I have finally figured out the purpose behind all these whiny posts about the imaginary horrors of life on the tenure track. It is to make people despise academics. I have to confess that the strategy has worked on me: after the most recent outpouring on the subject, I feel profound contempt for its author and everybody who is linking and tweeting this completely idiotic post written by a spoiled little brat as if it were a source of impossible wisdom.
Here are some choice quotes from it:
In your few spare moments, you will attempt adjust to a new city where you know nothing and no one, and must find everything from a dry cleaner to a neighborhood you can both afford and not hate.
Oh the horror, the horror! Our little baby was forced to look for a dry cleaner. Her suffering must be absolutely intolerable. This is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.
. . . attend endless meetings to be in service to your university. . .
Yes, I have no doubt that this is exactly what the operational papers of this idiot’s department say: “In order to rank satisfactory in service, you must attend endless meetings.” And I’m also sure that the chair of her personnel committee answered the question of “How many committees on each of the university levels do I have to be on to receive a satisfactory ranking in service?” with the word “Endless.” This happens to us, academics, all the time.
You have to love university life enough that you don’t mind working 50%+ more hours for the same pay (or less) that you’d get in the corporate sector and having virtually no work-life balance.
What a condescending loser this person is, seriously. I hate this kind of jerks with a profound passion. People in the corporate sector in the US get 10 free days a year. Ten free fucking days. And this brainless prima donna has the gall to lie through her stinking teeth and pretend like she has any idea whatsoever what it means to sit in a cubicle 50 weeks a year without seeing the light of day from Monday morning to Friday night. And knowing that you can be fired and escorted off the premises at absolutely any moment for absolutely no reason.
Be prepared for “middle class” to cost more money than you make.
OK, this kind of vulgarity is just vomit producing. I had no idea there were still people pathetic enough to care so much about some completely imaginary trappings of the spurious “middle class.”
For example, you may make around $60,000 per year and a two-bedroom home in a good neighborhood may cost $500,000 or more.
Yes, not being able to buy a half a million house is a real tragedy. Let’s all weep for this freakazoid’s misfortune. I mean, here she was, hoping to buy middle class and have a dry cleaner’s come hunting her down, and such brilliant hopes have been dashed by cruel fate.
This means that many of my colleagues have delayed having children or opted to not have them, because they couldn’t afford a second bedroom.
Yes, people who can’t imagine life without half a million dollar houses will never contemplate sleeping in the living-room. Which, by the way, my parents did until I was 10. And now let’s see who is happier and better adjusted to life, me or the “I can’t live without a mansion” academic.
And then people ask me why I don’t identify with the academic community. How can I feel I have anything in common with these spoiled, nasty drama queens? I’m ashamed to be on the same planet with them, let alone in the same profession. Of course, there are other academics. Happy, normal people who are not superficial, whiny, or stupid and who discuss the real issues confronting the academia, not the idiotic “problem” of finding a dry cleaner’s. But there are so many of the other kind and their voices are too loud nowadays.
Clarissa's Blog 
Priceless take-down. Thanks for the laughs. The dry-cleaner! A non-academic would never have to find a satisfactory dry cleaner.
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Those poor people are so lucky. . . They don’t have to make the enormous effort of looking for a dry cleaner! 🙂
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I loved this post. The website you linked to is SO awful in general. So bile filled.
I think that maybe some of this is because faculty are trying to “prove” that the academic life is hard work? I know I personally get irritated when people assume that my job is limited to the hours I am on campus. I work on my off campus days. It’s wonderful work to be sure…..but still work. And I think this is a bit connected to the salary issue. Salaries for faculty have not kept up with cost of living increases and faculty are trying to show that they work hard and deserve more money.
So I do get the irritation with salary and public perception of our jobs. But still….this is a wonderful and joyful career. And I hate seeing it continually maligned.
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There are many issues in academia and those issues have to be discussed and resolved. But not in this manner. What does all this drama about “endless committees” and $500,000 houses achieve? It simply makes us all look like idiots who care only about ourselves and buying things.
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This is slightly off-topic, but you have frequently discussed how few hours you actually need to work at your job, yet recently you posted something (I have not been able to find it) to the effect that if universities will destroy research if they require professors to teach four classes a term. These do not seem to be consistent.
For background, I know several people who teach four classes a term and still are productive researchers. I am teaching four classes myself this term, and I still have some time for research, although not as much as I might wish. But then I have never been able to work as few hours each week as you have claimed to.
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Of course, if we go to 4:4 and I stay here, I will not sacrifice research. I will have to sacrifice 1 or 2 of the classes. I am physically incapable of teaching 4 courses the way I think they should be taught: with activities geared towards each specific group, with individual attention to each student, with new material for every single time the course is taught, etc. I will have to sacrifice quality for 1 or 2 of the courses each semester.
At the same time, the main 2 issues people have in my field in terms of research:
1. They can’t make themselves write consistently;
2. They don’t know what to write. They don’t have ideas.
The only way to solve the 2nd problem is to read a lot. I try to read everything of interest that gets published in Spain. I read all the time. And it isn’t just regular reading. I take pages and pages of notes on everything I read. This is why I’m never short of ideas for articles. And this is the part that needs quite a big time investment. I don’t call it “work” but it has to be done.
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Thanks, Clarissa. There are real problems in academia, but these whiny posts (and the accusatory ones) are not helpful.
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Some people find change difficult, others find it exhilarating. It is true that there is a certain opportunity cost incurred by moving to an unfamiliar city, particularly if it involves moving an active scientific research lab, hiring new technician or trying to attract a new student at the destination city. Finding a dry cleaner – sheesh. Look in the yellow pages or online. Committees – depends on who sits with you. God forbid you should be assigned to parking, the most-bitched-at committee at any urban university! 😉
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Yes, that would be a didisaster given that I have never had a chance to park anything anywehere except my own behind in a chair. 🙂
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