The mail on the "poor bunnies" post is pouring in, and the thing's only been up a couple of hours. The note below captures the general "mood" of our readers. Enjoy the flava:
Where the hell did these idiots do their grad work, and what in the world do they think working for a living entails, uni prof or not? This made me want to puke--their respective precious day-to-day jobs wearing them down as they have to actually do the relatively well-paid work for which they were educated, and for which they apprenticed in grad school. What do they think the rest of the world does in the morning when they wake up and roll over and contemplate what they have to do that day?
Where the hell did these idiots do their grad work, and what in the world do they think working for a living entails, uni prof or not? This made me want to puke--their respective precious day-to-day jobs wearing them down as they have to actually do the relatively well-paid work for which they were educated, and for which they apprenticed in grad school. What do they think the rest of the world does in the morning when they wake up and roll over and contemplate what they have to do that day? "Committee meetings"? "Grading papers"? "Moving across the country"? "Finding a new home"? "The awful existential freedom of having to be"? "Navigating the political and social terrain of the university?"
Well, bust my heart--what a horrible life. How can we make it up to you--you who got a PhD without apparently being aware of the whole generally privileged universe of which that is a part? If the worst part of your life is that you have a to-do list that includes the essentials of your job description, your life is pretty damn good. Just read what you wrote, you fools; consider the literally millions of folks [some of them academics] who would kill to have your professional 'problems.' Just what did you think you'd be doing?
And by the way, what did you do during your first year on the job that kept you from understanding what being a grown-up is really about? You can no longer "bask in the glow of being a professor"? So you mean you actually DID bask in the glow of being a professor--you think you're that hot stuff? "Oh," you cry, "But I put in so many long years to get my PhD." Lucky you. Didn't we all. Think of all the freeway fliers who'd just love to have the problem of finding a new house in a new area where they can settle into a relatively secure job [if you do what you're supposed to do], even if they have all that horrible pressure of grading and committee work and publishing.
I'm year-to-year, 4 and 4 [plus those extra directed studies that need doing every semester] and genuinely thrilled to have it: boring committees, snowflake students, course and advising overloads, and all. What I can't abide are you over-privileged whiners, who are--in fact--just like our relatively recent snowflake students, now brandishing your newly minted PhDs and griping about how tough your lives are.
Suck it up. Come the revolution I hope you're the first three to lose your jobs. THEN you'll have something to wake up and worry about.
