austerity in 1996

This blog is very personal.  And, in that it continues a trend which began long ago, a trend which allows all of us to speak.  No longer must we listen to the tales of kings and queens and mythological creatures.  Nor must we hear the propagandistic re-telling of the trite and imaginary tale of the "creative enterpreneur" who worked day-and-night to bestow upon the world some new product, some new trifle, some much-desired and clamoured-for technological innovation, while slaves laboured underground to put the pieces together, and he gloried above in the unending praise of the slavish media.....No such uglinesss here!

Austerity today is a cruel weapon.  But, in one sense, austerity began in my life on a day back in 1996, when something like the conversation indirectly indicated in the following lines occurred:

You can have a job,

until the boss comes,

and tells you that you've got no job,

unless,

and here he scrapes his foot and gets uncomfortable,

suggesting you really wouldn't want this,

but he's got to mention it,

although if you really wouldn't want it,
unless you'd like to throw an old dog a bone,
But,

why is he mentioning it then,
if he knows you really wouldn't want it?

--Well, go ahead,
and say it,
you think,
And he mentions it anyway---

Unless, perhaps, he says,

you'd like to work at one-third or one-fourth

the salary you had before,

while doing the same work.

 

In the language of American universities, what is described above is the opportunity to make a transition from a "Visiting Assistant Professor" (a full-time job with benefits) to the postion of "Adjunct" (a part-time job without benefits, and paid at a much lower rate).  When faced with that choice, I left the United States.