Work – Page 2 – Ethnography.com

Corporatocracy and the McDonaldization of Work in Higher Education

Posted on April 2, 2015May 17, 2015 by Julie Garza-Withers

In the fifth segment of the fantastic book Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell paints a picture of a future in “Corprocratic” (and post-apocalyptic) Neo Seoul, where its bored, spoiled citizens thrive on gallerias and franchises and are legally required to consume products. In Mitchell’s rationalized future, a surplus of deskilled “fabricants” perform the grunt labor of everyday low-wage work. Except for one, Somni-451.

After escaping the drudgery of her job as part of a disposable workforce at “Papa Song’s” (a McDonald’s stand-in), Somni goes on a journey.…

When the Red Ink Stops Flowing

Posted on March 30, 2015April 1, 2015 by Marianne Paiva

A few weeks ago, I lamented that academia has turned out not to be what I expected. Since I posted that blog, many of my colleagues have approached me about their own experiences in academia, I’ve been inundated with emails from folks sending stories similar to the one I wrote about, and even sat down with my college dean recently to discuss the state of lecturers in our university. A few days ago, I came across an op-ed piece by Carmen Maria Machado that helped me clarify the difference between what I expected, and what is, in academia today.…

Mother Hens and Nice Girls: How Gender and Class Show Up at Work

Posted on February 18, 2015November 2, 2015 by Julie Garza-Withers

“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a perpetual state of childhood, unable to stand alone.” -Mary Wollstonecraft

Since writing about class and feminism here a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been booked to present at a couple of places about conflict between women co-workers, which was the topic of my thesis research way back when.…

Second-class PhD

Posted on February 10, 2015February 10, 2015 by Marianne Paiva

“I never thought I’d be a second class citizen,” he lamented. “Where I come from, education is the most important thing. A man with a PhD is respected, listened to.” He shook his head gravely. “What did I do to cause such treatment, that I wouldn’t be listened to by my colleagues?”

He dug a shovel into the ground and leaned into the wooden handle. “What did I do?” he asked again.…

The Toothache

Posted on January 24, 2015February 17, 2015 by Marianne Paiva

“The Toothache” is excerpted from Marianne Paiva’s book Breathe: Essays from a Recovering Paramedic which tells of her life as a paramedic in rural areas of northern California in the 1990s. This particular story tells of the time she was called to take a man by ambulance with a toothache to the emergency room at 3 a.m. You’ll need to read the whole story to find out why this was the case!

…

Are Indexes Obsolete?

Posted on January 15, 2015January 11, 2015 by Tony Waters

I’ve spent the last two days indexing our new book on Max Weber’s sociology. I am doing it the old-fashioned way, just as it has been done since, well, the 1990s or so. Which means I have a Word document open on my desktop and go through the document on a hard copy page by page, alphabetizing as I go. The only concession I have to the 2000s is that I will occasionally do a search of the electronic copy of the manuscript to find a key word in the PDF.…

Adjuncts Unite!

Posted on January 12, 2015January 11, 2015 by Julie Garza-Withers

In a recent response to Tony’s piece describing the “three gifts of tenure” that I posted on LinkedIn (in my Sociology of Education group) a commenter said this: “The treatment of adjuncts is a national crime perpetrated on our education system and the unsuspecting public. Adjuncts receive about a third of the salary/benefits for the same course taught by a full-time faculty member. Unless we want to redress this injustice, talking about the plight of adjuncts is useless.”…

“I’m Sorry, Next Semester We Do Not Have Any Classes For You!”

Posted on January 8, 2015January 23, 2015 by Tony Waters

The Three Gifts of Tenure

I will say it up front. Tenure is cool, and the opposite, “contingent” employment, really sucks. I was an adjunct for about two years in the 1990s, and I know from first hand experience that it sucked. Why?

Well there were a couple of reasons. First, was that I was constantly on the job market, since I did not know where my income was coming from the following semester.…

Is Your Professor also a Waitress or in Retail?

Posted on December 18, 2014December 18, 2014 by Tony Waters

The crisis in college teaching is old hat on blogs like this. The professoriate is divided into a two tiered system, in which one group-the tenure track-has the good fortune to have job security and a decent salary, while an often-time larger groups has only semester-to-semester job security, and a part-time teaching gig which may or may not pay the bills of a middle class lifestyle.

I was lucky—I only had to do two years of adjuncting before being gifted with the luxury of tenure track security.…

How Working at a Community College is Like Working Retail

Posted on October 29, 2014October 27, 2015 by Julie Garza-Withers

Originally published at classism.org in October 2011

Expectations are a pain in the ass. There’s an old saying, “plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.” Yep I did it, planted and am now disappointed. I teach Sociology at a rural community college; I love teaching, but I don’t love that adjunct teachers like me are temporary, at-will employees.

Who knew that the working conditions at a community college would be the same as they were when I was a bookseller, housekeeper, caregiver, fast food worker, and waitress?…

Don’t Worry, Be Happy, and Get Tenure

Posted on July 23, 2013October 29, 2014 by Tony Waters

Here is an interesting new take on the nature of the tenure track that just came out from a (former) Assistant Professor at Harvard. In essence: Don’t worry, be happy, work smart, and its not always necessary to answer your email right away.

I would appreciate this article more if the author had not gotten tenure in the end, and could still take this attitude. Or more to the point, perhaps if she had the same attitude after spending three years on the tenure-track job market not finding a job. …