Thursday, October 30, 2014

20141030.0730

Things continue to return to whatever degree of normalcy they have at Sherwood Cottage. My lovely wife took care of much of the laundry that had accrued around our trip to the Texas Hill Country; while we were able to wash clothes there, we wore clothes during and after doing so, and Ms. 8 goes through her wardrobe rapidly. Too, the linens needed changing. I am slowly getting caught up on the grading that grew up in my absence and since my return, although it continues to swell up, as well; I have one set of exercises to assess from last week, then reports from three classes, a paper from the fourth, and on Monday, I will have papers coming in from the other three again. So I continue to be busy, as I think I have noted on occasion before.

The search for a more permanent position continues, as well. I think I have noted once or twice that, while my current job is not a bad one, it is bounded, and because it is bounded (although re-hiring seems to happen a fair bit), I cannot rest assured of its continuation. I am thus obliged to seek out positions that do offer me something like that assurance, jobs that are not strictly limited by term and which I can therefore expect to continue in for many years so long as I do a decent job or better at them. It is not too much to ask, I think, that after twelve years in college and approaching sixteen in the normal labor force that I would want to find a job to do that I can remain at and do for some time; it is not as if I am asking for a handout, after all.

I am familiar with the litany of responses. "Start your own business," for one, despite the fact that most new businesses fail, and fail spectacularly, in short order (and I cannot risk Ms. 8 for my failure), and despite the fact that I do not have 1) the capital to handle the startup costs involved in starting up a business, 2) the skillset to actually manage business affairs, and 3) enough understanding of people and their needs and desires to find something that I am equipped to do that they want to have done. "Start at the bottom and work your way up" is another, despite the fact that there is almost no possibility of promotion from "the bottom" (when has a fry-cook or a janitor become a fast-food CEO--or even middle management?) and despite the fact that I have already been at the bottom so that a return would be a downward step (if not, perhaps, a large one)--and, again, I am not willing to risk Ms. 8 on such a thing. "You're better off than many" is yet another, and it is true, but does that mean that I ought not to look for more and better? Ought I to be content with the way things are because others are not so fortunate as I have been?

Ought any of us?

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