You know, I almost hate to write this on here because on this blog, I tend to unleash the ferocious inner ferret (my term for the bitchy part of me that gets mainly supressed all day long). In other words, I'm sharper with my pen than with my lips.
In real life, I think, I'm fairly even keeled, at least in a work setting. And especially at this "job," I keep Frida (my inner ferret) locked away where she can do no damage. I'm polite, articulate, conscientious--in fact, most of the professors adore me because I am the model student. My assistantship super, however, is a different story. I actually think he does like me, but he's just a fuck. He's a misogynistic, egotistical, fuck. As are many of the people in academia which is why I'm not going to even consider the idea of becoming a professor. Been there, done that, not gonna do it again.
So here's my vent. These people treat us like we are fucking subhuman. Imagine Full Metal Jacket meets The Ivory Tower, if you will. They don't call us maggots, no, they are too "nice" for that, but they might as well call us that and force us to do pushups. To them, we are grunts; we have no brains, no souls, no purpose other than to lick their assholes, and I don't particularly much care for that. They do not refer to us by name but by "you, graduate student," and they honestly treat us like shit. actually, here is the perfect analogy. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Imagine a pompous socialite encountering a vagrant on the street. If the socialite does go one step past ignoring the vagrant, THAT is how they treat us.
And yes, what did I expect? I'm a grunt again. My vita means nothing. Fine. But give me some fucking credit. Today my super calls me in to discuss an important meeting with the women's shelter on Tues. We're administering an assessment. Now the only reason I even get to do this cool project is bc I am a woman, so I am way excited about the opportunity. He, however, is miffed that he doesn't get to do it himself and doesn't see me as qualified enough to read out some questions and circle the corresponding number. So he looks me dead in the eye and says in the voice only the Chotchkies Manager from Office Space could use, "Understand, your conduct is going to be of utmost importance in this meeting. It could make or break us." yes, master. I'll get my hump straightened out and refrain from picking my nose and screaming out obscenities. I have 15 years of professional experience, many of which are on the supervisory level and have served on the board of directors of numerous nonprofits. I have been volunteer of the year at several agencies and have been an educational administrator. I've presented at national conferences. You think I can't handle an hour meeting with a woman about an assessment?
Ok and if this weren't enough, we start talking about the assessment process itself. he begins talking about kids like they are morons, asserting that an 8 year old child wouldn't understand the words, "in the past year" or "threat." HOnestly the way he talks about kids just infuriates me. They are all 1 1/2 years old to him. And then, THEN, when I ask about maybe including some rapport building questions at the beginning of the interview, he has the audacity to say, "and well, of course this is just a possibility and not necessarily normalcy but just for the sake of argument let's say you get a girl (he stresses in this slow drawl) and you ask her about dresses and such and you get her going and then she gets all gabby and then you just can't get her to focus again on the questions. That would be a problem and probably, this is just a possibility, you wouldn't have that same reaction from a boy, you see, therein lies the danger of rapport building" (punctuation errors intentional to show how quickly he slurs these phrases together).
Oh, I'm just livid. LIVID! I'm gonna quit and become Alice in Fucking Wonderland at Disneyland.
Oh, and just to throw this in, he's got a fucking can of "Creamed Possum [sic]" on his desk for lunch. Blurk.
Labels: jackasses, phd, rant
