I hope I didn't sound like an insufferable whiner in those previous posts.
Of course there's very positive upside (for me at least) in not having a tenure track job (particularly a TT job at a "prestigious" R1)! I will attempt to list the most important things in this post, feel welcome to contribute in the comments or to correct me if you think that a TT career does not involve all that.
1) Not having to deal with the "tenure process," which, in my husband's words, is a "meat grinder." This process & the pressure I would be under would probably stress me out too much or even "break me" (I'm really too sensitive to being evaluated).
2) Not having the overwhelming pressure and be required to do research and publish, especially considering that research in some areas of the humanities is not essentially useful to anything and anybody, really, especially in my field: literature.
3) No need to serve on countless committees, advise graduate students (I think I'd enjoy that, though), advise undergraduates, and do other "service" duties, etc.
4) Having more time for my family, for my children, having a more "carefree" and unstructured life (which is my style again, ADHD me).
Sigh... I can't think of more reasons now. I keep thinking of all the things I'm missing (conferences, intellectually stimulating work, sabbaticals, etc. This continues to be hard, even in this post in which I'm trying to convince myself of the contrary).
I know that there are more reasons and I really love to live carefree, but at the same time, I LOVE researching, I really do. Even more than teaching. Maybe if I were diagnosed and did therapy and sometimes medication for my ADHD I could be a more productive person?
I can do all that without the "need" to be more productive in the TT job, obviously!
All right, please, dear non TT academic peeps who read this blog, can you help me out finding even MORE reasons not to have a tt job? Because I'm clearly not doing a good enough job of it.
Angsty Postscript
Do you know what the bottom line is in my case, perhaps? If I were to pursue other possibilities, other jobs, etc. it would be easier, but if I continue working alongside TT and tenured and professor emeritus people, I will continually, perpetually, for as long as I am in academia, feel the difference.
Because, as my dear friend Anastasia wrote just yesterday, maybe a bit aggressively in her angst: tenured or people who have tenure track jobs either believe (that's her word, not mine) that they are somehow superior to those of us who didn't OR, as I see it, they may not believe it, but lots of them behave and act as if they were superior BECAUSE THEY ARE!!!
(and I read all the comments to Anastasia's post and I understand your point of view folks, I do -- please , there's no need to feel attacked, and I know that some of you don't believe that and do not behave like that, but many other people do behave like that. It's part of the job!)
Hierarchically speaking, Anastasia, they ARE superior, even if they don't believe they are. They get the funding, they get the offices with the windows, they go to meetings and make decisions and we...
(even if we are fairly treated to full time positions, albeit temporary)
... we teach. We do the work. And go home and feel grateful.
ha ha ha
and full of angst and sometimes anger.
OK, that's it for now. I did warn you that I was going to be writing lots about this and I feel ridiculous for attempting a positive post and ending up on this somber note. Sigh. Post PhD Blues indeed! that was the great title of my dear friend Articulate Dad's blog before he changed it to One Foot In, One Foot Out and gleefully jumped OUT!
I'm not jumping out, I don't think. So I need to process all this. Over, and over, and over again. That's why I blog.
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