outer-jessie's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the bowels of heck Once again, I must say, you guys totally rock. Awesome notes on my entry from the other day. Things continue to deteriorate. I've been called in for a special one-on-one early Thursday morning. Well, two-on-one, since both the president and faux academic dean will be ganging up on me. It should be fun! As much as I got and continue to get the shakes about this upcoming meeting, I hope it goes as badly as possible and they can me. FREEDOMMMMM. I can't imagine they'd really be so stupid as to fire me mid-semester and unleash my mighty fury unbridled by professional courtesy, but if they did, wouldn't that be swell? No more nausea about having to go to work, no more anxiety on Sunday nights because I have to go to work, no more panic attacks because I'm driving to work, no more lost sleep because I'm angry about what's happening at work, no more balled up neck muscles because everything is so tense at work, at work, at work. Here's what's gone down, for posterity's sake, and maybe for the sake of a wrongful termination grievance if it comes to that. Things have been bad at work; we've covered that. New president has no cultural knowledge and chooses not to pursue any. New president makes decisions that don't make sense and won't listen to any nay-sayers who don't like them. Most recently, new president decides that we shall triple our enrollment in the next semester, despite the fact that we couldn't possibly accommodate them, and that, given the fact that we've tapped out our local community almost entirely, these new students must be coming from outside. I send him an email, cc'd to several Native colleagues, stating my concerns that if these students are coming in, our local students will be left in the dust for the sake of increasing our numbers and graduation rate (all easy to do if you're essentially switching out your student population for one that's more prepared academically, but which does not address the issue of how to prepare the current students). I also expressed concern that the college will no longer be culturally focused, and that to avoid this becoming the case, the community should be brought in to advise on how to infuse the culture into every fiber of the college so that no one forgets that this college belongs to THIS community. New president replies with an insulting email that questions my character and motivations and asks me a bunch of off-topic questions meant to draw the focus away from the questions I've asked. But, in the midst, new president advises that I speak with community members about my concerns. Great! I tell him I'll call a meeting with community members, and I proceed to do so. I copy the text of my original email with my concerns into the invitation. Two days later, at a meeting of the entire staff, as the meeting is closing up new president calls on me to summarize my email. I do so. The floor then opens up for anyone and everyone to tell me how insulted and hurt they were that I would have such concerns and share them with others. For about an hour, I sit and listen as one co-worker after another shares their thoughts about how wrong I was to send this email. My friends and colleagues sit in stunned silence as this happens. Then we join hands in prayer and all leave. I am given no opportunity to reply. (Oh and also, we have never prayed since new president started - as I mentioned, he has made no effort to be culturally informed since being here.) That was last Friday. Today is Tuesday, and new president's minion sends out an invite for a community forum - the day before mine. Hm. So I send back an email asking why. No reply, but I am suddenly invited to a meeting with new president and new fake dean two days from today. Irony abounds. For one, this little shitstorm that went down last Friday was actually handled in a culturally appropriate manner - the first time new president has opened the floor to the staff to share their thoughts. And the reason they did so was to condemn my email which was calling for exactly that, a culturally appropriate open forum about infusing culture into the college. Whatever. For two, everything that I wished for, back when I was merely unhappy with my surroundings yet still loved my job, is coming true but in the worst possible way. I wished that everyone I was loyal to at the college would leave, and it happened: old awesome president left, and old awesome dean was fired by new president. I wished that a new amazing math instructor would come to take my place, and it happened: although she isn't here to take my place because we actually need two math instructors, minimum, I do have a great new colleague faculty member who is very good at her job and that the students really like. I wished that a tornado would come through and destroy my house, and thankfully that didn't happen, but hey, if it did, it would save me the trouble of having to pack up all our stuff, get rid of all the lead paint, and put it on the market. That would be a waste of a lovely house, though. G and I are doing our very best to keep our eyes on the future. Things for her have been truly wretched too, with her supervisor being trumped by a new fake dean (another new fake dean) and her supervisor, formerly a friend, turning against her. She's essentially been demoted and had all her previous autonomy stripped, with no change in her job description. Anyway, there's a lot going on, but suffice it to say we've been very unhappy lately. So, the future. We've both been focusing on submitting job applications and looking for new places to live. We don't need much. We just want to be happy again. Looking back on my diary entries from my time here, I realize that I've sacrificed YEARS of happiness for this job. At first I felt like it was worth it, but now it's definitely not. I'm ready to get the hell out of Dodge (an actual place in Nebraska). 7:27 p.m. - 2014-02-25 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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