Dumping My Modal Load

I admit, details are not necessarily my biggest passion. Don't get me wrong, I can obsess over the tiniest detail in my barbie-doll nativities, or spend hours working out how to best slide pie dough into a pan. But those aren't details as much as they are God's little way of getting me to hang around for another five minutes. I hate Details, with a capital D, which rhymes with B and that stands for Boredom. I despise the stuff you find in very small print on acid-free paper. I hate paperwork, go blind when I sit down to fill out forms and stroke out when someone passes me a "handbook." Things like health insurance manuals and union rulebooks have no purchase for me until the moment I need to know the information. But usually by that time I have junked said manual in order to get the bad ju-ju out of my house.

So I once again find myself in this situation. I'm not sure I've actually tossed the manual I need this time, since all my stuff is packed up in storage right now. But I most likely have already thrown it out in some fit of pique. It would be the handbook for the community college where I currently work, if you want to call it working. I consider it more an interesting experiment in masochism.

I'm not even sure what handbook I should be looking for, or what I'm actually looking for. Considering I have never really spent a whole lot of time looking at these kinds of handbooks, I can't necessarily figure out how to find something or judge the quality of organization. But I can say the few manuals I've dared open for five minutes before I started bleeding out the ears would have made the Marquis de Sade blush at the exquisitely cruel manner in which the information was assembled.

Although I consider myself a slight dabbler in foreign languages, I have never been able to wrap my head around Academic Bureaucratese, a language known for its protean grammar and bandersnatchy verbiage. A.B is a language quite like Esperanto--everyone could and should learn it, but why on Earth would anyone in their right mind devote one spare nanosecond of time to it? I wonder if people who learn Klingon also have a talent for A.B. They're probably distant relatives to the Vogons.

But back to the manual, the one I don't know if I should be reading or not because I don't know if it has the information I want or if my precious information is hiding in another manual, which I'll have to go to Middle Earth to retrieve. I'm looking for a term called "modal load." This little three-syllable set seems to pack quite a wallop, since this is what's supposedly preventing me from teaching two classes in the English Department next semester, rather than teaching one class and working in a lab.

Working in the lab, under normal circumstances, would not be such a big issue, even though I receive about $300 less a month. But since I have been plunked down in a lab that seems to sit in a very small version of South Central, I'd prefer to find my way back to the classrooms on the main campus, as most people in our department who are of sound mind and body would. Part-time lecturers lost classes this past semester, due to the budget cuts, i.e., massive cash hemorrhaging that took place because of a ridiculous series of Trustees' mismanagement that was then compounded by the failing economy. So instead of teaching my usual 2 classes, I got one class and a complementary number of hours working in the "Writing Lab." The Writing Lab at South Central Jr. is more a repository for juvenile delinquents and people who wander in from the street looking for a place to check their MySpace page. People get very little writing done there. I can't get anything done there because I'm too busy telling people to stop talking about their girlfriends or their baby's daddy at full volume on their cell phones.

So I get paid less, work 3 times as many hours, and wonder if anyone is breaking into my car while I sit in a lab that hardly anyone ever comes to in order to do something the lab was actually designed for.

So when I saw an e-mail from the chair telling all faculty that a number of classes for next semester remained unstaffed and asking if anyone was interested in teaching them, I happily rejoined with "I would be very interested in taking the MWF 2-3 p.m. class," which translates into F*** Yeah!" Who wouldn't want to get back to teaching, recover the $300 a month and spend less time sitting indoors with a bunch of computers? If it were a boyfriend with a bad attitude and a nifty haircut, I could see it, but there was nothing remotely attractive or sexually gratifying about the lab gig.

But I get this e-mail back, addressed this time to "Part-time Faculty." The chair tell us that she received many e-mails from part-timers but she could not give them the classes, because, since we're at .25 a class, that would push us past our limit. So, in order to meet "modal load" for the adjunct lecturers, she would have to give us one class and "complement" the class with lab hours.

"I hope this is clear," she wrote at the end of the e-mail. I don't think that needs translation...

I wanted to write back and say, "The next time you send out an invitation for classes, but you actually don't want the part-timer's to write back, maybe you shouldn't include them on the list in the first place." Actually, I wanted to write back and say, "Eat shit and die." But that wouldn't have gone down well, either. So instead, I'm blogging.

What kills me about this whole thing is overload is overload. Whether full-timers take the classes or part-timers take the classes, the English Department is still going to end up spending more money. Why give people who already have a fixed salary more money when part-timers are struggling to make ends meet right now?

But even better than giving the extra work to the full-timers is which full-timers get the classes. Our chair was kind enough to send all the faculty the names of the instructors who'd be teaching the overload classes. One of them is clueless. I just heard from a couple of other students about how insensitive another one is. Two of the people on the list are having an affair in front of God and everyone, and another person is an outright racist. The cliche came to mind when I read the list: There is no justice.

What the hell is modal load and how can I get it off my back? I'm too busy trying to keep up with my classes to protest the fact that I'm getting screwed over by a bureaucracy that could give a flying flip about me. The three hours I need to sit down and read the manuals until I find what I'm looking for are usually being consumed by lesson preparation, paper grading, driving, and dodging bullets at the lab. And I know that when I look up modal load, it's going to lead me to the next ten things I have to look up in order to understand anything. Just as the poor are too busy being poor to be interested in elections, I am too buried under one mountain of papers to develop any interest in another mountain of papers.

But it has become a pie crust slipping into a plate now. If I'm going to bitch, I'm going to get it right, down to the last detail.

After minutes of searching, I discover that the 117-page handbook for faculty covers "modal load" in one paragraph: "The sum of instructional and non-instructional assignments shall not exceed 60% of the hours per week considered a full-time assignment for regular employees having comparable duties." Although the term "modal load" seems to appear nowhere in this handbook, I think this is what it comes down to: %60. This still makes no sense to me, as 2 classes at .25 still equals only 50%. Perhaps I have smoked too much crack, but something does not seem kosher. Of course, I'm sure it's far more complicated than my pretty little head can handle. I'm sure it's just as complicated as when Kaiser was taking health insurance premiums for me from two different state institutions but I couldn't get unemployment insurance when I desperately needed it last year. The state can pay my health insurance premiums twice over but can't help me put food on my table. What, the computer systems don't tell you when you're doing the same thing twice? Even my Microsoft Word can do that.

"You already have this file. Would you like to replace it with this new file?"

Modal load, it seems, is the load that gets dumped on you when you're an adjunct. Modal load is the "stay right where you are and come no closer." Modal load is the rock tied round your foot so that you sink faster when they dump you into the river, if they don't sell you up it first. Modal load is the wall my boss gets to hide behind right now, while I get to hide behind my computer screen at the lab, wondering how long I have to stay in South Central Jr.

I'm Soooo Fired"

I think I behaved myself in class for about 30 minutes once, probably the first time I taught. I probably didn't even make it through the first third of the class. I'm not sure why, but I've never been able to act like a normal human being as a teacher.

How do I define normal, you might ask? Normal, as we all in academia are quick to exclaim, is a relative term that has little, if anything to support it as a concrete concept. It's the first catechism we learn.

"What does one do when confronted with the term 'normal?'"

"We ask them to be more specific."

"What do we say when they say 'you know, normal?'"

"We ask them to define the term."

"And what do we do when they cannot adequately define the term?"

"We lambast them for being ignorant bottom dwellers. "

"Uh, no."

"We tell them that normal is a broad generalization that is subject to cultural variations and interpretation."

"God be with you."

"Amen."

Despite knowing the catechism by heart, I'm going to broadly generalize and possibly insult and alienate various individuals. I'm okay with that.

Normal human beings who teach typically pay attention to what they say, how they behave, and how they dress. Normal teachers, lecturers, professors do not have frequent Turette's explosions and sound like they just returned from a back-alley cock fight. Normal teachers at least pay lip service to political correctness, and if they actually do something heinously racist, classist, sexist, etc, etc, it is usually because they lack the self-awareness to realize how idiotic they are.

I, on the other hand, have difficulty in these areas. These things come out of my mouth (for one) and I do these things that make me think immediately afterward, "I'm so fired."

It started off small enough, with making a party tee-shirt with one German class at Stanford. I thought of all those party tee shirts sororities and fraternities used to print up for their keggers. So we ended up printing up tee-shirts with "German 115, Spring Quarter: It's whacked!" That was how I answered their questions about German grammar.

"Why does the verb go at the end of a dependent clause in German?"

"Because it's whacked."

Why is the definite article for "boy" masculine but the definite article for "girl" is neuter?"

"Because it's whacked."

"Why is there a neuter gender in German?"

"Because it's whacked."

It seemed to suffice for the most part.

Over time, I have lost almost all impulse control in the classroom. During my more demure years, I used to cultivate belches during lecture. I'd feel one coming on, pause, pat myself on the chest, spread my arms, and then let rip. Sometimes I'd take a bow if there was applause.

You Have a Ph.D. in What?

Whenever I tell people that I have a PhD in German Studies, there is always a moment of silence. The listener must first deal with the cognitive dissonance that suddenly invades their head like the Germans marching through Paris. I'm not sure what throws them off, perhaps my bubbly personality--not. Maybe it's the fact that I look a little too young to actually have a Ph.D., at least, from an institution that doesn't exist only online. Maybe it's my wardrobe, which consists of jeans and long-sleeved tee-shirts, fleece pullovers, and scuffed-up clogs. Maybe it's the dreads that people have a problem with.

Or maybe it's the fact that I'm African-American. There just aren't that many black people interested in the Fatherland. I can't possibly imagine why.

People, once they realize they must be looking at me as though I have two heads and collect themselves, create a spiffy rejoinder: "Well, that's not something you hear every day," "Wow, isn't that...interesting," "Okaayyyy..."

The best one, I think, came from an African American woman I talked to at the MLA last year, who, when I told her I taught at a U.C. asked me if I knew a couple of different professors there. I told her I didn't, and she said, "Well, they're in African American Studies. You sure you don't know them?"

"I'm in the German and Russian Department."

"Really?"

"Yes, I have a PhD in German Studies."

"Oh...," she said, at a total loss for words. Then she regained her composure and said, "Well, you go girl!"

People have a hard enough time believing I have a Ph.D., which manifests itself in all manner of backhanded compliments, racist statements, and direct challenges of my qualifications--another blog entry for later. But when they discover that my PhD is in German Studies, the tectonic plates in the Marianas Trench of their minds shift severely, and the resulting tsunami almost always takes me out.

For example, I used to work for a non-profit organization as the Adult Education teacher, which meant I helped people who'd dropped out of school years before earn their GEDs. I also acted as a liaison between them and the faculty they worked with at a local community college while they were getting their certificates in Childhood Development. To a great degree, this meant preventing the women from cussing out the professors because they were pissed off. If I were in a job interview describing the experience, I'd say something like, " I functioned as an intermediary between the academic staff and my clients who, at times, because of minor breakdowns in communication, felt that they were not being clearly understood."

Ha!

The non-profit also started a job-preparedness program called STRIVE and had invited a number of city and state employees, from Social Services to EDD, to a kick-off event. My clients at the non-profit had always told me how much they hated their social workers, that they couldn't believe people like that were being invited to come to the building, invade their space and eat for free. I'd told them that the social workers couldn't possibly be that evil, and that maybe they would see a new side of them at this event.

Was I ever misguided.

During a dynamic presentation of the staff during the ceremony, our employment specialist introduced me, saying, "And we have the great privilege of having a Stanford PhD work as our adult educator, and we're incredibly proud to have her here!" All the city and state representatives turned towards me, and I sheepishly waved from where I was standing. Because the job required it, I did have on "business attire" that day, so I didn't look like I'd just come off the playground. But I was still young, a whole whopping 28, and I'm sure my blushing and turning my feet inwards like a six-year-old didn't help.

Later, when everyone was grazing and discussing how non-profits would one day take over the world, one of the social workers approached me and said, "So you have a PhD in German, huh? That's interesting."

"Yeah," I said, trying to avoid heavy discussion. "It's not very practical, though. Had I known then what I know now, I would've gotten a degree in Spanish or Russian."

"Or Ebonics," the social worker said, "since you speak that anyway."

Oddly enough, his name was Mr. Black.

People have a hard time grasping all of this at one fail swoop, but very few people ever ask if I had a hard time getting there. The answer to that would be yes.

But that's for another time, and another post.

Introduction

"The next time someone asks, tell them you've been beta-testing at Guantanamo."

I'd gone to a conference for the first time in 10 years to read a paper a colleague and I wrote about agency, diversity and Cognitive Grammar, two of which are dead horses being mercilessly flogged in the academic arena to this day, the last of which only a handful of people have ever heard of, but have managed to wage a war over on the scale of Lord of the Rings, with the advocates in the role of Frodo and its opponents playing a mad group of Saurons. I'd been horribly nervous, out of practice by a decade, my theory muscles withered down to spare strings you could pluck a banjo tune on. I had visions of academic catastrophes, spilling wine on some highly revered theory rock star at the requisite graze-fest that opened these dealies, throwing up on the podium, forgetting everything I'd ever learned in my life, or answering someone's question about Cognitive Grammar with, "What's Cognitive Grammar?" Or I'd end up saying "Cognitive Grammar, is, like, so fucking cool!"

I did spill wine at the wine and cheeser, but only on the purse belonging to a secretary I wasn't particularly fond of at the time, my cheese following suit once it saw that it's partner had jumped ship. But no one really saw it, and I didn't draw attention to myself by going, "Oh my God!" and swooping down on said purse with an arsenal of cocktail napkins, like I did the last time I was at one of these things. Once I'd gotten my party-foul out of the way, I was fine for the rest of the evening, and the hyperventilating the next day didn't really bother me that much. I took advantage of the heavy breathing to speed-smoke some cigarettes and make some obscene phone calls.

Between phone calls and choking down cigarettes, I gave myself a little pep talk: Don't be stupid. It's just a paper. It does not define you as a person. You never have to see these people again as long as you live. You could take a dump in the center of the floor and smear your feces all over the wall if you wanted to. It'd be just as good as the blockage being cleared from some of the mental colons inside. They don't pay your rent. You don't have to impress them.

Bullshit. The truth of the matter was, I needed to feel like I hadn't wasted almost six years of my life sitting in an ivory tower with some truly unpleasant people, waiting for my glorious PhD Prince to finally arrive and whisk me away from the perdition of theory-wankers. I needed to be able to say that I could run with the big dogs and pee in the tall grass. As much as I knew that the division between professor and lecturer is a flexible one at the least, I still needed these assholes to admit that I was just as good as they were. And I hated them even more for it. But instead of bolting and finding a nice bar and an even nicer Sidecar, I ground out my cigarette and returned to the conference.

And when my time came, I rocked it. After the first few shaky sentences, I found my groove, flicked the teacher switch on, and did what I have been doing for the last 14 years. I made people laugh, smile, nod, understand, appreciate what I was saying and how I was saying it. And it all made sense. I felt, at the end of my talk, that I had finally arrived, that the applause was genuine, that I was just as good. If I got run over by a bus right now, I said to myself, it would be all right with me.

Too bad there were no buses around.

Afterwards, when we were herding towards the vans that would whisk us off to our lavish feast at the local Mexican chain restaurant in the shopping center in town, someone I'd seen earlier, someone I thought I knew but for the life of me couldn't place, came up to me and re-introduced himself. He'd been guest-lecturing at Stanford when I was a graduate student there. He was now tenured in the German department at the university where the conference was and had been happily working away. He asked me how I'd been, and I told him I'd been doing well, that I was now teaching part-time at a U.C. and really enjoying it. I left out the fact that I'd gained and lost about 80 pounds in between, had started fencing again, had started a dessert business, had moved back to Germany and lived there for a year, that I was writing again and had the best social calendar of anyone I knew. "So where have you been keeping yourself all these years? Did you go on the job market?"

Then came my spiel, my partner hadn't wanted to move after I graduated, the statement that I didn't have to move and look for a job because he made enough money for both of us. We were just fine staying in San Francisco. So I stayed in The City and began teaching English at a State University. And then he left. And that was that.

"You know, that's exactly what I'm always telling my graduate students. They can't sit on their degrees forever. They've got to get on the market! That degree has a shelf life, and you have to use it as soon as possible." He gave me his condolences with his eyes, mourning the premature death of my illustrious academic career almost more than I did. He finished me off with a sad smile. In less than five minutes, I lost the good feeling I'd received after 3 months of writing and working with my colleague.

Dinner that night only gave me more opportunities to knock things over and blot up spilled wine, beer and salt for the Margarita's everyone else was polishing off. I excused myself to the bathroom and then rushed out the front door, lit a cigarette, and called Phoebe. I told her about the encounter with the tenured guy. And she suggested the Guantanamo come-back.

"It's not far from the truth."

"I know, sweetie. I'm sorry."

"Me too."

How is it that I failed to tell that guy the other stuff, that I'd been teaching German off and on for the last 14 years, that I'd been teaching English for the last 10, that I'd had over 2,000 students, graded 8,000 papers, had excellent reviews and evaluations from my students, that I'd been nominated for excellence in teaching awards, that students waited for me to teach a class they had to take, that I had my own little cult following no matter what school I taught at. How come I hadn't told him that I'd been offered full-time work at two different schools in Germany based on one or two observations? Hell, I've even received a couple of chili peppers on ratemyprofessor. Why didn't I tell him that I was damn good at what I do and there are literally thousands of people who would attest to that? Why did I feel like such a failure for not having a tenure track job? Why does he think that's such a horrible state of being?

In academia, no one ever asks a professor to explain their 10-year absence from the classroom, excepting the odd seminar or upper-division course they get yoked with. No one ever pities them for choosing research over teaching. No one ever advises their graduate students to wait a little bit before becoming a wine-guzzling, pontificating, theorizing, committee-forming, open-letter writing condescending sack of crap. tenured professors are congratulated for having "dodged the bullet" of leading the life of a lecturer, escaping the clutches of down and dirty undergraduate involvement. No. In academia, the tenure-track job is the golden calf, and those who don't have it are to be pitied and, all too often, treated like entities undeserving of decent pay and a manageable workload.

But has anyone noticed, just maybe, that lecturers, those adjuncts who spend half their lives in their car, chugging coffee and Red Bull while hauling ass down the freeway to the next campus, and the other half of their lives choking on stacks of homework that litter their homes and play active roles in their nightmares, are the people who actually do the bulk of the teaching at the post-secondary level, that they are the people who make the comfortable lives of the tenured few possible? Academia, much like the feudal system from which it stems, privileges the elite few and grinds the unwashed under its heels. The only thing that has changed to make it truly horrific is a good healthy dose of capitalism and free market enterprise.

Am I bitter? You bet your boots I am.

But it's not that simple, as you'll soon see.