So I am very pleased with this semester and with my prospects for the medium term future since I have won a useful prize. Still, for what may be worth to others (for me it is worthwhile as a career analysis exercise), and because I spoke from my space of dedication in the recent meme(s) on teaching, sounding a bit more Pollyannaish than I feel, and then saved someone’s class IRL, here are the ten things a YURPIE™, a Young Urban Research Professional like me, most dislikes about being a professor.
1. Negative, plodding, uncreative and uncollegial work atmospheres.
2. The pettiness, passive aggression, and apathy of professors.
3. The suburban mentality, the heteronormativity, the whiteness.
4. The desolate atmosphere of post-agricultural and post-industrial towns.
5. Teaching with deadly materials I am not empowered to change.
6. Plantation structures of all kinds.
7. Male chauvinism so entrenched you cannot cut it, even with a knife.
8. Working with bureaucrats about a field, as opposed to professionals in it.
9. My claustrophobia (a subjective reaction).
10. The asphyxiation (an objective fact).
And you cannot know until you try it, howled our advisors, you may like it, and you know work is not pleasant. But I never complained about work as such, and I always already knew I was urban and research oriented. That is how I chose the college I went to, for heaven’s sake, and it is why I did not like the rural town and the nonacademic high school I spent a year in as an exchange student in Europe.
It is interesting how those wishing to keep one in one’s place recommend extreme soul modification so that one can fit it. The first tier of keywords for the job I always wanted does not include the words “teaching” or “literature.” It does include: creative ♦ vibrant ♦ urban ♦ fast paced ♦ intellectually oriented ♦ research based ♦ professional team ♦ collegial ♦ writing ♦ public speaking ♦ practical ♦ smart.
Making these lists is helping me to remain in the correct frame of mind. My current yoga involves saying what I dislike, not accepting the things I do not like and not trying to adjust, but emulating the world I like, even when it does not stand before me.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Things are apparently not so bad for me, just yet. I’m getting advice from my 10 percent female supervisor manyana
10% female? She looks cool, and the university looks pretty. Graduate school is fun!!! As is the research aspect of professordom – and the research aspect includes the fun parts of teaching.
she is 10 percent, gareth is 90 percent (workload)
Ah yes – didn’t realize that was where he was – your department looks quite nice, actually.
Yeah it is probably okay. (the department).
I wish there were some wildcards there like myself.
I’ve felt 8 acutely this year, serving as both Faculty Senate President and Department Chair (both will be over at the end of this year, thank goodness). 5 is too true and something I struggle with often, especially when teaching introductory courses, where selection of materials is most constrained, but, ironically, creative and critical works are probably most needed.
Oooh, department chair and senate president at once, that *is* heavy!
“…introductory courses, where selection of materials is most constrained, but, ironically, creative and critical works are probably most needed.”
*So* true – definitely most needed.
Oh, God, #3 … #3. Especially the way those suburban middlebrow social values always combine with highbrow cultural tastes.