Precarity: My Life as Temporary Lecturer
I spend the three weeks before I get my first paycheck sleeping under a duvet on the floor of my studio flat.
The room is carpeted and I use a pile of my clothes for a pillow, so it’s functional. One day a colleague wants to meet for a tea and I realise there is a chance I will have to pay for it and that my card will get declined. I run down to the staff room and grab a leftover cinnamon-apple tea, a bad flavour that nobody ever wants, therefore all mine, and bring it along.
I buy teas and coffees for anyone lower than I am in the hierarchy and expect to be bought teas and coffees by anyone above me, a system of filial piety which respects the law of Heaven. I am aware that many of the people I am currently offering to buy teas and coffees will soon become more successful than me. I hope they are aware of this and don’t think I’m being condescending by buying them teas and coffees and don’t take it out on me later when they become more successful than me. I worked as a student in the dining hall, as do some of my students. Somehow this doesn’t connect us at all. I tell them to remember the details of working and that it is interesting. Is it interesting? What is interesting about it?
I am on my way to give a lecture, the bus is cancelled, I get into a taxi, and when I try to pay for it my card gets declined. The taxi driver is helpful and says that I can pay him in the evening. Thus, I arrive on time to impart the pleasure of learning to the students. There is a conflict here between successful stage management of the lecturer persona and the desire to break the fourth wall to directly address the audience.
I am a commodity; I perform the value of education and impart social signifiers to my students, like a 100% wool beret.
I never have any idea what to wear. Clothing suggests interiority and an other life. What other life should I suggest that I have? My clothing is rumpled from being used as insulation in my unheated flat. At one point I lie to my students, almost automatically, “my scanner at home,” I say, “is broken” — I live in a flat without any furniture at this point or even wifi — what is the point of the fantasy I feel obliged to give them, or to have myself? My flat is without heating for several months. This is fine to me. I lived outside in a tent in winter as a student and for 2 years of my PhD, the cold barely computes. The previous tenant left behind an enormous space heater shaped like a fake fireplace, so I assume he never turned on the boiler either.
Part of the job entails acting as if I am secure — but this works against me, it strives to undo the reality of my inner life. The person I pretend to be is a class fantasy, the fantasy of an existence which I must shatter. I am part of the working class, a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. I am a commodity; I perform the value of education and impart social signifiers to my students, like a 100% wool beret. There is still desire for me and while that continues long may I survive the marketplace. Things that survive: Nike Air Force 1s, lip balm, succulents, purified water. I must become like them. Things that do not survive: headphones with cords, Corel WordPerfect, purity.
I live across from a movie theatre. The marquee turns off around midnight, then abruptly turns on again at 3 AM. It fills the single room of my flat with swirling red and blue lights, like a cop car. I connect to the wifi of a nearby café and hair salon. I watch Joker and Parasite. I like the characters.