That Obscure Object of Discipline (was lingua franca on "stars" in academia)

[d-m-c at worldnet.att.net]

You know I'm kinda a divided consciousness about 'real' work v.
'not-so-real' work.  And I completely agree with Yoshie's analysis here.
There are some days when the thought of working in a kitchen pumping out
pounds and pounds of food or mopping the floors/scrubbing toilets or
waiting on some snotty shits from the Univoisity seems so much preferable
than grading a zillion papers (me too, 110 yikes), putting on a cheery face
and watching my every move at a fac meeting all the while keeping a rear
guard for the backstabbing, and then being 'on' in front of students during
class and office hours.  And, then, bringing it all home b/c your work day
really doesn't stop because how do you turn your brain off and the effects
of all that emotion management reverberate endlessly sometimes.  I am
fairly certain that I feel I work harder than I used to--and there are some
studies to suggest that this sort of mental/service/emotion labor is much
more demanding than physical labor.  HOWEVER, I guess I'd like to see just
a wee bit less condescencion toward these folks and their deluded ideas
about how academics have it so much easier than them. ("The English Dept.
is now a symbol of what ordinary workers are denied: the chance to combine
paid employment and hobby. Hard to believe, Jamie, but tenured English
profs have become "that obscure object of desire."")  I think that workers
ought to be given just a little more credit than that and, afterall, isn't
a worthwhile goal one in which work is understood for everyone as a source
of joy (in the variety of ways one might experience such joy)  Sn-wording
at their delusions and implying some sort of hierarchy of real work/not
real work that those philistine uncultcha'd folks just don't get is hardly
the point is it?