Eye-rolling at the Love Shack

I received a polite note from the Institutional Review Board today, explaining why they were rejecting my application to conduct my study and offering some tips on how to revise it so it will pass on the next submission. It's odd how one can go through the entire day, living life, without knowing that a disappointing rejection note is sitting in an inbox in cyberspace somewhere. If I had checked my online course room earlier in the day, things would have started sucking a lot sooner. All in all, I had a pretty good day, simply because I was unaware that bad news awaited me.

It's not super bad news. I mean, the reviewers didn't say, you suck, go back to SE Portland where you belong... loser. It's all fixable. Probably. Yes, sure, what am I saying, sure it's fixable. There's no way the story ends here.

Today, speaking of stories ending, no speaking of unfixable things, I got a terse message from the president of the career college that employed me until May 2 when they laid me off along with a number of other faculty with the closing of the Clackamas campus. I had placed a call to the president last week, or tried to—no one seemed to be able to locate him or even transfer me to a voice mail. I'd planned to ask him if he would let me interview some of the faculty that teach at the college.

After I didn't hear from him, I pursued another sampling strategy to find faculty members to interview. Leading to the submission that just got rejected today.

And then he called. His voice sounded hesitant, just ever-so-slightly belligerent as he left his cell phone number. He probably thought I was calling to berate him for his crimes of mismanagement. I know Sheryl, now forced to job hunt at age 66, has a few choice things to say.

I called him back a few hours after I got his message. He answered his cell.

“Hi, this is Carol.”

“Hello, Carol, how are you,” he replied in a flat voice.

I launched into my brief explanation for why I had tried to reach him last week and trailed off when I got no response. He was silent. There was nothing, not a sound, not even a sigh.

“So, as it turns out, it looks like I won't be needing to interview your faculty after all. Thanks,” I finished lamely and waited for something, anything, a sign that he was still the person I used to know and like.

“Ok. Good luck,” he said in a dead voice.

I don't know if I caught him at a bad time, or I just happened to catch him at a moment when he felt like hanging himself. Not my problem, not my concern. I didn't linger, I didn't try to chat, I just wished him well and let him go. Later I sent an email thanking him for returning my call and offering him some empathy for the hard times, as honestly and authentically as I could... (considering the dude let us all down and now I'm unemployed. No, I didn't say that.)

A half hour later I got a very nice reply, in which thanked me for my kind words. And he said if I need to interview faculty at the college, to let him know. Wha—? I know, like, now you tell me!? Where were you last week!? Because you went AWOL, Mr. Invisible, I am now having to rewrite my IRB application with a sampling method pulled pretty much from far left field (think social media! I know! The anathema of academe!) Lots of eye-rolling going on here in the Love Shack tonight.

The episode is just one more hurdle in this long journey to earn a doctoral degree I'm fairly sure I don't actually want all that much anymore. Do I sound ambivalent? Well, hell in a hand-basket. As usual. It's just a special kind of hell, another level of hell... I call it Dissertation Hell. You'd think after eight years I'd be used to it by now.

Self-employment and ant wars

While I wait to find out if the Institutional Review Board at my illustrious higher education institution will approve me to interview human subjects, I am floundering deeper into the murky bog of self-employment. My business plan is taking shape. That is part of the problem: I'm mostly form and little content. Story of my life. It's all about look-good. If you look good, then you must be ok. I'm not going to go into any of that, maybe you get my drift, maybe you don't, it doesn't matter. What I'm saying is, my business plan looks awesome!

And they say there's no point in liberal arts degrees. Ha! I knew that B.S. in art would finally pay off. Why, I'm utilizing all kinds of “useless” skills during the process of crafting this plan. Philosophy! (What is my customer service philosophy?) Creativity! (I included a rich picture of the research process. From now on, everything I write will include a rich picture. That should be fun. For example, how about in a note to the Self-Employment Assistance case worker? Hey, wtf is this stupid picture for? Hmmm. Well, maybe not everything...) I'm thinking outside the can of worms, or however the saying goes.

I'm a little nutty. I've spent just over eight hours today working on this plan. I've looked up my local and online competitors, seen some impressive websites (and a few that made me say, hey, I can do it better than that!), thought about my marketing approach, my pricing structure, my communication strategy... my mind is bubbling with ideas that will fade to hazy memories come tomorrow morning. I'm trying to remember everything. I'm trying to shove all the pieces together in my mind, to make a nice, neat diagram. Hence, the rich picture. I'm tired.

I can't think of much I'd rather be doing than creating this fledgling business. Except maybe laying around in the tub, reading vampire romances and eating potato chips and ice cream. That won't be happening, at least not the chips and ice cream part. Starting this business seems like the next best thing. But I fear I'm so involved in doing that I don't have time to worry about whether it will actually work. Sort of like going for a jog with my nose three inches off the ground. Wow, aren't all these pebbles interesting—Blam! Hey, where'd that tree come from? In the business world, we talk about doing the wrong thing well. That could be me.

The last confounding question is this, and this may be the profoundly perplexing metaphysical question of our time: What do ants find interesting in an empty bathtub? I'm serious. I want to know. There are scouts—a few intrepid explorers—relentlessly trundling along the edges, across the bottom, searching for something. What are they seeking? It's raining outside, surely they can't be thirsty. There is no food in there, far as I know. So what are they looking for? I have an idea, and it makes me slightly queasy.

A few nights ago I was relaxing in a hot tub of water, reading some sci-fi escapist trash, when I felt something pinching me on the upper back. What the f—? I leaned forward, looked around, and saw about ten ants swarming right where I'd been leaning. They bit me! The little pissant ants, they bit me! So now, when I see them roaming the empty tub, I have an uncomfortable feeling they are looking for me. The big warm hunk of protein and blubber. Must feed the children! If they can take me down, my dead carcass will keep their larders stocked for years, considering all the extra meat on my bones.

My cheek is twitching. Time for a bath. Hey, if you don't hear from me for a while, send the coroner. He'll probably find me in the tub, feeding the ants.

Losing brain cells to the social media time suck

The word has come down from on high (Salem): I am now officially self-employed. How weird to go from unemployed to self-employed. I guess you can now call me a job creator. I made a job for myself. I think I should go on strike. This job doesn't pay sh--t. And I'm not sure I get along with the boss.

But here I am, a solopreneur, a little sooner than I expected, but excited nonetheless. However, if I want to receive assistance from the State of Oregon, I must “work” at this new job at least 40 hours a week. Forty hours! They obviously don't know I am also trying to finish my doctorate. Well, they do know, because I told them on the application form, but they obviously don't care. They apparently also don't know that I am trying to catch up on the sleep I lost over the past ten years of split shifts. They just want me off the dole ASAP. I want that, too, I really do. I want this little one-person business to put down some roots and grow.

What am I selling? Thanks for asking. I'm not sure yet. (That sounds promising, doesn't it?) Here's what I know: it's something to do with marketing research consulting. Soon I will send a message in a bottle out to the universe (also known as a survey) to ask small business owners what they know about marketing research, if they use it, if they would pay someone to do it for them, and how much would they pay. From the responses, I anticipate gleaning some insight into what to do next.

In the meantime, I'm.... I guess you could say I'm building infrastructure. I opened a post office box today, and a business checking account at the local credit union. I made business cards. I started my business plan. And I revived my old Facebook account and attached a Page for my new business. Then I got sucked down the invisible black hole of social media. When I clawed my way out, it was after 10:00 pm. Wha—? Who knew Facebook was such a delirious time suck? Why didn't anyone tell me! I'm like Rip Van Winkle, I'm ninety now, I've lost all my brain cells and my fingers are crumbling bony sticks. What in tarnation!? Why, it's the devil's invention, I tell you. Well, I don't believe in the devil, so how about it's a scrawny pimply-faced multi-gazillionaire pipsqueak's invention. Why, I oughta...

I am embarrassed to even mention this topic. I know I've cursed social media time and again in this blog, or if I didn't, I meant to. Curse you, Facebook! Curse you, LinkedIn! The last thing the maniacally introverted Chronic Malcontent wants to do is open her door to the entire world and say howdy, come on in. Oh Lord Kumbaya. Seriously? This is how people spend their time? Why don't they just shove a vacuum cleaner into their ear and let it rip?

My vehement reaction invites introspection. That sounds like something my friend Valentina would say. I think I know what's up. Facebook is my shadow. Facebook is forcing—no, let's say Facebook is encouraging me, inviting me, offering me the opportunity—to let the world know me, and that does not come easily to a rabid snarling introvert. Voluntarily opening my metaphorical door to strangers makes my skin crawl. For someone as self-obsessed as me, you would think I'd be thrilled to get some extra attention. Nope. No thanks. Introversion is one rabbit hole I can slide down forever if I'm not careful. I'd call it a progressive illness if I wouldn't immediately feel compelled to start a Twelve Step program about it. Introverts Anonymous.

Slowly my path comes clear. The only way through this mental minefield is to focus on service. Service. My north star. Service. To imagine my business providing value, to picture myself being of service to happy clients, to recognize I am bringing something good into the world. Ommmmm. That's better. The heavy knot of fear in my chest starts to release its stranglehold around my skittery heart. I can breathe again. That was close. Time to turn off the computer and retreat behind the flimsy sheltering walls of the Love Shack. Take that, Facebook.

Sorry if I offended you

My former colleague Sheryl just called to complain about the frustrating world of online job applications. We commiserated for a few minutes. We both have war stories to share. And we are both harboring some resentments against our former employer, the career college to which we devoted so many years.

Sheryl told me something that shouldn't have surprised me. Apparently, according to some reputable sources, the college management knew they would be closing the Clackamas site last December. Last December! And our pasty-faced president swore on April 1 in a shaky voice that they had tried and tried to find a new location, but after their efforts failed, they were forced to face the harsh realities of the situation and close the campus. Liar liar pants on fire, if the sources are to be believed. Sheryl is angry because had she known earlier, she would have got on Medicare sooner. Now she's going to be out $500 to COBRA. She blames our former college president.

Speaking of snakes, I've been trying to reach the college president myself. Even though he may not want to talk to me.... it could be he is still sore over the little matter of my snarky photo blog. Today I am willing to grovel a little. I am willing to eat humble pie. Here's why: I am still (still!) in the process of trying to get Institutional Review Board approval to conduct research with human subjects. My first choice of institution turned me down, even after a pleading letter: please, please, please, I promise I won't be disruptive, you won't even know I'm there, please? Nope, no dice. We don't do things like that, the spokesperson said. What, let your faculty tell the truth? Ok, maybe I should have seen that one coming.

Anyway, I thought, ok, now that I'm no longer employed at my former career college, maybe the management there would let me interview their faculty? It seems like a long shot, but worth a try. So I sent an email to the president of the college (the man who encouraged me to embark upon this insane doctoral journey way back in 2005. Remember, dude? You owe me!) No response. Time to put on my big girl panties. I picked up the phone.

“Hi Lynne, this is so-and-so. Is his eminence there?”

“I don't know exactly where he is,” she fluttered. “Uh, you're in Springfield, right?”

“Formerly of Clackamas,” I replied.

“Oh, I knew you were somebody.” That's what ten years got me. Nice to know I'm somebody.

I left a message and continued to prepare my IRB application with the assumption that I would be using a snowball recruiting approach through LinkedIn to find my for-profit faculty subjects. Today I thought I'd give him one more chance. I called Wilsonville again.

“Hi, Betty, this is so-and-so calling for Him, is he available?”

“I don't know where he is,” she said. “I don't even have a phone number for him.”

“You don't have a phone number for the president of the college?”

“Would you like to speak with someone else? Mr. Compliance or Ms. Human Resources? Mr. Financial Aid, or perhaps Mr. Controller?”

“Uh, let me talk to Mr. Compliance,” I said.

He must have been sitting on the phone. “Compliance!”

I explained my mission, talk to faculty, bla bla bla, need permission from the man, yada yada, all confidential and anonymous, of course, har har har. Mr. Compliance listened politely.

“I am not the one who can give you permission, but I can ask the president for you.”

“Great. That would be great. Just have him send an email, yes or no.”

“Good luck to you.”

So of course by the end of the day there was no email from the president. I had to try, though. Never let it be said I didn't try.

If nothing else, I can serve as a bad example

My hero of the week is the guy who expressed his irritation with four of his neighbors by driving a bulldozer through their houses. Rock on, dude! Sure, you are in jail now and probably will be for a while, but how did it feel, crunching their houses to smithereens? I'm sure before the remorse set in you had a moment of euphoria.

My two neighbors and I live in a triplex. A bulldozer crashing through Joy's apartment would definitely affect me, since I am in the middle. I would expect the whole building to fall into the basement. So no, I won't be driving a bulldozer through here anytime soon. But I think a couple times I have approached that tense moment when whaling on the wall with a hammer seems like the appropriate thing to do.

I look at it this way. I'm all about service quality. I live to serve. If nothing else, I can serve as a bad example.

Speaking of bad examples, this week I received my second and final rejection from the VP of Media Relations who represented the institution I approached for permission to interview ten of its faculty. Apparently, they have a policy of not accepting research proposals from doctoral students! Stupid me. I guess I naively assumed that because they are operating institutions of higher learning around the country, that they would... I don't know, be supportive of higher learning. I am chagrined to say I should have known better. These institutions are corporations, not colleges. They don't care about higher learning, or any kind of learning that doesn't line their pockets. They care about one thing only: profit. Duh. I'm an idiot.

So, on to Plan B. No, I'm not pregnant. Plan B consists of approaching the career college I used to work for. Two weeks ago I was laid off with many of my compadres when the campus was closed. Now that I'm no longer an employee, no more conflict of interest! I sent a groveling email to the president of the college yesterday, trying to get a sense of how much he dislikes me. I did, after all, briefly gain some notoriety among my co-workers with my somewhat sarcastic photo blog of the campuses last days. I don't know if the president of the college ever saw the blog, wrapped up as he was in his own overwhelming problems: (How could I have been stupid enough to invest my retirement money in this floundering sham of a school!? Kick me!)

I doubt I'll hear from him, as absorbed as he is in his own crumbling world, so I'm already moving ahead with Plan C. Plan C is the guerilla tactic of recruiting faculty through other faculty. It has a couple names. Sometimes it is called chain sampling. My favorite term is snowball sampling. You use one participant to recruit the next. It's subversive. What's not to like.

One way or another, this study is going to happen. Yes, I need to finish this doctorate, but more than that, the world needs to hear what faculty think about the academic quality of for-profit vocational programs. People (the Department of Education) seem to think that as long as students graduate and get jobs that allow them to pay off off their student loans, then the students received a quality education. I think faculty might have a different view. I want to find out. Just because for-profit institutions are behaving like cults, circling the wagons around their faculty and trying to keep them from talking to researchers doesn't mean we shouldn't try to reach them.

Join the underground! For-profit faculty unite! Speak your truth! (Just do it under the radar, so you don't jeopardize your job.)

Neck deep in palaver

Another Monday with no place to go. I have stopped trying to convince myself I am on vacation. Loose ends conspire to remind me that I am now... how do they say it? Between jobs. Yes, I'm between jobs, which is sort of like how you feel if you accidentally slide down between the bed and the wall and get stuck, and you are too weak to get back up and too fat to fit under the bed. I hope that never happens to you.

Where was I? Loose ends. One big ugly one hanging out there is what to do with my 401K. My pathetic little pile of marbles. I could leave it with my employer's plan administrator, but honestly, I'm hell-bent on burning bridges. Exit, stage right! The human resources director (and I use the word human very loosely) is someone I hope I never have to think about again. The sooner my fully-vested nest egg is out of her domain, the sooner I can exorcise her presence from my mind. I'd rather take it all to Vegas and put it on red than have to look at my former employer's name every time they send me a quarterly update. With that imperative in mind, I filled in the transfer form. Tomorrow my letter will wind its way to the new corporate location and into her hot sweaty hands. She will presumably sign it and send it on to the place that will welcome the new contribution to my traditional IRA. A few more marbles to add to my pile. Not enough marbles to retire on. Just enough to inspire the banker to snicker behind his hand after I hesitantly visit him for advice.

Another loose end is the fact that I am almost completely unemployable. I blame my attitude. I could certainly apply for office administration jobs, if I deleted my Ph.D. A.B.D. designation from my resume (and if I were willing to work for $11.00 an hour). The thought of doing secretarial work makes me want to hurl, if you get my meaning. Hurl. Barf. Whatever. I long ago accepted the fact that I am not secretarial material. Hell, I'm not even sure I'm female anymore, and don't you have to be female to be a secretary? What? Oh.

Well, anyway, the typing life is not for me. Wait, I'm typing right now. I mean, typing someone else's bullsh-t instead of my own, that's what I mean. I can type my own crap all day long. This blog has been excellent training for typing palaver. (That's another term for crap.) If only I could make money typing palaver. I know people do it. The internet is full of palaver.

I called the man who administers the local SEA program. SEA stands for self-employment assistance. For those of us who might be unemployable, maybe self-employment is the answer. Although if no one else wants to hire me, I am not sure I should assume that I would either. In any case, it's a loose end that needs attention, so I called, and he emailed me some forms. I downloaded the file and found a list of questions to answer: essentially a summary of a business plan. I took a deep breath and started filling it out. Partway through I came to the question: How will you market your business? I rubbed my hands together. Well, let's see... I started writing the usual: advertising, direct mail, networking and referrals, website, blog, social media... wait, what? Did I just write social media? Me, the anti-christ of Facebook?

The thought of putting my “real and true name” on facebook makes me want to...you guessed it: hurl. Twice in one day is my limit, so what did I do? Very cleverly, I devised a fake name and registered it with the State of Oregon. I am $50 poorer, but greatly relieved. I would tell you what it is, my fictitious business name, but then this blog wouldn't be anonymous anymore. And where would the fun be in that?

I will email my completed SEA application to Salem tomorrow. In the meantime, I will begin writing a more comprehensive business plan. I also must keep applying for jobs in order to get unemployment assistance. I think I have a strategy for that. Working on the assumption that 75% of all jobs are never advertised, I've decided to ignore job listings and just send resumes to cool places I'd like to work. Who knows, I might get lucky. They might hire me to write palaver for them.

Is it possible for-profit colleges don't really care about quality?

Where's my vampire mojo when I need it? For the past few days, I have been trying to persuade the media relations person at the corporate headquarters of the local career college where I want to conduct my doctoral study that I am a harmless bumbling academic with no malicious intent. My first attempt failed, so I'm sending another letter promising my first born, yada yada. I don't have a lot of hope, but nothing ventured, etc. I am braced for another smackdown.

I couldn't take no for an answer. It's my nature. I can't stop stirring the pot. After the debacle last week with my sarcastic photo blog at my erstwhile place of employment, you'd think I would learn. Managers with guilty consciences don't take kindly to being called on their transgressions, especially on a website that is open to the world. (Too bad it didn't go viral.... sigh.) But once burned just makes me more stupid, apparently. After getting one rejection from the for-profit behemoth, I'm sending another plea. Please, please, please.... Now these corporate watchdogs will probably remember me forever. Yeah, isn't she that nut that kept pestering us to do that ridiculous study of our dirty laundry--uh, we mean, academic quality? Interview our teachers? I don't think so! Who knows what they would say!?

The excuse they gave me is that letting me interview faculty on campus would be time-consuming and disruptive to students. No argument there. I wasn't planning on interviewing faculty on campus. I was going to find some local place like a library meeting space or even a quiet diner and invite them to meet me at their convenience. The corporate VP made it sound like I was some lurking pervert with cooties. No, we can't allow you on campus. You might cause people to realize we don't care about quality.

I suspect that I am going to have to rethink my sampling approach. This could get messy. The farther I stray from my original proposal, the messier I fear it will get. It may be time to break out the rubber gloves.

Who am I?.... Who am I now?

I'm embarrassed to say, I'm having a hard time letting go of my former life as a college instructor. Time and emotions are messing with my mind. It's only been three days. Of course I'm still prickly with anger, resentment, and fear. But I think I should be over it by now. I should be moving on to my next adventure. The problem is, I don't know who I am if I'm not a teacher. Am I a graduate student? A job seeker? An aging unemployable person? How about a lady of leisure (WTF?)

I've been keeping myself busy with various projects (mostly dumping every piece of paper related to my former job), but every now and then the reality of my situation washes over me. For a second, I can't breathe. I have to go drink water and pester the cat for comfort. It's all just needless drama, I know. There's no reason to panic. Things are very different now, compared to the last time I was unemployed. The last time I was unemployed, I had no reserves. I was living on a painful edge, one step from homelessness (or my parents' basement, which at the time was even worse than homelessness). But I still fret.

I've heard the antidote for self-obsession is service. With that in mind, yesterday I gave my friend (I'll call her Valentina) a ride to a naturopathic doctor's office, where she was scheduled to have an intravenous drip for a couple hours. It was one of those weird instances where you should be careful what you offer to do for a friend, because you might get to see a needle going into a vein and hear unsettling technical medical terms like... gas, poop, and pee.

We reclined (me not quite relaxed) in too-small brown leather recliners in the naturopath's little office while clear liquid dripped down a long tube through a needle into her elbow vein. The sun was shining outside the big picture windows. Brilliant emerald trees fluttered in a gentle breeze. (I think the trees are greener in Beaverton. Is that possible? All the vegetation on the east side of Portland seems grayer to me, dustier, somehow. Like dust can't settle on the rich people's side of town.) We chatted for a while, while I tried to avoid looking at the little red plastic bucket full of discarded needles that sat on the floor between our two chairs. After about an hour, the naturopathic doctor came in and sat at his desk for the remainder of the treatment time. Conversation was stilted after that. I was facing away from his desk, toward Valentina, so it was difficult for me to include him in a conversation. I wanted to mention my naturopath, but didn't want to get into a contest over which naturopath was more... naturo. Valentina on the other hand, was facing toward him, and probably found it impossible not to include him in conversation. Whenever I craned my neck to look at him, he was always looking at her.

In this strange setting, time both sped up and slowed down. The time Valentina and I spent talking seemed to fly by, as it always does when I'm with her. Her knowledge ranges wide, motivated by a refreshing curiosity about life. We dig for the delicious irony in every topic. I love to hear her laugh. When she laughs, for a brief moment the weariness lifts from around her eyes. But I couldn't be fully present, because I was fretting about time.

The next event on my schedule was a workshop on developing my social profile (I have no social profile, but you can get a pretty good idea of my facial profile from the image of the chronic malcontent to the right of this post. It is surprisingly accurate, I'm told.) I anxiously watched the clock, then the drip, then the clock, concerned about moving on to my next engagement. I confess, I have a phobia about being late to things. After the treatment, we had a stop to make at New Seasons. (Valentina assured me her list was short.) Then I had to get from Valentina's place to a hotel near Portland State University by 1:30 p.m. with no clear idea of how to get there or where to park.

Fretting doesn't actually influence time and outcomes, I know, yet I can't seem to stop fretting without the aid of some serious metaphysical intervention. Yesterday, circumstances seemed to conspire against me. Things could have gone south in a hurry. I got stuck in traffic on my way to Valentina's, and then I got lost and had to navigate the winding back roads by internal GPS (rarely reliable). I'd like to believe I was led to her house by my continual chanting of the mantra of the lost: oh god, oh god, oh god. Somehow the time gods granted me the gift of punctuality, despite my propensity for missing freeway exits. We arrived at the clinic precisely on time.

And I was early to the afternoon event, which perhaps was not the gift from the time gods I assumed it was, as I was too early to get the free parking offered by PSU and thus spent 15 minutes circling the blocks around the campus searching for a parking space. I finally found a space, but the almighty meter granted me only three hours. If I had been late, I would not have had to walk three blocks uphill to the hotel. Nor would I have had to leave the event early to get back to my car before the meter ran out. I probably missed that one critical insight into improving my social profile, simply because I was obsessed about not being late. Because of that, I won't find a job, and soon I'll be begging my mom to put me up in her spare bedroom. Ahhhhhh.

Three days into unemployment and already I'm insane. The future is not looking good.

Do I look like a risk taker to you?

I'm relieved to say I hit the ground running on my first day of freedom. I could have slept in. I considered it, actually. But I had a dental appointment to keep at noon, made six months ago when I was still employed, before I had a hint I would be laid off. If I had known I might have spent less on vampire romances and put more in the bank. But I digress. I got up, I went to the appointment (covered by insurance until the end of the month, thanks former employer!), and then I efficiently blazed a furrow through my errands, one after another: gas, post office, bank, thrift store (I was only going to drop off a box but I was compelled to go inside and look for said vampire romances. Sigh. Found a few. Yay.), and finished up at the grocery store, where they were out of carts, so I was forced to only purchase what I could carry. Darn. Still I managed to spend a few hundred dollars today, if you count the dentist.

I have many fears about this new regimen. One is that I will spend my days efficiently running errands, briskly knocking items off my mundane to-do list.... toothpaste: check!... while completely avoiding the activities that could generate income. (Like, for instance, job hunting.) I have a to-do list a mile long of projects half-finished: scan family photos, recycle old paper, donate old binders and books, dust my shelves (I have ten million shelves, no lie!), sweep, mop, vacuum... ahhhhhh! Now my true colors shine. I have the time to do these things, and yet I resist. I guess I prefer to live in squalor. I feel like I'm missing an important food group if I don't have cat hair with every meal.

Speaking of hair balls, my next dissertation course started today. I uploaded my first draft of the Institutional Review Board application, which will result in receiving approval to interview human subjects. They can't be too careful with a researcher like me—I might be tempted to brainwash my participants into thinking that for-profit higher education is a scourge that should be banned from the land. Bwahahahaha. My chairperson will probably mosey into the course room in a few days and spy my submittal parked in the corner. Oh, look, she did something. After some back and forth, eventually she will allow it to be sent to the faceless nameless IRB reviewers, who will eventually allow it to pass, after ripping me a new one and sewing it closed with some warnings masquerading as compliments. Then, finally at long last, I'll be cleared to collect data. What does that mean, you ask? That means I will be approved to arrange interviews with ten faculty to discuss their definitions and perceptions of academic quality in for-profit Gainful Employment programs in vocational colleges like the one that just laid me off.

It would be the height of irony, the epitome of poetic justice, the ultimate toothpick in the eye, if I can't find ten teachers who would be willing to talk to me. That won't happen, I'm pretty sure. But it would sure be the height of something, after these eight years of persistent struggle, to have my efforts fall flat in a big ho-hum who cares.

I started out on this academic journey with a pie-in-the-sky, ice cream-colored dream—oh, la la la, I'll just teach marketing and management courses online to students who won't even know I'm wearing my pajamas! I'll make tons of money, write books on the side, and life will be grand! What a dream, eh? More like a delusion. In eight years, I've changed (I don't eat ice cream anymore), but more importantly, the world of online teaching has changed. Something like 70% of all college faculty are adjuncts, working long hours teaching one or two classes for very low pay and zero benefits. Plus the institutions now want their instructors to have current “real world” experience—i.e., a job. Well, of course you'd better have a job, because you won't be able to live on what you make as an adjunct.

Teaching is looking less and less appealing. I doubt I will be hunting for a teaching gig in the near future, even if they wanted a Ph.D. from a for-profit institution (scourge upon the land, etc.). The pajama thing still seems good, though.

Just another coffee-spilling bozo on the bus

Yesterday afternoon I took a bus downtown to meet my friend Bravadita at Pioneer Square. It was perfect weather, warm and clear, a good day to meander to the Library and down to the river. Of course, we didn't realize there were amusement park rides and mariachi bands taking up all the normally peaceful space along the waterfront. Drat. Cinco de Mayo! But that is another story.

Bravadita was an adjunct at the career college where I worked up until last Thursday. After she was cold-shouldered out of the rotation, she was unemployed for a long time. She cobbled together a couple part-time gigs teaching kids to read, but she's currently looking for other work—preferably something where she can use her writing talent and not be continually infected by the latest plague. We have a lot in common: desperation and hope. We talked shop over coffee, which left me hyper-amped with excitement and caffeine when it was time to get on a bus to go back to the Love Shack.

I was buzzing along, enjoying the bus ride in an aisle seat, when the woman sitting next to me stiffened and pointed downward. I followed her finger and saw rivulets of liquid streaming across the black rubber floor. Uh-oh, I thought... is it blood? Is it urine? It was spreading rapidly in little streams in all directions.

At first I couldn't believe my eyes. It looked like the source of the liquid was the leg of the man sitting across the aisle from me. He was a young guy wearing jeans, a button down shirt, and earphones, and he was holding a laptop bag on his lap. A little spray of liquid was coming out a grommeted hole near the bottom of in his laptop bag. Mesmerized, I reached out and touched the source of the leak and then looked at my fingers. Brown.

“You're leaking,” I said to the man, touching his bag gently.

“What?” He took off his headphones.

“You've sprung a leak.” I pointed.

He opened his bag and dug around. He lifted out a stainless steel coffee mug, now almost empty, and held it up, looking chagrined. The girl in the seat in front of me held up her superior stainless steel coffee mug. “You should get one like this,” she said.

“Clearly!” he replied. “My mail is completely soaked.”

I made sympathetic sounds and thought the incident was over, but he seemed compelled to continue speaking, no doubt to assuage his social embarrassment. As the bus rumbled over the Morrison Bridge, he kept talking to me. No one else seemed to be interested in participating. Curious about him, I replied with inanities, thinking sooner or later he would finally be quiet and I would regret the silence. I rarely ride the bus, but in my experience, people usually don't talk to strangers. Maybe it was a measure of how deeply mortified he felt, because he kept on talking. And I kept on replying.

“It was yesterday's coffee,” he informed me.

“Ah, the best kind,” I said.

“You'd think I would have noticed the coffee spilling on my leg.” He pointed to the coffee stain on his thigh.

“Tepid, was it?” I asked.

“No, it was about the temperature of my office.”

“Oh, about 70°?”

“More like 67,” he replied seriously. I thought, is this really happening?

“But why didn't I notice it?” he asked in a slightly anguished tone.

“Perhaps you were having an out of body experience,” I suggested, motioning at his headphones, which were wrapped around his neck. You can tell a lot about a person as soon as you make a comment about having an out-of-body experience. That's why I mention it frequently. I always smirk a little when I say it, though, so they don't think I really believe in that stuff.

“No, that can't be it,” he mused with a frown. “Although I've often thought it would be better not to be in my body on the bus, with all the people...”

“I've often felt that way myself,” I said soothingly, thinking of how many times I've wished to be a discorporate intellect, floating through the universe free from the burden of this sagging, wrinkling, aching body. I'm not sure that is what he was thinking. He was younger than me, in pretty good shape from what I could see, although he probably has a desk job. He looked a little nerdy, like a 30-ish computer geek, a little soft around the edges, but hip enough to wear trendy jeans.

“Then I could escape all the crazy people on the bus, like the ones who spill coffee.”

I couldn't help laughing. “I rather like the bus,” I said, because at that moment I was enjoying it very much.

We were at about 20th when he got up suddenly and moved toward the front of the bus. He came back with a handful of paper towels and started mopping the now-drying coffee trails.

When he resumed his seat, I said, “All these people will get off and no one will know it was your coffee that spilled.”

“You're right. I could blame it on them,” he said. Then he looked sideways at me. “I could blame it on you!”

“That you could,” I laughed. “Feel free.”

He was quiet for a time. Then he said something else about how embarrassed he was over spilling his coffee.

“Don't worry about it,” I said. “It will give me something to blog about tonight.”

He got off somewhere before Cesar Chavez Boulevard. He said goodbye to me, waved at the bus driver, and as the bus pulled away I saw his face for the last time, intently gazing into the distance. He did not look into the bus, just a nondescript guy who lives in the trendy part of Southeast Portland. I doubt I would recognize him again, unless he was carrying the same laptop bag and wearing earphones. And spilling coffee.

I didn't blog about it last night because I wanted to capture the essence of the last surreal day at the career college before it faded from my mind. I imagined that guy going home and searching the blogscape for a blog about a nerdy klutz who spilled coffee on the bus and had a conversation about it with a middle-aged woman. What keywords would he use, I wonder? Idiot on Belmont bus spills coffee. I hope he was able to laugh about it with his significant other when he got home. It sure made my day.

When a good idea goes bad

If you are just tuning in, here's the story to date. For the past ten years, I worked for a career college at its campus in Clackamas, a city near Portland. On April 1, we received notice from management that our site would be closing at the end of the term. Students were invited to transfer to the main campus in Wilsonville. On April 9, full-time faculty were notified individually if they were being asked to transfer or if they were being laid off. Three people, all program directors, were invited to stay. The rest of us were given notice that our last day would be May 2.

For the past three weeks, in an effort to cope with my shock and grief, I documented the closing of the campus with my funky old Sony Cybershot and posted the photos on my faculty webpage.

I took pictures of packing boxes. I took pictures of people I have grown to love and admire (and avoided others). I photographed the flyer that a posse of outraged students plastered the halls with in a futile attempt to save a teacher's job. I documented the stairs our boss Denny fell down. I captured a teacher's tattoo and and another teacher's glittery flipflops. Everywhere I looked I found people that deserved to be honored, moments that needed to be acknowledged, objects that deserved to be recognized. Some images were meaningful only to me, but some of the images seemed to sum up the bittersweet last days at our special campus. It was slipping away so fast. I wanted to preserve it, for me, for us, so every day I took more pictures and expanded my webpage.

Sheryl's filing cabinet, for sale for a day to the highest bidder, now left behind.... A whiteboard decorated with a student's scribbled love notes to a teacher she would never see again.... An accounting teacher on his shiny three-wheel motorcycle.... Classrooms, stairways, hallways, the lobby, the smoking area.... The view of the empty parking lot from the third floor computer lab.... A bizarrely shaped coffee cup imprinted with a tagline so astoundingly apropos I could hardly hold the camera still for laughing: There's a better life out there.

When I look back through the photos, one thing strikes me: everyone I photographed was smiling. Big, wide smiles. There were no sad faces, no moping expressions, no defeated postures. We all looked happy, despite the fact that our lives were being turned upside down, inside out. Even I looked happy.

The last day came. I finished my grades and had Denny sign off on them. I made arrangements to have the bookkeeper mail my final paycheck. I cleaned out my desk drawers. I posted the last photos on my faculty webpage. I prepared auto-replies that would activate at midnight, stating that I was no longer with the college. I packed up my book bags with my binders, my stapler, my post-it notes, my scissors. And finally, I drafted a goodbye email.

I addressed the note to everyone in Wilsonville and Clackamas. In it I described my gratitude at having been a part of the organization for ten years and how I was certain what I learned would help me in my new career. I entitled it Happy trails from Clackamas. At the end of the note, in a postscript, I gave the URL to my faculty webpage.

I finished the letter and then sat there with my mouse poised over the SEND button.  I had a gut feeling it might not be a wise thing to do. I re-read it, trying to imagine how it would be received. Should I take off the URL to my webpage? Should I delete the letter altogether? Should I fade away quietly without a protest, without one final poke, one last prod? I wanted to say, Hey, look at us, you stupid college, look at what you did with this bonehead move, you disregarded the needs of your students, you disrespected your faculty, you destroyed your brand. You thought by cutting off our campus, you could save yourselves. You thought you were abandoning us on the part of the ship that was sinking. Ha.

I predict we will survive, we will flourish, our ship will sail on, and in the end your top-heavy boat will sink into obscurity. Because you can't treat people disrespectfully forever. Sooner or later, you will find out what happens when you sail too close to the rocks. The next thought running through my head was, What have I got to lose? What are they going to do, fire me? That made me smile. So I hit SEND and sat back to wait.

Within moments I got my first response, oddly enough from the Compliance Officer, wishing me farewell and giving me his personal email address. (“Let's link up on LinkedIn.”) I was pleasantly surprised. In another few moments, two more responses wishing me well from employees who were former students (“I learned so much from you!”), then another from the program director in Wilsonville (“I never really knew you, but good luck!”). A few minutes later, Denny came into the office, checked his email, and said, “Your link doesn't work.”

“What? No, are you sure?” I said. I quickly typed in the URL. Sure enough: Error 404: File or directory not found. We looked at each other. I turned back to the computer, opened Expression Web, and tried to load up my site. And there it was, the message, spelled out in black and white:

There is no site named http://blablablacollege.info/myname.

It was dead. My faculty website was gone. I had been well and truly spanked.

I responded the way I responded to every interesting incident at the college over the past three weeks. I got out my camera and took a picture of it. A simple image to commemorate the end of ten years of service to a for-profit career college. There's a better life out there.