Request DENIED to the Weakest Link, or, I need the "Serenity Prayer" right now, or...

...I don't want to be a replaceable cog in the machine anymore...

... but I need the income. Desperately so.

My proposal to teach four days a week instead of five days next semester was denied and I am obviously devastated and feeling very hopeless. Why did they even let me submit the proposal in the first place? Who decided? The coordinator or the new hire? Does that even matter? (No!!!)

I am also despairing at the thought of having to teach FIVE DAYS A WEEK at U#2, driving 152 more miles on Fridays. Sigh... Even if I sleep over there on Mondays and Wednesdays, having to drive back on Friday is so annoying (and tiresome).

I want to get out of there. ASAP. I need to get out of there. I disagree with the way the newly hired faculty person (I will be more vague about this person from now on) has decided to teach the intermediate/advanced class, I think that the course is not well organized and that new hire (NH from now on) doesn't really care much because obviously NH is primarily concerned with all NH needs to do to obtain tenure.

I wish I could just tell them that I wouldn't teach next year anymore and let them have to be in the awkward situation of piling all the classes onto NH.

I know I will be OK... THOUGH my situation is extremely precarious. So, there is the possibility that I would not only not be OK, but be kind of in trouble.

The problem is that I have NOT signed a contract yet and I have only been offered a full time load verbally. Potentially, they could cancel one of my classes since NH has only 2 students and I have 8, and then I would only be teaching two classes (that meet 5 days a week, but pay the same as 3 days) which was their original plan anyway.

It is very very tiresome to be "the weakest link" that can be broken and easily replaced. Sigh... that's the life of the adjuncts everywhere and who knows how many more years I will have to endure it.

At least at U#1 I'm slightly less replaceable (in spite of the fact that my newly designed class was simply "given" to someone else without any qualms. Nah... I'm 100% replaceable).

This awareness is very damaging to one's self-esteem. In any case, I need to find the strength to accept the things I cannot change. And keep hoping that the future may bring better things.