The first week of teaching 4 sections of Spanish 101 at Colledge went pretty much as expected. All of my classes are in different classrooms, albeit in the same building, but unfortunately not every room is created equal. My 1st class is a small amphitheater equipped with a table & a few chairs, a dry-erase board & an old-school tube TV mounted to the wall; my 2nd is a computer lab, with a raised lectern and a computer/projector setup with the tables turned towards the dry erase board; my 3rd was originally a small room with 9 rows of 3 sets of desks, no table, 1 chair, a lectern, a regular chalk board & a tube TV, and my last one is quite spacious, with plenty of desks & a table & chair & a lectern, but again with the chalk board & a tube TV. Each of my classes had a full roster of students, so that 3rd classroom had everyone feelin kinda claustrophobic. I asked my dept head, Miss Woman, to see if she could get me moved, as there were not enough desks for all of the students. She said she'd make some calls & the next day, she gave me another room. This one turned out to be another computer lab, but with the tables in a sort of U-shape, so the students have to turn to look at me and the few that have books have to hold them in their laps.
I am not sure who is deciding where to place these classes but I would love to ask them a lot of questions, starting with "WTF is wrong with you? Are you not able to count? Have you seen these rooms or even been to campus?"
But I digress.
The text we are using has an online component, which requires the student to use the Class Key included in their book & a Course Code, which I sent out in an email blast titled "Course Code" & as of yesterday, 15 students replied to that email with some variation on "I tried to get into the website but it say I need a course code. What is it?" Minus the punctuation & capitalization, I might add. It took a lot of effort not to reply with "Scroll down, stupid." But I am nice, right?
In class, I try to keep the tone light, and let the students know that due to my Math Phobia, I can understand that Spanish is not everyone's cup of tea. For the most part, they seem engaged, but lawd whoever said "There's no such thing as a stupid question" clearly never taught at Colledge. The one that sticks out most in my mind is when this one kid asked "How hard is this class?" I took a second and said "I really don't know how to answer that. It's a beginner course, you don't need to have taken Spanish before," and I continued with what I was saying. She interrupted again: "But how hard is it?" SIGH. I think I managed to re-iterate my previous statement in a reasonable manner. I'm just glad I didn't say what popped into my head....
With the 1st week out of the way, I started Monday feeling pretty OK about things, but as you will remember from my last post the money round here has been pretty tight, being that I'd been off work from Med Skool Glam for a bit & quit Ho-livier's, so I checked with the Dept Secretary to get the list of Pay Dates for adjuncts. After Miss Woman's assurances that since I was already in the system, there would be no delay in getting the first paycheck, I was shocked beyond all reason to be handed a piece of paper showing that the 1st check wouldn't be direct deposited until October 3rd, AKA 6 weeks after the beginning of classes. Miss Secretary sort of shrugged her shoulders about it & suggested that I call Miss Lady in Payroll about it. I went outside & gathered my thoughts & made the call. Miss Lady confirmed that this schedule was correct, and sort of tried be empathetic at first & said, "Yea it's hard," before passing the buck on to the state administration in Baton Rouge. When I said, "I wish someone had given me this information BEFORE I signed the contract, because honestly I would not have done it."
Her response? "So whatcha gonna do? You gonna keep teaching?"
All I could say before hanging up was, "I'll have to get back to you on that."
I held it together in front of the next 2 classes I had to teach & sort of kept it together when I went to Miss Boss Woman's office and questioned her about all of this. Like I sort of managed not to cry when I told her that I would be homeless by the time the 1st check came. She played it up like she had no idea the date would be that late (YEAH RIGHT), even going so far as to say "This is immoral! Asking people to work for six weeks without pay! I'm going to talk to the Dean about this, and see if we can at least get you an advance."
Mysteriously, the Dean had just left. She said she'd talk to him & call me today after 1PM, and I left campus somewhat mollified but still devastated. Almost choking on the feeling that I have made a gigantic mistake. Like I should have listened to that gut feeling that made me turn down this job in the first place. Wondering if I should go back to working at Ho-livier's on the weekends until October. Wondering how this old carcass of mine was gonna be able to do it.
Thanks once again to the magic of social media, a dear friend stepped in & offered to loan me the $ missing from my budget until October & I accepted. I am so grateful for it but still outraged and sad to be in this fucking position AGAIN. Incredulous that I'm having to re-apply for food stamps while I have two jobs & umpteen college degrees.
For now I'm just going to try to breathe deep and not get all overwhelmed. To be centered and figure out what the next step is. I know things will get better. They always do. Until then, I'll just keep looking at the world thru my beautiful Big Freedia glasses, to me they represent how much so many people love me & wish the best for me, even when I'm feeling all lonely and scared and irate and unable to be in public for fear of a meltdown.
I'm publishing this so I can look back later and be glad that I got through this fresh round of Colledge Fuckery. To remind myself not to get tricked again, and to let other hoes know not to get involved in this whole adjunct game unless you don't need the money.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Monday, August 11, 2014
Once More, With All Kinds of Feelings.....
As you will probably know from Facebook, Saturday night was my last shift at Ho-livier's Restaurant (name changed to protect the trifling) for the foreseeable future. I got an offer to teach 4 sections of Spanish 101 at the Colledge where I used to work, starting August 18. I initially rejected the offer, mostly based on the bad experience I had there previously. However, after another in a long string of restaurant shifts where I was scheduled to work & got sent home due to over-staffing, I reconsidered. I put my math phobia aside and looked at the money; teaching as an adjunct is not great pay, but it is consistent whereas the pay at Ho-livier's has been a crapshoot at best. I also considered how an MWF daytime teaching schedule would work with my Tuesday/Thursday schedule at the Med Skool. This is before I even tell you how much my body has been aching after those long restaurant shifts. However, I haven't forgotten all the nonsense that I went through at Colledge last time--not getting the 1st paycheck until the 2nd pay cycle, having problems with simple things like getting an email password, very little in the way of professional support from the department chair. So I'm kind of ambivalent about Colledge on one hand, but on the other, I'm glad to have a way out of the service industry. My last shift at Ho-livier's may not have been the worst one ever, but it definitely confirmed that leaving (or more precisely, not returning when the restaurant re-opens in a few weeks after maintenance) was the right decision.
I was assigned to the "good" section and so I started off thinking it was gonna be a cute last hurrah. Then I started getting tables & they were every waiter's worst nightmare. My first table was an older Midwestern couple who ordered a round of cocktails & told me they "were in no hurry" and that they were going to be ordering each course separately. Right about this time, a family of 5 took a 7-seat table--allegedly they were waiting for some other ppl who never showed. Actually only 3 of them arrived at 1st, an older lady and her 2 daughters in law. The lady's sons were parking, so I went to the table and offered them cocktails or wine, which they rejected out of hand. They also asked for some take-away menus as well, & it seemed to me like they were comparing those menus to the ones they'd been given by the hostess. The 3 of them sat around, looking at the menu, and after 10 minutes or so, the 2 gentlemen arrived. These men barely looked me in the face throughout the whole meal. I asked the table if they had any questions about the menu, and the matriarch asked for a recommendation between 2 of the dishes, and I gave it, and she said she'd most likely have the Vegetarian Pasta, but wasn't ready to order yet, so I let them have a few more minutes with the menus. I checked on the Aging Midwesterners, who finally ordered an appetizer to share & the gentleman ordered an Absolut Vodka Martini, "shaken not stirred" and then felt the need to tell me some story about how he & his wife had gone to some Absolut Bar someplace where everything was made of ice. I think I looked engaged and made some banter but honestly I could not for the life of me understand why he thought I needed to hear this. I went back to the family of 5 at the table for 7 and asked if they were still waiting on their other guests, and one of the daughters in law said she didn't feel like waiting any more & she was ready to order. I think I started with the Matriarch, she started SLOWLY asking me a ton of accusatory questions "How big is the Shrimp Scampi? I bet it's a small portion. Which one is bigger, the Crawfish Etouffee or the Shrimp Creole? What vegetables come with this? And that? And this other thing over here?" She ordered one thing, changed her mind & just paused for a minute and a half before ordering something else. I took the rest of the table's order, and actually one of the women ordered for her husband, since he couldn't be bothered to deal with me.
Did I mention that the kitchen was apparently out of all sorts of things? Apparently they ordered minimal supplies due to the planned closure, but this was really weird because there was initially only 1 actual menu item that was on the "86 list" but I noticed that the dishes didn't have certain things--for example, the mushroom appetizer is meant to be topped with fried leeks, but they were out of fried leeks & just sent the dish out without them. The steak is meant to be accompanied by potatoes & homemade steak sauce, but SURPRISE they were out of that stuff as well. Naturally, someone at the 5-top had ordered the steak. After this huge ordeal with the cooks, some potatoes were found, but of course they didn't start cooking those until the rest of the food was ready to go out. I was actually still waiting on one of the entrees as well, but my manager told me to run the rest of the food & he'd be right behind me with the last item. As I was dropping the food off at the table, I told the gentleman with the steak that the potatoes were coming right up, and I let the person whose entree was coming up that her stuff would be right there, and it showed up while I was putting down these people's entrees. This man started questioning me about where his potatoes were, and thankfully his wife said "He just told you they are coming right up." I went back to the kitchen in search of this man's sides.
This is the point where the hostess came & told me that they pulled out those damn paper menus they'd asked about before and started comparing the descriptions to what they actually had & someone noticed that they steak is meant to be accompanied by asparagus, which the kitchen clearly forgot--or prolly didn't know about. By some miracle, they had some asparagus & so I brought it to the gentleman, along with his potatoes, minus steak sauce. They didn't give me a whole ton of problems once everyone had all their food but they penalized me when it came time to pay--a $20 tip on a $217 check. Those old-ass Midwesterners didn't tip much better, and that pretty much set the tone for the whole evening. I had two foreign tables that left 10% tips, and only one good 4-top that had a decent size bill and they left an appropriate tip. It got crazy busy with large parties in our upstairs area at one point and the kitchen "crashed" so we had to stop taking tables for about half an hour. Once the kitchen was ready to go, it started to rain quite heavily, so there weren't too many more tables after that & the kitchen was out of so much stuff that we ended up taking the last table around 9 and putting up the "Closed" sign. That last table was mine--2 parents, 3 small kids, & me having to explain what we were out of. They were pleasant enough, and left a whopping $20 on a $137 check. Even though we closed an hour early, we still didn't actually get out of there til after 11, bones aching & bitterness in my heart.
Sigh. I guess you could say this week is my vacation, but actually it's just more unpaid time off. I have Tuesday & Thursday scheduled at the Med Skool, but I'm definitely stressing the money thing, as I'm already running short due to taking off a weekend for my baby sister's visit & my lil cousin's wedding in mid-July. Also, I'm not sure if Colledge is gonna keep me holding for 2 weeks on that 1st paycheck--my dept head says no, but a friend who works there says "prolly so." I guess we'll see, but damn it would sure be nice not to be livin on the edge like this.
I was assigned to the "good" section and so I started off thinking it was gonna be a cute last hurrah. Then I started getting tables & they were every waiter's worst nightmare. My first table was an older Midwestern couple who ordered a round of cocktails & told me they "were in no hurry" and that they were going to be ordering each course separately. Right about this time, a family of 5 took a 7-seat table--allegedly they were waiting for some other ppl who never showed. Actually only 3 of them arrived at 1st, an older lady and her 2 daughters in law. The lady's sons were parking, so I went to the table and offered them cocktails or wine, which they rejected out of hand. They also asked for some take-away menus as well, & it seemed to me like they were comparing those menus to the ones they'd been given by the hostess. The 3 of them sat around, looking at the menu, and after 10 minutes or so, the 2 gentlemen arrived. These men barely looked me in the face throughout the whole meal. I asked the table if they had any questions about the menu, and the matriarch asked for a recommendation between 2 of the dishes, and I gave it, and she said she'd most likely have the Vegetarian Pasta, but wasn't ready to order yet, so I let them have a few more minutes with the menus. I checked on the Aging Midwesterners, who finally ordered an appetizer to share & the gentleman ordered an Absolut Vodka Martini, "shaken not stirred" and then felt the need to tell me some story about how he & his wife had gone to some Absolut Bar someplace where everything was made of ice. I think I looked engaged and made some banter but honestly I could not for the life of me understand why he thought I needed to hear this. I went back to the family of 5 at the table for 7 and asked if they were still waiting on their other guests, and one of the daughters in law said she didn't feel like waiting any more & she was ready to order. I think I started with the Matriarch, she started SLOWLY asking me a ton of accusatory questions "How big is the Shrimp Scampi? I bet it's a small portion. Which one is bigger, the Crawfish Etouffee or the Shrimp Creole? What vegetables come with this? And that? And this other thing over here?" She ordered one thing, changed her mind & just paused for a minute and a half before ordering something else. I took the rest of the table's order, and actually one of the women ordered for her husband, since he couldn't be bothered to deal with me.
Did I mention that the kitchen was apparently out of all sorts of things? Apparently they ordered minimal supplies due to the planned closure, but this was really weird because there was initially only 1 actual menu item that was on the "86 list" but I noticed that the dishes didn't have certain things--for example, the mushroom appetizer is meant to be topped with fried leeks, but they were out of fried leeks & just sent the dish out without them. The steak is meant to be accompanied by potatoes & homemade steak sauce, but SURPRISE they were out of that stuff as well. Naturally, someone at the 5-top had ordered the steak. After this huge ordeal with the cooks, some potatoes were found, but of course they didn't start cooking those until the rest of the food was ready to go out. I was actually still waiting on one of the entrees as well, but my manager told me to run the rest of the food & he'd be right behind me with the last item. As I was dropping the food off at the table, I told the gentleman with the steak that the potatoes were coming right up, and I let the person whose entree was coming up that her stuff would be right there, and it showed up while I was putting down these people's entrees. This man started questioning me about where his potatoes were, and thankfully his wife said "He just told you they are coming right up." I went back to the kitchen in search of this man's sides.
This is the point where the hostess came & told me that they pulled out those damn paper menus they'd asked about before and started comparing the descriptions to what they actually had & someone noticed that they steak is meant to be accompanied by asparagus, which the kitchen clearly forgot--or prolly didn't know about. By some miracle, they had some asparagus & so I brought it to the gentleman, along with his potatoes, minus steak sauce. They didn't give me a whole ton of problems once everyone had all their food but they penalized me when it came time to pay--a $20 tip on a $217 check. Those old-ass Midwesterners didn't tip much better, and that pretty much set the tone for the whole evening. I had two foreign tables that left 10% tips, and only one good 4-top that had a decent size bill and they left an appropriate tip. It got crazy busy with large parties in our upstairs area at one point and the kitchen "crashed" so we had to stop taking tables for about half an hour. Once the kitchen was ready to go, it started to rain quite heavily, so there weren't too many more tables after that & the kitchen was out of so much stuff that we ended up taking the last table around 9 and putting up the "Closed" sign. That last table was mine--2 parents, 3 small kids, & me having to explain what we were out of. They were pleasant enough, and left a whopping $20 on a $137 check. Even though we closed an hour early, we still didn't actually get out of there til after 11, bones aching & bitterness in my heart.
Sigh. I guess you could say this week is my vacation, but actually it's just more unpaid time off. I have Tuesday & Thursday scheduled at the Med Skool, but I'm definitely stressing the money thing, as I'm already running short due to taking off a weekend for my baby sister's visit & my lil cousin's wedding in mid-July. Also, I'm not sure if Colledge is gonna keep me holding for 2 weeks on that 1st paycheck--my dept head says no, but a friend who works there says "prolly so." I guess we'll see, but damn it would sure be nice not to be livin on the edge like this.
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