Does it exist anymore?
Perhaps the best thing about being in the work-force (or employment-violence, to give its correct name) is — or used to be — the people you worked with. I’ve had eleven proper jobs in the past fifty years (give or take), plus a decade of self employment.
At all of them I made friends, sometimes of longstanding. I met my first wife in my first Vancouver job, for instance. It wasn’t only a matter of after-work drinks. We’d share Christmases together, baby-sit for each other, share each others problems, cry on each others shoulders. I remain close to several today, though few of them remain in Vancouver.
I began to detect a change a decade or so ago, post-university I guess. I expected both my Masters and PhD programs to lead to similar attachments, and while I was a student they did. But as soon as the gown came off after grad, they vanished. Almost overnight. Similarly, I’ve been doing basically the same teaching gig now for twenty-years (eek!) Originally it was a small cohort based full-time program. In any given semester five or six of us would be teaching and we’d meet regularly, at least once a month, with a semi-social get-together at the end of the semester. Two years ago the structure of the program changed. Courses ran in the evening and weekend, and it was no-longer built around a cohort of twenty or so students. Since then, though we email, I haven’t so much as seen a colleague, there have been no meetings at all. I love my students and my subject, which is why I’m still there, but, so far as the faculty’s concerned I feel like a phantom. What’s particularly weird is that it’s the same group of instructors, but the experience is quite different. It must be down to the change in structure somehow.
I guess I’m asking whether this is typical or not? From talking to younger family members I sort of feel it might be, and there’ve been hints like that on here too. It’s not such a big deal for me. Realistically I’ve probably only got a few more years at this anyway, but if it’s true then the institutional loss — whatever the profession — is considerable.
Perhaps the best thing about being in the work-force (or employment-violence, to give its correct name) is — or used to be — the people you worked with. I’ve had eleven proper jobs in the past fifty years (give or take), plus a decade of self employment.
At all of them I made friends, sometimes of longstanding. I met my first wife in my first Vancouver job, for instance. It wasn’t only a matter of after-work drinks. We’d share Christmases together, baby-sit for each other, share each others problems, cry on each others shoulders. I remain close to several today, though few of them remain in Vancouver.
I began to detect a change a decade or so ago, post-university I guess. I expected both my Masters and PhD programs to lead to similar attachments, and while I was a student they did. But as soon as the gown came off after grad, they vanished. Almost overnight. Similarly, I’ve been doing basically the same teaching gig now for twenty-years (eek!) Originally it was a small cohort based full-time program. In any given semester five or six of us would be teaching and we’d meet regularly, at least once a month, with a semi-social get-together at the end of the semester. Two years ago the structure of the program changed. Courses ran in the evening and weekend, and it was no-longer built around a cohort of twenty or so students. Since then, though we email, I haven’t so much as seen a colleague, there have been no meetings at all. I love my students and my subject, which is why I’m still there, but, so far as the faculty’s concerned I feel like a phantom. What’s particularly weird is that it’s the same group of instructors, but the experience is quite different. It must be down to the change in structure somehow.
I guess I’m asking whether this is typical or not? From talking to younger family members I sort of feel it might be, and there’ve been hints like that on here too. It’s not such a big deal for me. Realistically I’ve probably only got a few more years at this anyway, but if it’s true then the institutional loss — whatever the profession — is considerable.
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