mean dead even, give or take, with nothing left over. 

The job itself isn’t bad.  It has ups and downs.  I enjoy the people I work with, and I more often than not enjoy the students.  But it can be more work than the pay is worth, and I’m definitely far from having a life of my own.  Ultimately it's not where I want to be.  I want something with better and more structured hours.  Working nights makes me depressed, and not having structured hours (i.e., grading and prep time done at home) means I'll take 8 hours to do something that should take 2 because of ADD.  I want a job that I go to in the morning, get my work done at work, then come home and am off the clock.  But listen to me being picky.  Obviously I'll take whatever I can get at this point, and that's why I have what I have.  It's all I can get.

As far as experience goes, I'm not sure how far this job really takes me.  It is 3 years, but not 3 years full-time.  And the experience I get from it is specifically in instruction, I don't actually work in the library itself.  While this may be better than "fresh out of library school with only fieldwork under my belt" (especially since I do someday hope to have a job with an instruction component) I'm not sure if I'm really doing my resume that big of a favor.  I'm starting to think I may be better off to stop sinking my time into this job and find something I can get more money for, even if the "more money" job is something like a Wal-Mart greeter that will net me no career experience.  So far I've prioritized experience over money, but is this experience actually worth anything anymore?  Especially now that I'm facing the fact that it may be best to stop hoping to get a job in my field anymore, I just don't know.