A Journeyman Professor's Experience of Precarity and Meaningful Work

Introduction: A Divided Life

In 1972, Studs Terkel, a well-known American journalist and broadcaster of the time, interviewed hundreds of people about “what they do all day and how they feel about what they do” (2004, subtitle from front cover). He interviewed factory line workers and professors, doctors and sex workers, office workers, and teachers. He interviewed people from all walks of life and from across the United States. Over one hundred and thirty of their stories made into a book which itself topped 580 pages. He begins this classic work “Working” with the following statement:

This author wonders, how many educators recognise their experience with work in these sentences, at least to some degree? They suspect, quite a few, though perhaps in varying degrees. These sentiments also remind this author of a discussion with their late mentor, Dr. Anne Goodman who noted: “[…] you do not have to have an actual actor who does a violent act. […You] do not have to be a bad person, but if you go to work, and you work by those rules, you will perpetuate violence” [this author’s emphasis] (collaborative conversation, 2006). In recent years this author has come to believe that teachers (and administrators) who do not seek to influence society’s and the world’s problems through their teaching (and administration), at least in some small way, are indeed perpetuating violence. This violence potentially ranges from disrespect to outright racism. Or from lack of representation in course materials to the silencing of marginalised, or minoritised, voices in the classroom. Such violence could also be experienced by simply being a student or professor¹ from a marginalised, or minoritised, group in an institution that allows, and defends, voices of racism, transphobia, hegemony, elitism, and other oppressive stands and practices to be heard, under the auspices of so-called academic freedom. In the coming pages this author will touch on the experiences that have led them to this understanding. To be clear, this chapter is grounded in the narrative of this author’s own experiences including the strategies they have used, and continue to use, to attempt to manage their own anxiety, stress, depression, and yes … anger. It is not a “self-help” or “how to” guide for others though perhaps lessons can be learned from this author’s experiences and understandings.

Background (Or First … A Vignette)

“Do you like your job?” The question took this author aback. Not because they’d never been asked that before, and definitely not because they hadn’t thought about it. It took them aback because this time, the question had been asked by someone who worked for them. Two things flashed into their mind, one was a warning about not sharing that kind of information with a member of their team, and the other was the awareness that the way they were feeling on the inside, was showing on the outside. Not only that, but the incident also reminded this author of a meeting they’d had with a new senior manager at their institution a few months before. Having asked about the challenges this author saw the institution facing, the senior manager interrupted their response almost immediately, and said, “do you think of yourself as a negative person?” Actually, they didn’t, but they had realised that that were increasingly tending to focus on so-called deficit-based rather than positive experiences. They also knew that this was exactly contrary to their aim when they commenced the job, less than a year before. This was clearly a warning sign of things to come, of their inauthenticity, a warning sign that they failed, yet again, to attend to.