I guess after you work at a place for almost ten years, it's hard to let it go, even if it let go of you. I'm speaking, of course, about the career college that laid me off in May. Today Sheryl called me at 10:00 a.m., and I knew as soon as I saw her number in the caller ID window that something must have happened. She only calls me when something is going on at school.“You won't believe what I just heard!”
“What?”
“Chandra Friggins just got fired!”
“What!”
I was dismayed, not because I care about Chandra all that much, but because she is my official contact person at the career college for my doctoral research study. What will this mean for me? (Everything always comes back to that important question when one is a crazy chronic malcontent.)
I was going to email Chandra tomorrow and ask her what I should do to motivate faculty to sign up for my study. So far only one person has signed up since the invitation went out to all the faculty last Monday, and she doesn't qualify. I'm panicking more day by day as I piddle around in my dissertation manuscript, making placeholders for data I haven't collected yet. Now I get why scientists make up data! I'm seeing failure looming on the horizon, only a few months away. Where, oh where, are all the faculty who care about academic quality? Am I the only one?
Now with this news, I suspect there's some serious sh-t going on at the career college—again—which explains why people may not be super eager to sign up. The news also makes me think interviewing any faculty who teach there is a really bad idea. What kind of responses will I get from people who are terrified of losing their jobs?
Sheryl just called again. Denny, our former boss, and my ace in the hole at the career college, called and told her that Chandra was fired as part of a “reorganization.” Now, anyone in business knows that reorganize is a euphemism for fire, suggesting more heads will soon be rolling down the hallowed halls.
I'm not sure what I'm feeling. Relief and gratitude that I'm not there, I guess. Imagine trying to teach under the karmic weight of all that negativity and fear. Maybe a little glee that the place is falling apart (See! I told you so!). But mostly I'm feeling extreme anxiety. Who will be my gatekeeper now? Should I contact her male counterpart (I think I've called him Fiend in the past. Maybe I need to come up with a new name!)? Should I contact the president of the college? What if he's being reorgged too? What if the whole place is closing? Can I find some of these faculty before they all drift into the obscurity of unemployment?
After almost eight years and $50,000, to have this doctorate unravel in the last four months seems unfathomable. Unbelievable. Unacceptable. After all the stress of toiling to get the concept approved, the proposal approved, the IRB application approved... Is it, maybe it is too soon to fret...wreckage of the future and all that...? No, you know what, no. It's not too soon to fret. I think it is past time to fret. I've been trying not to fret, but fretting is tearing me a new one much like wild fires ravage southern Oregon.
What I have is a classic marketing problem. I'm trying to sell something people don't want. If I were a celebrity... yeah, what if I were, uh, think of someone who is sexy and charming. Jeez, I don't know, I'm the last person to have a list of celebrities ready to mind. Back in a mo. Ok, got it. I had to Google it. Ok, imagine if I were...Oprah! Or... Clint! Or Cameron! Do you think for one minute that people would hesitate to participate in my study? No. They would be, like, I wanna do it, me, me, me!
Clearly I'm not cool enough, my study's not hip enough. I'm lacking the hipness factor. Oh, man. What about the sheer altruistic joy of helping a former fellow faculty member? What about the good feeling of sharing for a good cause? (What cause, you ask? The cause of saving or destroying for-profit vocational education, depending on what side of the fence you are on, I don't care which. Just tell me your story!)
Free iPod! Free iPad! Free coffee and donuts! The doctor is (almost) in! Tell me your story about for-profit vocational education. I promise not only to hang on your every word, but to lovingly type verbatim all your verbal tics and fillers, and then scrutinize them in detail to wring from your precious words every last drop of meaning, both mundane and profound. When will anyone ever again give you such devoted attention?
