1st
Un-Firm
Reason #4 to pursue higher education: job security.
Maybe I have a tenure track position in my future, or maybe not. I do know it’s not even an option if I don’t have an MFA. Which is the goal. Because my current professional life, however rewarding, is unsustainable.
“Committing” to two to four weeks, or even ten, for an unsecured amount of money is an unsustainable way to live. I clear my schedule, or work around something that may or may not happen, thereby preventing me from using that time to make up the difference if the bottom falls out. Which it has been doing at least once a term for four years. I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t expect things to happen, and then end up in more hot water when they do. My last ten week spring session was a scheduling nightmare. Case in point: a drive from Palatine to Hyde Park in the early rush period with a 65 minute window. Crazy. But I couldn’t afford to not take guaranteed money for the sake of maybe money.
Maybe it’s the problem with being a contractor. Maybe it’s the problem of depending on the discretionary spending of parents during a recession. Maybe it’s the arts in general. But artists and contractors do not get unemployment for under-registered classes and camps. We just have our livelihood threatened. Or there’s some weird game being played where all the faculty becomes one financial organism and the nourishment is spread thinly over all. Which may be okay for dual-income household type contractors, but not for the singles who have blocked off their schedules just to keep crossing and uncrossing their fingers hoping to pay rent. It makes it hard to have a life, a true day off, a weekend, a vacation, pay taxes, save for retirement, save for grad school -
I’m too old for this. I can’t be living off credit for part of the year, and then trying to make it all up in an un-firm three months. I can’t be working seven days a week to cover my ass for the weeks that my plans fall through. I mean, it’s fine now - for another few weeks - but I will still need to be crossing my fingers for the next two…
