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Tim Burke’s reflections on the unpaid adjunct position at UCLA strike me as spot-on. Burke notes that while we don’t really know the story behind the posting, none of the alternatives folks have proffered are actually OK. Was it written to accommodate someone who had external funding? If so, then say so. Was it written to allow a full-time staff member to teach a class? If so, then say so. Or was it actually as horrifying as it looked at first blush?
I’ve been in situations in which compliance with various external mandates seemed unduly clunky on the ground. It happens. It’s one reason that an appreciation of absurdity should be a required qualification for any position from department chair on up. It’s the same feeling I get when I’m driving alone at night, not another soul on the road, and I’m sitting at a red light that’s taking way too long to change. It feels futile and silly, but if we gave people a pass from rules based on personal feelings, we wouldn’t have rules. A certain amount of clunkiness is the price we pay for living in a civilized society.
It’s not the possibility of a clunky procedure that bothers me. It’s the fact of the position being unpaid, and the fact that the university still hasn’t actually clarified why it wasn’t. If the explanation was actually innocent—the equivalent of the slow red light at night—it should be easy enough to say so. If the explanation is that the darkly cynical interpretation was correct, then some folks have some difficult questions to answer.
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Longtime readers may remember several years ago when our previous dog, Sally, escaped and went on walkabout for 17 days. The story had a happy ending, but we didn’t know that it would until it did.
This week brought a flashback. Our new dog, Penny, broke out of the backyard on Monday. Apparently she managed to squeeze under the fence, actually losing her collar and leash in the process. (She’s skittish enough that we leave the leash on her in the backyard.)
I saw her in the neighbor’s front yard, but as soon as she saw me, she darted away.
Over the next hour or so, several neighbors helped, one of whom even called the police. The police and I drove around the neighborhood trying to corner her, but she was too quick. We kept seeing her, but she kept darting away.
I drove back home, hoping that she would have walked in a circle. (Some of the people who helped us find Sally told me that, and it stuck.) She had; when I pulled into the driveway, she was back in the neighbor’s front yard, eyeing me warily.
Knowing better than to chase, I walked into the house and held the front door open for her. She walked into the front yard and stared at me from about 20 feet away. We had a standoff. Playing a hunch, I propped the door open and walked a few rooms away. Once I wasn’t in sight, she came in. I quickly closed the door behind her.
When I was in high school, we had a Samoyed named Wellington. Wellington was sweet and loyal but not a criminal mastermind. One time when she got out, I picked up her leash, walked into the front yard and asked loudly, “Want to go for a walk?” She was so excited that she came running to me to go for a walk. Penny is much too suspicious to fall for that.
Shelter rescues make you work for it.
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The latest on TG’s college search: she is seven for seven as of Thursday. Two decisions left, but four financial packages left. Stay tuned …
