Many of the fall's listed jobs have already conducted their MLA interviews, or phone interviews, and have moved onto campus interviews. In many cases, they've already hired people for the position. There might be one or two new job postings as funding is approved or someone announces a retirement, but not many.
Here's where I stand.
- I applied to 36 jobs this year. This is less than when I went on the market two years ago for a few reasons (in 2015 I applied to 85 as ABD). First, there were HALF the jobs this year as last year or the year before. Second, I have a full time, benefited job, so I was able to be a bit picky about what jobs I applied to.
- 1 job asked me extra materials, but ultimately didn't take it further.
- 29 jobs are "Nos"
- Most of these "Nos" I still haven't gotten email confirmation, but the Jobs Wiki knows all, sees all. While there's a lot of vitriol on it, for just checking it to see what to cross off, it's helpful.
- I am still in the running for 7 jobs
- I've had 1 phone interview
- I have 1 upcoming Skype interview
- 2 just posted the last couple of weeks
- 3 with no updates
- 4 are community colleges
- 2 are HBCU
- 1 is a large state university
For these, I'm still working hard.
I have my detailed interview question answers. I have really good questions I'd ask. I've got my notes and notes of research on a given place. Classes, demographics, calendar, culture.
I have my inspirational picture of Jeff Goldblum to focus on during my Skype interview.
But I'm tired. I feel like I've been running straight since August, juggling job apps, my full time teaching job, publications, conference papers, and I'm just tired.
I'm tired, and I'm not sure I see the point anymore.
This week I think it finally hit me just how tired I really am. I was on one of the job posting sites, looking at new postings, and there was nothing that jumped out at me. There were a couple that I might have been able to tie myself into knots about, but I don't want to trade where I am for a position I wouldn't be happy in.
And I just lacked the energy.
By this point in the job market process, tailoring letters is easy, takes less time, and the CV is in really good shape, so in many ways it is less work.
But it also seems more exhausting. Each job posting seems to have more weighing on it. There seems to be more at stake.
At this point in the process too, as the rejections roll into your inbox (although most are not a surprise as the jobs wiki posted they didn't choose you MONTHS ago...), I find myself more and more immune to not being picked. Each week it seems like I settle a bit more into where I am, and wrestle with my peace that being a high school teacher is my life.
It's easy at this point to not see the point in filling out another application. Tailor another letter.
Just because I'm tired though doesn't mean that I'm not excited when a friend forwards a job, or when I see a posting I'd be a good fit for. But that too is part of all the feels spring of the job market season. I can envision an entire life when I read a posting, and research the university or college. I can "see" my students, what walking around campus would be like, the streets I'd walk, the house I'd rent, the park. I imagine what it'd be like to have an office, work from home.
When I apply for a job, I regularly Google "homes for rent." For a couple of reasons- one, to see what living there looks like. Two, because I'm an adult. I know that cost of living impacts whether or not you take jobs. I had a couple of Northern jobs I applied to, but without realistic expectations because I can't afford those rents. It's why, even though I LOVE the CUNY system, and am a product of it, I didn't apply to any openings because Nehi and I can't afford city life.
Yesterday, because I've been looking at rents, I took to Twitter and asked about the really high rents I was seeing. In my experience living in college/university towns that are not super big cities, if you're willing to live a bit away from campus, in student housing, which may not be as shiny, you can find nice places, with yards, at reasonable prices. Here in Albuquerque, I pay $650 for my two bedroom, less than 900 square foot house with a fenced yard, about 20 minutes from campus.
I told Twitter that most of the places I was looking at had rents of $1300 and up. I commented that I thought that seemed bananas.
Twitter had opinions.
Some chimed in that living situations were bad where they were, that even with partners, they struggled.
Some said that there was no reason why you couldn't live off a professor salary if you were "frugal."
I was told professor salaries were low-mid 40s. So clearly my expectations were wrong.
I had...feelings, so dropped out of the conversation pretty fast.
I am incredibly frugal with money. Do I occasionally buy a vintage t-shirt or online video? Yeah. But on a day to day basis, I have a strict budget, and I stick to it. I don't go out. I cook, no take away. I focus on keeping credit card debt down/non-existent. I'm prepping for my student loans coming due in August. As Nehi gets older, her vet visits, shots for her arthritis, and daily meds have gotten more and more expensive. I spend a little extra each month for her puppy insurance, but it's still a couple hundred dollars every month. Likewise, her dogsitter for when I'm teaching full time, is another $200 a month. But there's not a lot of filler in my budget to cut.
I am religious about tracking weekly expenses, and knowing what I can and cannot afford. Saturday mornings are spent tracking expenses in an Excel sheet and balancing my checkbook.
For the most part, my budget is full of non-negotiable, static, budget items.
I think what upset me yesterday was the assumption that I wasn't frugal, that I was somehow frivolous with my spending. Also, this is yet another area where people assume you're a couple- that you have another salary, a safety net, that you're splitting the bills.
Many of the responses read as cold, if not mean.
It also, as this morning's discussion revealed, assumes that grad students who have been scraping by on $14,000-20,000 a year would be grateful for the $40,000 salary. It's a devaluing of labor. The attitude that graduate students should be grateful for anything they're given and shut up about it.
But I'm 42. I know what adult life is like. Benefits. Salary. Health insurance. While I'm no longer providing support to my family, I do have obligations. And obligations cost money.
While I have issues with where I am now, my PhD, my decade plus of teaching experience, and National Board certification means my gross salary is in the $60,000 range. Extra tutoring, Saturday school, volunteering to cover classes, gets me some extra to put aside into savings. This salary allows me to pay bills, put some money in savings, and (mostly) not worry about not paying rent or buying groceries.
But it also means that I know what my bills are, and what I can and can't afford.
I don't have much savings. One big emergency would wipe me out. So not super precarious, but still paycheck to paycheck.
Now, if I wasn't paying $3000 a year out of pocket to attend conferences, and didn't have to pay for a dogsitter, and maybe moved to a state where taxes were not taking 30% of my salary, there's a bit of wriggle room here. But not enough to take me from a $60,000 salary to $40,000.
And maybe it's all a moot point- with only a couple of prospects on the horizon, I could be doing a lot of salary math for no reason.
I've already started to think about what I'll do different next job market season, now a short six months away (IT NEVER ENDS).
- Pay more attention to cost of living where I apply
- Revise research statement so it's clearer that folklore is my connecting thread, and therefore supports my publishing record more
- Seriously consider applying less to medieval/early modern jobs and more popular culture oriented jobs and/or community colleges where the fluidity in my expertise is valued and publishing record is a bonus
Unfortunately, I have more things against me in the next round than for me.
- I won't have any medieval or early modern publications between now and September. I have my diss to turn into a book and focus on and there's just no time to do anything else, so my publishing record won't look different.
- I'm no longer teaching at the university level, so my teaching experience won't be different.
- I graduated in December, so being graduated may be the only difference.
- But applying the year after graduation also means references, where two out of my three are professors, are more dated than they were this year.
- I have three conferences this spring, but I won't present at any next year. I just can't afford it, and there's frankly, nothing in it for me.
So I don't have super high hopes for this fall's job market. But we'll see.
As for this season? I don't know. I'd be really happy with any of the jobs I'm still in the running for. They're all in great places, with wonderful programs, teaching students I believe in. A couple are in very high priced areas, so that makes me nervous. As does the fact that most community colleges don't pay for campus interviews, so if I made it to that point, that's potentially more debt for uncertainty.
But sufficient today is the evil thereof.
My day to day job keeps trucking.
Having the book project to focus on means I'm not taking on article or book chapters, so extra academic writing is not a focus.
In a lot of ways the last few months are easing me into what life as a high school teacher would look like. And I'm trying to make my peace with it.
But it's hard not to know what my life will look like in 6 months. Or a year. To not feel in control.
It's hard to to start letting go of the life I imagined I'd have. I continue to revisit and reread Kelly J. Baker's Grace Period, my velveteen rabbit.
Don't get me wrong- I love teaching. I love my students, I love the impact. My experience means it affords me an okay quality of life, as long as I'm smart about choosing where to live.
I have one more cycle of job market in me, but I think that's it. Then the conversation will shift to where I want to spend the rest of my life. Where I want my life to be, in every meaning of that. But that is tomorrow's problem and source of anxiety.
Mostly, I'm just tired. And I'd like to be done. One way or the other. I'd like to be able to make decisions that look forward, instead of feeling like I'm in limbo.
