After a conversation with the banker this morning (“So you are on vacation? So you don’t work right now? So you do work? So you are not on vacation? Are you getting paid? So you are on vacation?”), I realized how profoundly weird it is it to work 8-hour days without getting paid for it. I just never thought about it this way before.
Since we are talking about getting paid, I got a 10% salary raise because of my tenure and promotion. And overall, my salary grew by $14,000 since I first came here 6 years ago. But compared to my salary back at Cornell (the Visiting Prof position), it only grew by $6,000.
Clarissa's Blog 
weird, the banker only wondered about making money, that’s not too weird now, is it?
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He was just trying to make small talk. I don’t think there was any eerie design behind this exchange. 🙂
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nothing eerie whatsoever, happy days
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You’re not an hourly employee. What’s hard to understand about that?
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I should have thought of this response. Now I feel like I’m not so weird after all.
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Technically I’m only paid for 9 months of the year (which is one reason why my salary is somewhat low compared to my education). I’m assuming Clarissa is also on a 9 month contract (and i’m paid over 12 months, But the salary is for 9 months.)
Overall, I love being only paid for 9 months. It’s why the school can host as many meetings and seminars as they want over the summer and I can–with absolute immunity– not come (even before I had tenure.) However, it’s a little annoying from a financial perspective. Publishing is part of my job requirements (like with all American faculty) and the institution assumes that most faculty write and research during the summer. And it’s true, that’s when the majority of us get the most accomplished on our research agendas. So the institution is– in effect– requiring work that they don’t pay us for. Ultimately, considering the amount of freedom this career grants, it’s only a small disadvantage. But sometimes it does rankle a bit.
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Oh I get all that, I’m just surprised the banker didn’t.
I’m reminded of the EU funded project I was taking part in.
My compensation was supposed to (per EU commission rules) be calculated by “daily rate” which does not even exist where I work (the ladies in the financial office were most clear about that every time I asked).
The project coordinator refused to believe this and produced a couple of unlikely ways to calculate my daily rate all of which conflicted with national regulations.
I’m paid monthly but there’s also an ‘hourly’ rate which is calculated by insitution internal rules (and state regulations) and absolutely cannot be deduced from any pay or tax forms I can produce as back up.
Fun times with the bureaucracy.
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This is very confusing to me. 🙂
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The point, grasshopper, is that there are many autonomous economic worlds that sometimes overlap and/or interact with each other in weird ways but which remain fundamentally separate kinds of existence.
Trying to understand how university faculty are compensated is impossible for a banker who can’t conceive of anything but a wage slave existance just as EU and member state regulations inherently clash which requires creative bookkeeping to camoflage enough to keep all sides more or less happy.
From the banker point of view, your very existence is an anomoly that doesn’t fit into their schema of the world and so must be sooner or later eliminated (as is in fact happening now).
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These days I’m one of those dried out grasshoppers sold in jars in weird foidstores. It’s very hot around here.
The banker is adapting to me. My dynamic with N is very freaky to him but he’s getting used to it. Maybe one day he will even reconcile himself to the complex reality of professors. 🙂
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I’m not complaining either. Being able to work on my research all day long is the pinnacle of enjoyment for me. I’m having SUCH a good time.
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Won’t you qualify for a sabbatical, sooner or later?
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I’m on sabbatical! Until January! Yay!!!
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You don’t get paid vacations? I get two a year. The one in summer is for two months. Of course I make less than $750 a month. But, I do use the breaks to write. This summer I did this.
http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-minor-victory.html
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Does your university not have an option of having your nine month salary paid over twelve months? I find this a lot more convenient.
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Yes, I do the deferred pay. But it’s still the money I get for the previous 9 months.
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I’ve been at my school four years and my salary has only increased 3200 dollars. I’d say you have a much better deal. Plus there’s currently no tenure bump here.
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I’ve got to say, your school just sucks in every possible way.
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