My resentment slip is showing again

I had a 20-minute chat with my new dissertation chair this week, before all the end-of-term madness began. She actually called me. If there was any doubt before, right there you can tell she's not an adjunct. Adjuncts expect you to call them. Of course, makes perfect sense. They don't get paid extra for talking to students on the phone. Or via email for that matter, which is probably why I received communication from the previous chair that I would describe as both terse and sparse.

This new chair, let's call her Dr. C, sounds like a real firecracker. A regular pistola. Judging by her photo, she's half my age, and five times as peppy. I didn't have to say much; she did all the talking. I took notes like the good student that I am, and watched the next year and a half of my life get sucked down the drain.

Yep. Looks like this is going to take a lot longer than I thought.

She was properly sympathetic that my concept paper, submitted to the University with zero feedback from my former chair (I picture Dr. G. dusting off her hands with satisfaction at having passed the problem on to higher committee) has been kicked back to me with a “re-submit.” No big surprise, I guess. I have been blundering around out in the back forty for quite awhile now. Yuck. That's a disturbing metaphor. You know what happens to critters who blunder around out in the back forty. Yep. Hamburger.

Still, Dr. C. seems like a good egghead. She said she's a methodologist. I don't care what she calls herself. I can get along with all kinds of people. Wait. What? Oh, a methodologist! Considering my current approach is grounded theory, I'm sure she will have a lot to say. Oh boy. I feel another bout of inadequacy coming on. Deep breath. I told myself when I started the dissertation sequence that I was going to treat my chairperson as my client, do whatever it takes to please the client, you know—the old the-customer-is-queen ploy that marketers use to make you feel so special you want to reciprocate (i.e., buy things). I'm going to make this process so easy for her, she will feel like her pay-per-hour just doubled.

Ugh. Thinking of pay-per-hour just got me really depressed. My original vision of teaching online for a not-for-profit university has been pretty well shattered by now, what with the reports of poor treatment of adjuncts and the deep-seated mistrust of for-profit education. So much for retiring to an internet-connected adobe hut in the California desert. The hut probably is attainable, although I fear it will be made of cardboard rather than adobe. The California desert, though, is starting to feel like an impossible dream from my earlier, stupider days. Well, at least I learned something from this six-year-long, $45,000 journey into higher education.