Let's be clear right from the start, my office at the university is not "my" space it's the "University's" space and when I'm there, I'm there as the University's employee. Yes, there are things there that increase my level of comfort for the 4 or so hours I spend there each week - good lighting so I can turn off the damn fluorescent overheads, an easy chair (good for napping, and I didn't have room for it at home)...But otherwise, this is the place I use to meet with students, go over final notes before class, and stack the piles of memos I get but never fully read. MY office is at home.
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An office, huh? I used to have one of those -- as a grad student. It was nice, too. Top floor, big ol’ window with a sunset view, my own ergonomic chair, my own computer, my own L-shaped desk with lots of acreage to spread my shit all over. Filing cabinets to store my crap. I even set up a kitchen in there. Mini-fridge, George Foreman grill, toaster, water-boiler. Oh, yeah…it kicked ass.
Now that I’m all PhD-ified and employed, though, my “office” sucks ass. I get a windowless closet that comes complete with one-size-fits-none office chairs and two tiny work desks. Two shared computers in hutches that my knees don’t fit under. And no storage space of my own ‘cuz the shelves, the drawers, the cabinets, and even the room’s corners were staked out long ago by the eleven -- yes, eleven -- other suckers jammed into the same bullpen. I wanna go back to being a grad student.
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What I enjoy most about my office is the door. I just love shutting it and pretending I'm not even in there.
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Ah, and here is revealed both the stick and the carrot. Why do you want to be a professor? Because of the nostalgia of my undergrad days, the crush I had on the brilliant minds decorating their offices in the manner of teenagers. Why do you want to stay a professor? Because having an office that is your own third space means that you never have to have a relationship to space that is more complicated than the one from your youth. You never have to grow up. "Check out my rad movie posters and bric-a-brac" is just another way of saying "please love me." No wonder so many illicit romances start in these professorial versions of lawn crap.
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Yeah I have an office, three of them, at three different colleges. Mainly because I gotta hustle my way to pay rent here in the NYC, and no one is hiring full time instructors. Yeah, yeah, I don't have a PhD in my discipline, one where it seems only people with money, scholarships or a house in the woods away from reality get PhDs. Sorry silverbacks, this isn't 1969 where tuition is free.
But really, the first office is in a broom closet. Well, not a broom closet, but something akin to where you put the rations for a fall out shelter. It's narrow and long, with four desks. One is continually held by an older gentleman who wants to discuss topics related to his faith (This man's first words to me, ever, were "So what do you think about abortion?") Another is held by a 40 year old gentlemen who is actually nice, respectful and thoughtful. The third desk is held by an older gentleman who doesn't talk to me, period. If I'm lucky I can get the fourth desk (after squeezing my way past these three gents) if the Russian woman doesn't get there first. And if she gets there first, I have to listen to her complain about how dumb American students are compared to her grandchildren in the old country. There's desks, file cabinets, and posters. That is it.
Another is in a department different than mine. Its nice, for a cubicle centered hell. Sure we got a microwave, printer, computers, mini-fridge, but just try to have a conversation with anyone. All they want to talk about is the commute into the city, their weekends in Long Island/New Jersey/Connecticut or their kids. The only thing missing is my boss asking me to come in on Saturdays.
The final one is shared with 43 other adjuncts (but only 6 desks) who are all male between the ages of 23 and 45. This means bachelor living; anything that drops on the floor stays on the floor, lunches are spent eating leftover pasta heated in the microwave two stories above us, constant debates of what browser/OS/smart phone carrier is better and chalk dust everywhere. Have you tried helping students when there are four other guys in the room trying to prove how smart they are to your students?
So no, no Snickers bars, no vitamin water, no iPod dock (for fear of it being stolen), nothing. You better enjoy every day that you're there, or I will find you, cut your face into a mask and live the life I can't have here.
But really, the first office is in a broom closet. Well, not a broom closet, but something akin to where you put the rations for a fall out shelter. It's narrow and long, with four desks. One is continually held by an older gentleman who wants to discuss topics related to his faith (This man's first words to me, ever, were "So what do you think about abortion?") Another is held by a 40 year old gentlemen who is actually nice, respectful and thoughtful. The third desk is held by an older gentleman who doesn't talk to me, period. If I'm lucky I can get the fourth desk (after squeezing my way past these three gents) if the Russian woman doesn't get there first. And if she gets there first, I have to listen to her complain about how dumb American students are compared to her grandchildren in the old country. There's desks, file cabinets, and posters. That is it.
Another is in a department different than mine. Its nice, for a cubicle centered hell. Sure we got a microwave, printer, computers, mini-fridge, but just try to have a conversation with anyone. All they want to talk about is the commute into the city, their weekends in Long Island/New Jersey/Connecticut or their kids. The only thing missing is my boss asking me to come in on Saturdays.
The final one is shared with 43 other adjuncts (but only 6 desks) who are all male between the ages of 23 and 45. This means bachelor living; anything that drops on the floor stays on the floor, lunches are spent eating leftover pasta heated in the microwave two stories above us, constant debates of what browser/OS/smart phone carrier is better and chalk dust everywhere. Have you tried helping students when there are four other guys in the room trying to prove how smart they are to your students?
So no, no Snickers bars, no vitamin water, no iPod dock (for fear of it being stolen), nothing. You better enjoy every day that you're there, or I will find you, cut your face into a mask and live the life I can't have here.
