Part Time Person

There is a tacit agreement: You work at a place part-time and temporary for less than half the wages of a full-timer, no benefits, and they might reward this loyal internship with at least an interview when a full-time position does open. Alas, the community college system continues to shock with its betrayal and treachery.

So I've been working at this school for three years. Steadily. Every term getting work, as if they think I'm doing a decent job. After all, with zero semester-to-semester security, they can fire you by simply not hiring you. If you raise a complaint--fired. If you protest some decision--fired. You glance at an administrator the wrong way--fired. So my continued work from term to term made me think that I was actually doing something The Powers That Be liked, such as showing up on time and not taking sick days.

A full-time, permanent position came up. I figured that after teaching there three years, I would have some sort of leg-up for getting an interview, if not the job itself. After all, I've always been told that you cannot get a job at place where you do not already work.

Once I received some sage advice from an old geologist. He told me that not until he was 65 did he actually win a job that he had applied for cold--meaning, he didn't already work for the company, didn't know someone on the inside. By the age of 65, he had earned the reputation that allowed him to actually win a job cold. Otherwise, he said, you have to already work at a place in order to work there.

I have gotten a number of interviews at other community colleges, and have scored second interviews at all of them. But not the final offer.

At the school where I'm working, I don't even get an interview.

I am, therefore, completely fucked. It's like some vicious game designed to be impossible for me to win. Where I am not working, I can interview, but not get the job. Where I am already working, and could get the job, I cannot get an interview. Is this system designed to make my mind crack, to push me over the edge?

Oh, God, why the hell do I feel drawn to this terrible "profession" of teaching? Why can't I feel a similar passion for something such as accounting, where this sort of unbelievable bullshit wouldn't happen? I'm wasting my life, one day at a time. I am still waiting, after all these years, to begin my life. Everything is on hold. I can't buy a house, I don't know where I'm going to live. I'm in this sick limbo...and it looks like it's destined to continue longer.

I am such a fucking waste. I'm a reverse Midas--everything I do turns to shit. I know what I must do...but I don't have the courage to do it. I don't know where I got so far off track. This is just a complete mystery to me. I'll never understand the failure of my life.