Grey Areas

Spring semester: day twelve


It's an overcast, dark Wednesday afternoon, and I'm sitting in my room on my computer wearing a Star Trek t-shirt and longjohns that are tie-dyed orange and yellow, but which Daisy claims are "pink."

They're totally not pink.

Ahem. Anyway.

It is a huge relief to not have to go to campus on Wednesdays anymore. It feels really nice, actually, knowing that I only have to get up at 5AM two days a week. However, being home a lot makes the weeks go by faster, which is a bad thing this semester -- time going more quickly means that I have less time to prepare for my comps. Normally, it would be a relief that the semester is flying by; I usually have a get in, get out, just survive mentality when it comes to graduate school. But last semester, really, was the last semester I could think that way. This semester it's a long, headlong race into the proverbial wild blue yonder after graduation, and I have a few big hurdles I have to overcome before I can even get there.

Yesterday was fairly productive, at least; I taught my students two short lessons (thereby wrapping up all of the fairly uninteresting, workbook-related directions and discussions for them) and had office hours. I also had a fair amount of downtime in which Parker and I were able to throw the football back and forth outside due to the simply glorious weather; it was easily 65-70 degrees yesterday, warm enough to where I took off my sweatshirt and turtleneck I'd worn to campus and replaced it with a spare t-shirt I keep in my desk drawer. Tomorrow, I would normally teach and come straight home, but I can't -- I'll be stuck on campus at least an extra four hours or so in the afternoon to meet with my thesis director, as I mentioned in my last post. I expect that meeting to go fairly quickly (hopefully), but who knows. I'm also giving my first really long, intense lecture (of many) to my students on their first important reading assignment of the unit. Tomorrow it's also supposed to rain, so it may be another fairly dreary, uninteresting sort of "blah" day.

It's getting to be that time of year where it's 25 in the mornings and in the 60s by the afternoon, which means it's impossible to dress appropriately for the entire day without being too hot or too cold at some point. I, for one, really want the warming trend to continue -- I'm itching to break out my short-sleeve shirts, flip-flops, and board shorts again. Because it's been so cold for the past few weeks, I've been forced to dress fairly conservatively, as most of my heavier clothing (which keeps me warm) is somewhat dressy -- sweaters, pullovers, turtlenecks, cardigans, button-ups, etc. I don't dress nearly as nicely as many of the other GTAs in the department do, though; I have friends who wear suit jackets, collared shirts, and ties to teach in every day. This is impressive to me, though a bit of "overkill," so to speak. At least, in my opinion. I'm not a dressy guy; I never have been. I'm thirty and am wearing a Star Trek t-shirt right now, for fuck's sake. And yes, I have taught in this shirt before. That's just my mentality. I've mentioned before that there are different approaches to attire in academia; there's no set-in-stone dress code for GTAs other than that we make ourselves look somewhat presentable (i.e. no low-cut shirts or super-short skirts for the ladies, no tank tops, ripped jeans or the like for guys). Some people can get away with a bit more than others, and vice versa. It's all about perspective. I tend to balance things whenever possible -- yes, I'll wear business casual sorts of clothing at times, as I've been doing for the semester thus far, but when the weather warms up, I do teach in shorts, t-shirts, and sandals. When I say there are different approaches to attire, I mean more than anything else different mindsets for the classroom environment, and levels of respect. I have colleagues, for example, who dress very nicely every day, as I said before. That sort of attire, usually coupled with a firm, strong teaching style, commands a lot of (sometimes unspoken or unconscious) professional respect from one's students -- something that is desperately needed in the wild-west-esque classrooms of normal English 101 and 102, or any of the other non-specific English classes the department offers.

In my teaching and in my own classrooms, however, I've learned a few things over the years:

1. The beard helps. Immensely. Students both male and female still subconsciously respect the beard as a sign of age and wisdom. This is one of the main reasons I grow and maintain one at almost all times. In its own way, the beard commands a certain baseline level of respect, and few other GTAs or full professors in the department have beards (I can think of only three offhand).

2. I teach Engineering students exclusively, and teach them writing at that. This means that I have an incredibly different classroom environment than most other classes at the university, because A) I'm a GTA, not a full professor teaching an Engineering-oriented class, so it is already assumed that I know my shit, B) the students in my class actually want to be in there, and C) I generally have a much, much nerdier set of students than the average class.

Because I know these things and because my bosses/supervisors have done nothing but heap praise on me and my teaching effectiveness over the years (I'm not bragging here, that's just a fact), I get a bit more leeway when it comes to how I dress to teach. I've been told before by the director of the composition program that my The Empire Strikes Back t-shirt was not only acceptable to teach in, but knowing my students, it would probably be inspirational. This was basically one of my bosses giving me the "yeah, you know what you're doing, you know what your students respond to, you're cool" sort of go-ahead to do whatever I wanted.

And this is the truth -- my students are nerdy. Of all the classes I've taught, only the Engineering students tend to get my nerdy references to comic books or sci-fi-related stuff. While they respect me inherently as their instructor, I also get respect from them on that level as well as by fostering the mentality that I'm not so different from them. I take that route when it comes to teaching.  

Look, folks, I've been where you are. I understand that you have a lot of work to do. I'm not heartless. I'm a student as well, and as I'm making my way through academia just as you are, it is my job to help you by teaching this class and passing down some of what I know to help benefit you throughout your college career.

I say some version of the above at some point to every class I've ever taught, and you know what? It works. My students respect me because they see what I am, where I am, what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, and they rise to meet the challenge. They realize that we're all in the same boat. They realize that I'm not out to get them, but rather to help them succeed. I keep a rather laid-back classroom environment because that's what these particular students need -- they need a class they can look forward to coming to, a class that's fun and interesting and gives them hope that their entire chosen major and career path won't just be graphs and charts, equations and formulas. I don't know how many times I've been told by students, both in person and via the anonymous evaluations at the end of the semester, that before my class they hated English and hated writing, and afterwards found a new appreciation for it. I also don't know how many times I've been told that my class was the only one a student looked forward to, as the rest of their schedule was comprised of physics, calculus, chemistry, any of their Engineering courses, etc. An Engineering major is a rough road filled with difficult classes and monotoned, impersonal instructors. To be able to be a bright spot in someone's academic career, to be able to give a student a fun class in which they actually learn something useful? I can't tell you how immensely fulfilling that is to me as an instructor.

But, getting back on track, that's why I can get away with wearing, basically, whatever the hell I want to teach in. I do tend to stay away from the more, ahem, offensive shirts I own -- I have a Johnny Cash t-shirt where he's giving the crowd the finger, for example, which I don't teach in -- but most other stuff I own, including a large portion of the tie-dye I've made over the years? It's all fair game. Flip-flops/sandals? Fair game for me. Shorts? Fair game for me. It also helps that I'm in my last semester, of course. I don't necessarily have to worry about my students not taking me seriously; they already do, and my choice of clothing does little more than foster a bit more "nerd cred" with them -- especially when it gets warmer. Tomorrow, even though it's supposed to rain, it's also supposed to be in the mid-50s again, and I'll be wearing my Abbey Road t-shirt that Daisy bought me for Christmas. It'll be the first non-dressy shirt I teach in this semester. I have a Let It Be shirt I'll break out in a few weeks as well, along with some others that I've collected over the past several months but have not yet been able to wear due to the cold weather.

In other news, Daisy's Shanghai'd Valentine's Day present arrived in my mailbox yesterday. I made sure I gave a glowingly positive review to the seller, as less than a week to ship me a package from China is pretty damned fast. I hope she likes it, and I've stuffed it away for safekeeping until the holiday itself (or until she next comes down here, whatever comes first). I told Parker about it yesterday, as well as about the entire shipping debacle surrounding it. He thought my plans for it were a great idea. I still don't have definitive plans for that weekend -- Daisy is in "job interview limbo" right now, and is waiting to hear back from a company she interviewed with yesterday (an interview that, I might add, she said was wonderful until the last five minutes). She's pessimistic and thinks that because of those last five minutes, a sit-down interview with the company's so-called "head honcho," that she won't get the job. I told her that HR and hiring processes are a bit more complicated than that, really. She's really frustrated with her employment ventures right now; everything but this position she interviewed for has fallen through.

"On the plus side, honey, look at it this way -- there's a Whole Foods about five minutes from your house, and you love that place."

She gave me a long, hard look before replying, bitterly, "I didn't go to school for years and work my ass off to get a menial job making much less money than I deserve."

"Neither did I," I replied flatly, "but I worked in grocery stores for five years. Sometimes you do what you have to do, whether you went to school for it or not and whether you like it or not. Bills still have to be paid."

It's a hard truth that I hate to break to Daisy, but it is truth. I've told her before that she needs to keep her options open and not only look for jobs that are comparable work to her last position and last salary, but to spread it out, and not to discount anything based on what it is, how much it pays off the bat, or necessarily what she'd be doing. The economy is terrible. Yes, Daisy has a degree and experience in a number of marketable fields, but those fields are also highly competitive ones. It's similar to my situation about four years ago before I entered graduate school, right after I moved to Kansas. I worked in the Dillon's store here and positively hated it, but I made enough money to pay the bills while I worked there so that I wouldn't starve. I was a reporter and webmaster for the newspaper here in town for about a year, as well. No, it didn't pay incredibly well, but it got me another level of experience and yes, still let me pay my bills and have a bit of spending money, and it paid better than being a GTA pays right now. The only reason I left that job was so I could go back to school and get a higher degree -- and after May, it's possible I could once more be in a work-in-a-grocery-store situation for a while. The difference with me is that while I don't want to have to resort to that, I'm okay with it, because I know it would be temporary until I found something better. Daisy, on the other hand, wants to skip over that step and go right to the "something better" part of the equation, and while I admire her for her drive to succeed, that's not always how it works. You can't go job-hunting with an inflated sense of entitlement, and snub stuff you deem "beneath you." Believe me, I've been unemployed several times over the past ten years -- when you're unemployed, there's not really anything "beneath you" when it comes to being able to eat and pay the bills. Come May, I'll be unemployed again, at least for a little while -- and I'll dive into whatever I can in order to make ends meet, knowing that yes, it's temporary. Therefore, me telling Daisy to apply somewhere like Whole Foods for the time being, yes, while she continues to look for other positions like the one she just interviewed for, is a completely valid suggestion. Especially since it may take a while for them to pull her application and give her a call.

Daisy has brought up the concern in the past that wherever I end up going after graduation, whether that be Omaha or somewhere else, she worries that she'll be able to find work there. I never understood this. Money is money, a job is a job. It doesn't have to be something you love, but it can and should always be a stopgap measure until you can find something you love, something better. We don't necessarily have a problem with jobs in this country, we have a problem with a sense of entitlement and jobs people are willing to do. Don't like flipping burgers, making lattes, or scanning groceries for a living? Nobody does. Does it pay the bills and keep the lights on in your house? Yes. It's not going to kill anyone to work that sort of job until they can find something better. And yes, people in that position are only resigned to their fate if they decide to be; one should never stop looking for something better until they find it. Same goes for me when I worked in those grocery stores. I was never truly resigned to my fate there -- I was getting up every day applying for other jobs, sending out resumes, and interviewing for other positions at banks, department stores, churches (yes, churches), and the like. No work is demeaning or unsatisfying unless you allow yourself to think it is. Daisy likes to quote Eleanor Roosevelt all the time when she said "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Even when working menial, bullshit jobs I never felt inferior to anyone else. I was doing what I needed to do in order to survive. It wasn't nice; it wasn't a pleasant or comfortable experience, but it was work, and it was money.

And, perhaps the most important part, it didn't last forever because I didn't let it.

I just worry about Daisy, that's all. I know she's struggling right now, and has been since November. She downplays it a lot more than she should -- I'm sure this is because she doesn't want to sound whiny or annoying about it, and because she likes to stay positive about everything. Her positivity and optimism is one of her strengths, but it is also one of her greatest weaknesses -- it blinds her to stone-cold, here-and-now reality sometimes, at least to a certain extent. As I love her very much, I don't want to verbally smack her with the reality stick any more than I have to, but at the same time, well...

"I don't need to get a crappy job right now," she told me. "Not until my unemployment comes down to its last month."

"Honey, you told me yesterday that you spent your last fifty dollars replacing the windshield on your car."

Her windshield at some point recently developed a long crack in it, and not the kind that can be repaired with epoxy at an auto-glass place; it required a full replacement. The insurance copay for it was $50.

"I did," she replied, "but I'll get more unemployment to drop too; it's not like I'm broke or anything."

Daisy is not destitute; she does live with her parents, and therefore doesn't have to pay rent or utilities. However, she does have several credit cards, tries to buy her own vegan food most of the time if she can, and has a regular monthly car insurance/car payment to make. Her situation is indeed incredibly different from mine -- I don't have a car payment, my car insurance only comes due every six months, and I keep my credit card expenses to a bare minimum (unless there's an emergency or other financial hardship in which I need to use them). Then again, I do have rent and utilities to worry about, so I'm guessing our monthly expenses are about the same. Therefore, I worry about her because I know that when her unemployment runs out, she'll be in much the same situation I was last summer when I was very underemployed and had to sell things to eat and pay bills.

"If I get some crap job now, it will make better jobs want to hire me less," she reasoned.

"...why?" I asked. Because, really, that doesn't make sense to me.

"Because they'll see that I have the degree I have and that I took a job working in a grocery store or someplace like that. It makes it look like nobody wants to hire me, or that I'm otherwise unhire-able."

"So don't put it on your resume. I don't put my grocery store jobs on my resume."

This is true, I don't -- not unless I'm trying to find another retail-oriented position someplace. Then it helps. Otherwise, listing it would give the same effect that Daisy just mentioned. I've always been told over the years, many times, to customize your resume for the position you're applying for. Therefore I have a "retail resume," a "teaching resume," and a "writing resume," complete with different references on each.

"So how am I supposed to answer them when they ask what I've been doing for the past few months?"

"...tell them you've been looking for work, honey." Duh.

"That's not going to work when they run a background check and credit check on me and see that I've been working somewhere else."

I've never worked a job, with the exception of my current position as a GTA, where a background check was necessary. Drug tests, yes. Background checks? Not that I know of. And who cares anyhow? I'm pretty sure a background check isn't going to say "Hey, this person is currently working a crap job across town! Sound the alarms!" It's not like Daisy's a criminal or anything anyhow. Yes, while there are jobs that will require background and/or credit checks, they're not going to pull up pay records for anything like that, because those things are classified within most companies. However, they may see that she's been on unemployment, which would corroborate with her story -- because it's true. Again, duh.


"Tell them you've worked freelance or something," I said, "if you must tell them something. Freelance writer, etc."

"...no," she replied.

Daisy has an Achilles heel for absolute honesty. She won't lie in a job interview or on an application. She won't have others lie for her, either, and she won't lie for friends if they list her as a reference on their own applications. This is one of those very few life situations where honesty isn't always the best policy, in my opinion. If you need a job, and it comes down between you answering a question completely honestly and not getting it, or lying and being able to eat and pay one's bills, lie. Lie your fucking ass off. Lie until you're blue in the face and your nose has grown six inches. Principles are one thing. Survival, however, is quite another.

Anyway, the point of this several-paragraph digression/tirade is that she doesn't know about the job she just interviewed for but suspects she won't get it and is thus back to square one, and she doesn't want to work a "crap job" (as she calls it) unless it's an absolute last resort. I can understand that, at least. I may not necessarily completely agree with it, but I do understand it. And later she told me that she got her tax refund direct-deposited today, so she has some more money to work with for the time being.

In other news, we're supposed to get some storms tonight. Thunderstorms, anyway. Apparently nothing major, which is good -- if I were to try to put my car in the garage (in case of hail), when I leave the house at 6:30 AM I'd barely be able to see to get it back out. The outside light bulb burned out several weeks ago and I haven't replaced it yet, and I no longer have a working light in the garage itself except in the very corner where I keep the mower (the wiring burned out and/or otherwise stopped working on the one by the doors well over a year ago). I have a spare lamp I may dig out and hook up down there just so that I can see when I need to be in the garage at night or in the early morning hours. After years of daily computer use, I have very, very poor vision in the dark. And thunder won't really help me sleep any -- on Monday night I slept quite poorly, waking up every half-hour or so and tossing and turning. I've become very quickly addicted to Words With Friends, and have been having dreams and/or mild nightmares about running out of letters on the board.

Yep, folks, this is my life. Exciting, no?