Of Fardles and Bon Mots

It has been a few months since I began my new job. One could say that I am settled in, though I do  remain, at heart a lit major, in spite of not having stepped into a classroom for almost a year now. I had not realized this until this past few days when a couple of events brought it to my notice. I do not yet know how I feel about it.

The first event was utter, sheer exhaustion, though one can not always call that an event. It was rather a breaking point that came on a Thursday afternoon on one of the busiest weeks my writing lab has ever seen. There were days when it would be a couple of hours before I could reach my office and check my email: I would be enveloped in student needs from the moment I'd step into my writing center. Students had the hunted, much-wept look of the lost and the displaced as they haunted the center, trying to access  their email, begging me to do some magic that would give them access to My English Lab or D2L. They hung on to their school responsibilities as though to an anchor; if their grip loosened, some sort of apocalypse would follow and they carried this desperate urgency as their most treasured cargo. If I did help them access whatever they needed, or explained a concept to them, they looked at me with gratitude of cosmic proportions, which defeated me. This is natural in a world that is left behind by a storm that closed down my State for over a week. However, we were all exhausted by the Thursday of that week. The talk was of the end of the world, how nothing was ever going to be the same. So I distributed Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" and we discussed the short story for about an hour. I had distributed the story not just to my staff but also the couple of students who remained in the writing center. Later, as I walked back to my office and the writing center began to get busy with the evening traffic, I realized that this kind of discussion was exactly what was missing from my present life. This stolen hour had adjusted my perspective and I have vowed that this would not be the last time that a story or poem is discussed in my lab. My staff, too, confessed to thinking of the story repeatedly over the next few days. Perhaps we were all lit majors at heart?

In fact, I would go far enough to say that what my colleagues and managers refer to as my managerial techniques owe their origin to my experience as faculty. Controlling discussions that do not get lost in the woods, demanding work, being intolerant of excuses yet understanding of lack of training, identifying what needs fixing, keeping records, creating schedules and planning meetings: all of these I learned as I stood alone behind the desk for decades, forever separated yet deeply connected to the people who faced me and tried to convince about twenty strangers to shift perspective and learn to analyse.

One could say that essentially, I am still doing the same job.

My friend asked me if I miss teaching and before I could even think about the question and consider it, my mouth said, "No!" The definite nature of that answer took my friend aback, I think; I, too was surprised by it. Upon reflection, in fact, I'd say that the best parts of my old job are still very much with me, while the worst, like grading, have disappeared. Yes, there are evaluations and hiring decisions, but they are nothing compared to endless oodles of ungraded assignments that had crowded my life in infinite sets of twenty each.

A couple of days ago, my Facebook newsfeed offered up a Keats ode read by Benedict Cumberbatch. I wept at the sheer beauty of the poem. I often indulge in YouTube Midsummer Night's Dream and cry at Macbeth (a play that continues to shock me). Teaching was never where I'd thought I'd end up when I decided that I was a confirmed lit major and could be nothing else. I had not really thought much about where I'd end up with a lit degree, of course. I had some nebulous idea of being a priestess in a sanctuary of words or just drinking in Prufrock under a spreading tree as the sun set behind some mountain. I had no clear idea about the actual work or ritual the routine of such a person would comprise of.

So no, I do not miss the classroom. I do miss the literature, but when I reach out for it, I find that it has not wandered away. It is right where I'd left it, beside curriculum to be assigned, files to be graded, departmental and all-school meetings to be attended, and LMS to be organized.

Ultimately, the aim of my having Read Literature seems served: it was to decorate the walls of my ivory tower so that the fardles that flesh must bear may be tolerated, conquered, and lived through.

My 40-Hour Week

I was full time faculty, and I was tired, if I were to be completely honest. I could have conducted all that I taught without being fully awake, as though an automaton, and that was the best part of the day. Then there were the endless, pointless tasks and processes that departmental assistants and secretaries used to see to, that were suddenly my job. I have not even begun to mention the interminable grading, which made Sisyphus’ rock rolling seem like a picnic. My schedule changed every several weeks, and I’d have days off that coincided with no one else’s, during which I would watch television or haunt my house as though a ghost. No one else had time off in late September for a week and I would be too exhausted to do much. Yes, being full time faculty can be exhausting, even though work-week seems to be only 25 hours long. I worked non-stop, almost 60-hour weeks, but since I did most of that work at home, it did not “count.”

 I thought that was my lot in life; things could never change.I had been faculty almost all my working life until I was RIFed from my last faculty position and decided to walk out of the classroom. Even though I soul-searched extensively and it took me a long time, I have ended up not too far from the classroom: I coordinate a writing center.

However, my insistence on trotting away from the classroom has demanded many changes, so many, in fact, that my internal compasses are different, with unfamiliar directions and strange needles. I navigate by different constellations and I cannot even imagine the nature and composition of my new horizons.

If someone were to ask me what my daily duties are, I’d not have a clear answer. I coordinate. This means that I do whatever needs to be done, and that is a surprisingly large range. I began without any training, without a clue about what was expected from me, with no idea about how to do my job, let alone how to do it well. I had had no management training, did not know how to balance a budget, create a schedule from scratch, oversee staff, or how to troubleshoot or navigate online lab platforms. Even this LMS was not familiar to me. The only thing I really understood properly was the curriculum around which the writing center revolves.

It turns out that is anchor enough as the world whirled and stood on its axis. One of my major navigational tools is Excel, something my old self had steered clear of. In my old job, I had needed just a little screen to explore the world and sculpt it into material for class; now, I cannot work without my double screened computer, and yet the material resists sculpting. As faculty, I had despaired of meaningless paperwork and forms; now, I create forms and document meticulously. As faculty, I used to feel much put upon when asked to generate reports; now, I seek out training that would help me mine and analyze substantial chunks of data. As faculty, I had felt isolated on my side of the desk and had considered myself apart from the people I spent most of my work day with, students. Now, I work on team building exercises and conduct regular meetings to be as much a part of my staff and colleagues as I can. My 25-hour week used to cling on, follow me home, and eat into weekends and evenings, especially during exams; now, my 40-hour week, though tiring, ends when I leave my office. Now, exam weeks are the best, since most of the work of the semester is done and things begin to slow down. As faculty, I sought out creative ways of presenting the same material; now, I seek out recognizable formats for ever-changing information, for precedents that reassure.

Even the very rhythm of my work-seasons is different. The time between semesters, in my old life, was a time to reflect, calm down, gather threads and reweave. Now, the time between semesters is fraught with furious activity, as I race to organize over a hundred class orientations, update orientation folders to adjust to changes in online labs, juggle ever-changing requests for schedule changes, and see to a myriad of other tasks before the semester begins.

I do miss my students a great deal; I do miss talking about timeless stories and the many ways they can be interpreted; I do miss students discovering the beauty of the written word; I do miss treading well-loved, well-worn paths. I feel that I have aged suddenly and aged far; constant contact with the young had kept me believing in my own youth. Being a manager of sorts, on the other hand, does make one the grown-up. As faculty, one might be a figure of authority, but it is not a managerial position. Now, even though I have my office, I feel more like a juggler than a person with any authority.

All things considered, however, my office has grown on me. I have begun to slice and stash things into tables and sheets. Most importantly, I am learning to decode implications when anyone speaks to me. I am more aware that all conversation has a context, a subtext, and an agenda. This is changing the way I write my characters and what they say, when I indulge in my first love, writing stories.  

I am told that this job gets easier after a couple of years. That is my hope, to find a terra firma beneath my feet, so that these paths also feel well-trod to my hesitant steps. It is rare that one gets a chance to be reinvented in the exact middle of one’s expected life-time.

 It is my hope that this overhauling will assure me that there have been less roads not taken when, at last, I consider how my light is spent.