The Wife Speaks!

[Fargo Jones here. Today, I was a chauffeur for my wife as we got free dental x-rays at her school, then headed to a conference in downtown Minneapolis. I sat and applied to jobs while she went to breakout groups. She came to find me after one of them. "We have to go now." She was steaming mad. And not at me! As she told me about what happened, I said, you need to write about this. This is gold! Gold I tell ya! Below is her guest entry on my blog. I swear I didn't write a word of it, especially the nice things she says about me. She asked me to interject wherever I wanted, and when I do so, it'll be in brackets. Like this]

17 months ago, the dream of achieving a Ph.D. in literature at UND was ripped from my grasp.  The business of achieving Ph.D.'s in the humanities isn't like other fields.  Most medical doctors can practice medicine in life or death situations after 7 years of post-secondary education.  I completed 4 years for my bachelors, 2 years for my first Master's, 2 years for my second Master's, and 4 years towards my Ph.D., which, ladies and gentlemen equals a total of 12 years of post-secondary education.  12 MOTHER FUCKING YEARS to teach people how to write a sentence.  In most professions, you get to some point where industry standards exist.  Hair stylists, nail technicians, medical doctors, nurses, and auto mechanics all take board exams to practice their professions.  But, Ph.D.'s in the humanities do not have ANY industry standards.  Instead, every school can create the craziest, most unfair requirements, which they can change at a drop of a hat, to prevent people from achieving their dreams.  I gave up my life for this dream, only to be brought down by unfair, unachievable requirements and self-absorbed faculty members who collectively decided that I was NOT Ph.D. material.  They forced me out of the only world I knew, and my dream was shattered. 

Too many people use the cliché that time heals all wounds.  I resigned myself to screaming "That is FUCKING BULLSHIT! You should be wearing a HELMET!" at all people who say that to me.  While the wound isn't gaping, I still can't breathe several times a day because of the pain.  I was literally told that I didn't belong in this world, so I created a new dream, with my beautiful and talented husband in the Cities.  Followers of this blog are quite aware of our trials and tribulations.  But yes, the dream was shattered, followed by 8 months of unemployment, followed by 6.5 months of my husband's unemployment which leads us to today.

Today my current job forced me to attend the MNCUEW Conference.  I should have been excited to get away from a rather hectic week at work, which resulted in a new student visit record.  My stats say that I have increased student retention and visit rate by 1600%.  Yep, that number is right.  I'm married to the most amazing man, AND I wore the cutest dress ever.  I should have been ok.  But, walking right back into the trauma, all by myself, felt surreal.  The fact it was held at the Minnesota School of Art and Design, and I was surrounded by pictures of abstract vaginas didn't help.

The first and only session I attended today was titled: "Teaching Inside and Outside the Classroom" which was supposed to be a panel "composed of higher education professionals with graduate degrees in English. The panel addresses the multiple career paths, including careers in student life, academic support, and higher education administration, available for those with English backgrounds who elect not to teach." Turns out the panel consisted of two deans, who were clearly best friends, from a local community college.  Sadly, the session was not well attended, which indicates the worst 2 words known to man: audience participation.  MOTHER FUCK! 

When it was time for me to introduce myself and say what "my dream job was outside of teaching" it was if I was possessed.  Even now, some 8 hours later, I still wonder what came over me.  Did I get some sort of contact high from the art?  Was there something in the vegan lunch they served which was a bit too "organic?"  So I said my name, my two jobs, and the following: "I tried the PH.D., and I don't want to teach full time because contact with faculty makes me vomit in my mouth a little.  This week alone, I worked with 75 different students in 3 days, and I just don't know how much longer I can keep this pace up."  It was as if my filter had disappeared.  What the hell, "vomit in my mouth a little," that phrase is saved for my husband.  But, everyone laughed, as they always do when my insanity starts showing, and I became the negative, overwhelmed, underachiever in the back.   

The women believed the best way to tell us about our future was to brag about their perfect lives.  They handed out sheets of paper with their job trajectory and said such garbage as "I've never had a job I didn't love going to everyday," "My job title is Dean of Innovative Teaching & Learning.  Isn't that an exciting title?" and "I've never been without a job."  Was this included in the program? HELLS NO!

Their suggestions for getting a dean job were the following:

"You could sell courses to online universities for 20-30 dollars a course."

"If you're feeling overwhelmed, take a sabbatical."  [This is what Deans said to a room full of adjuncts and staff workers. They don't get sabbaticals unless you count not hiring an adjunct for a semester a sabbatical.]

"Just market your skills a little differently, and you'll get the job of your dreams." (Notice how they didn't exactly give concrete suggestions about how to do that)

"I know there are other jobs out there, but I just don't know what they are." [Good thing you have this fucking session about other jobs for teaching backgrounds, you stupid fucks]

Intermixed with this incredibly unhelpful advice was verbal masturbation about their lives.  I felt like they were saying, "How great is it to be me. You should all want to be me."

But, the one thing, that pushed me over was the following comment: "You will NOT get a dean job without a Ph.D. in the metro area.  If you do not go back to school, you must move to greater MN. My suggestion to the woman in the back is to go finish your Ph.D." [Never mind that we tried greater MN, it didn't help. Also, wife's bosses have less education than she does.]

Seriously, if I could have picked the worst thing said to me ever, this would have hit the top of the list.  I mean my husband's mother told my husband, shortly after the wedding "I can't find anything to love about your wife" was less hurtful than this.  The thing about is, though, only one of the two women had her Ph.D. and the woman who said this to me was the one who didn't. 

Fortunately, when discussion time arose, one of my husband's friends from his Creative Writing Days, who just happened to be at the session announced, "Well, you made my decision clear.  Admin is not the way to go for me."  I could have hugged him.  Here we were, 12 overworked, underpaid, exhausted human beings searching for a way out, a ray of hope, an idea that we hadn't thought of before to get us out of our current predicament.  Instead, I received a spear to my heart, a re-opened wound from UND, and hatred of two women whom I will never see again. [I want to say thank you to that friend for verbally bitch slapping these two condescending bitches.]

To them I say, Fuck you, you do not matter.  I am grateful that I do not have to work with you two bitches every day.  And, to UND and my husband's mother I say, Fuck you, you do not matter.  In spite of this session, my husband and I will find a way off of this dark, dark path we are on and into the light.  By holding on to each other and our absolutely magical love, we will find a way.  And, I thank you, dear readers and followers of my husband's blog, for indulging me in this rant and for supporting him in his daily struggles as a Midwest writer.