If you tell your superpower
Many superheros live among us in mild-mannered mundane personae: a Clark Kent, a Diana Prince. By day I am an administrative associate or some other title for secretary for a higher ed institution and by night an adjunct instructor. After 8 hours under the eye of a time-clock, following state policies, invoicing, problem-solving and mostly presence, I put on my cape and perform edutainment for 3 audiences, and another online. I am grateful for these things because last spring I lost my day job, and benefits, and cannot rely on the need for a masked marvel.
My entrance into higher ed administrative assistance came as a lucky break in the professionally dismal town I’d grown up and settled in. I had followed the lemming line one does in a college town going through undergrad, then grad in the easiest major and one that fed my desire to do significant scientific work without the math- social science. Unless I had wanted to get out or move on to post-graduate school, I needed to work in social work or wiggle back into the institution, both which I did. I was dreadful and lazy in social work though I tried new avenues and liked having a solid adult job. I eventually found the work repulsive and fled back to the safe walls of higher ed as an admin. I bounced twice over the 7 years and even moved up a bit in the process. It was easy work, homey, and I could “be” as much as work, which is what I am best cut out for.
During that time, too, I became a mother and was given the opportunities to teach and use that MA I’d just gotten out of feeling an obligation. I did have some interests, but my grad school experience involved so much isolation and politics burnout that I had no love for it. I was a natural social scientist, though, and valued the purpose of teaching the insight and information to students and the populace. These were mostly younger adults who seemed receptive. Sometimes my anxiety and depression would sully a semester, too. But in the end, this was the resume I was writing- I would work by day in administrative support in higher ed, which is unique to other kinds, and I would teach when I could. Both paid dismally, but together I brought in my share of income for our family.
In a few years, some circumstances came together to beg for change: My partner’s job, though lucrative, was awful, and our hometown’s economy was getting worse complete with a growth of social problems, we’d lived without family close-by and wanted them in our child’s life, and the climate and morale of the place was just unsettling. So, I applied and got a job in the Charlotte area, closer to both our families with better pay, more esteem, and brighter opportunities. We found ourselves in a great schooling area, in a growing economy, and I genuinely liked my workplace. Some time after, I also landed an adjunct position in their terrific department which paid well and had receptive students. The downside to the experience was that my partner could not find a job. He was at management level before, but could not penetrate the market and that made for struggle going from a restless 2 income household to a 1-income household living on a modest salary supporting 3 people and renting. It took forever to sell the beloved home we left, and we took a loss. So, good times/bad times still at a balance. We rarely saw the family, but that is a whole ‘nother.
After 2 years we decided to purchase a home. It was more than our first and small, and I had to take out retirement for the down-payment, but we wanted to follow the stability we had and stop renting (we shared a wall with neighbors who were rude and loud too). We moved in on labor day and started inhabiting it with love. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year. Then in mid-January, at work a foreboding we’d felt came to a catastrophic conclusion. Even in the safety of higher ed, our unit was closing due to restructuring. Two positions were eliminated (fired) soon after and I was notified that I would be laid off.
I had been fired from a case manager job I had at the City Mission in our hometown when we were first married. It was scary, but a relief. The place was abusive to their employees and I was a rebellious smart-ass with righteous indignation and horrible naivety. I got other jobs, no problem. I had choice, entitlement, and youth. At 42, with an underemployed partner and a child, in an expensive area with a new house, I didn’t have any of these things. I never even entertained the idea I would lose my job and by extension didn’t know what that level of insecurity meant.
In denial, I casually looked for jobs that were identical to mine, realizing how fortunate I had become due to the paucity of leads. I thought about looking at things as an opportunity to change my vocation but found that my resume was stacked with 1 thread, and it is nearly impossible to get out of that. I would apply for admin jobs in corporate and if I got an interview they would show prejudice for me being in a different, alien world. The higher ed jobs would hire first from the inside of their institution. Mine was so small there weren’t many to apply to. January-May I cried at my desk with the realization that I had no control and my life was spiraling, the friendships I’d made ending, my sense of self shattering.
Right before the last day, I had a great lead at my workplace and I fucked up a test. You might say- “test?”. Me too. I applied for an admin position that would have been a pay cut but enjoyable and familiar with faculty I liked and among the community I had become accustomed to. I was the first applicant to be given a battery of tests from SHRM (Human Resource professional organization) and these tests measured not just the answer, but the time you took and the way you answered it. If it wasn’t the way they thought, then you got it wrong. I got many wrong. I got pissed off in the process and had a tantrum, stopping and starting the tests, taking too long, getting frustrated and skipping questions. It wasn’t pretty, and I was ashamed, but I also had the arrogance to feel like my excess of a decade experience, my good rapport with the department and demonstrated abilities would have superseded this new shiny misguided test. Nope. I lost my job and was out.
The employment I did still have was my part-time adjunct instructor gig. I was miraculously able to keep my very small class that summer, and I had a severance. But we didn’t have any savings. I had interviews and sometimes never heard back. In the private world I was asked about my higher ed experience and if i thought I could transfer the skills. I did, but I would not hear back about their hiring decisions (bastards- looking at you, LPL Financial, Barrings, etc). I also had some very promising interviews at local schools in which they practically hugged me as I left but heard nothing for ages and then their regrets. Time ticked on.
For two months, my job was filling out applications, dressing up and selling myself, or trying not to let my depression win. Would we lose the house? Would we need medicare? The government that had just come in had a war on poor people, so would we be examples of the new extermination? I wanted to look strong and be strong and hopeful and optimistic. But, this all felt like my fault- I moved us down here, I risked everything and have lost. I am the one with the monotonous resume. I am the underachiever that is feeling the boot print of capitalist society. I am leading not just myself but my whole family into destitution. And I can’t afford my meds.
The only jobs I was securing were teaching gigs, which paid $2k per class which seems like a lot until you remember it is 4.5 months worth without a promise of renewal- that would be about 15K if steady work, no benefits. I secured two, and 1 from my old institution which paid more. Since I was likely to take a pay cut if I secured full time employment, that would fill in the gaps nicely and maybe offer my child an opportunity or make Christmas better. I took them greedily. After several heartbreaking let downs, I lined up several interviews in one week and was offered a job from one of the more lack-luster ones. It is less money, much farther, no office, low on the totem pole, but familiar work, stable (not that anything is), benefits, and higher ed administrative assistance.
I am grateful. I am micromanaged. I am grateful. My benefits are half my check. I am grateful. I have to have a second job or sustain these teaching gigs. I am grateful.
This semester, I am working the 40 hours plus the 3 classes and an online. It is a lot of stress, I don’t see my partner Tues-Thurs and the works is about 6 hours a week all said and done. That is a good chunk of money which pays for Christmas and clothes but I’m worried about the austerity measures we need for spring as I have just 1 online course from Jan-May. My partner has a job to pay for the mortgage payment but he works very hard for very little. I’ve been on interviews still and feel like I’m betraying the job that gave me a chance (a wretch like me) and came very close at the community college I teach the majority of the time as an admin. Two times I was up for a job there and they saw that I taught there as well, which I included so they knew I was familiar with the institution, an insider. Instead, I was asked if I would leave my admin job should a full time instructor job come up. I would say no trying to predict their wants. Oddly, I am only teaching 1 online class for them next semester and they re-advertised for an adjunct. I have to wonder if my saying that teaching was a “hobby” to impress their committee got back to the academic side and I’m being punished for not declaring my love for that.
Nine months after being told there was an end to stability, I am still anxiety ridden, and possibly permanently unable to feel secure. I like teaching, but have had some pushback reflecting the cultural climate that has made me angry and more anxious. My lessons have been to have ambition and not just coast in a job and be comfortable; diversify early on if you can; don’t get laid off; don’t be economically vulnerable; be able to look into the future and plan; major in things that pay well. Thus, I know too well that chaos is the best religion, and while I am grateful for not being homeless, for being able to take my child to the dentist and to not be shot at while coming home, I am sad that this is how life is — my life. I wear one mask, then another with a cape, but essentially have little capital and social value. I have no solid plans for fortune. I can never retire, we can’t get really sick, our 15+ year old cars can never die. But something will happen, and we’ll be just as unprepared as ever.
Meanwhile, teaching class inequality and the American Dream.
