> Another example of this: the job description for the Dean position I'm
> temporarily occupying includes "other duties as assigned". As you might
> expect, this extraordinarily broad job description is not found in the
> faculty or staff union contracts.
Lucky them. It's been part of the contract for every shitty job I've ever had, which just happens to be every job I've ever had from admin assitant in a semi-privatised public service (where someone drew a swastika on a post-it note and stuck it to my computer screen and wrote 'die commie fenian scum' - funny story, I was very young and quite hurt. I told my mother's partner about it and he said: 'They're right, aren't they?'. They were.) to clerk in a nuclear medicine department, pre-press operative, kitchen porter and so-called graphic designer.
Now that I'm 'self-employed' (in other words an temp beholden to countless bosses) I can at least control my working environment, albeit to a small degree. As long as I can hang on I won't ever be going back. The ability to do as I please, even in the smallest way - Another cigarette and coffee? Fuck yes! Will I hand in my work late? Yep – is an amazing bonus. The only bloody one.
May I suggest reading Dennis Hayes's 'Behind the Silicon Curtain: the Seductions of Work in a Lonely Era'?
J...
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