NBR: work vent

twoitalians · January 2013

Some of you might remember that I work at a small univeristy... a small Christian university... as a full time lab coordinator and adjunct faculty. When I pick up the extra classes to teach, they can't be during my regular work hours because that would be double-dipping on my time and the university won't allow that. I took this job because of the hours and the shorter commute. I work noon to 8. It's great because I get to spend pretty much all morning with DS and occasionally I get to snuggle him before bedtime when I get home. This is versus my old job where I would have seen him maybe 20 minutes in the morning after he woke up, enough to feed him and then either hand him off to DH or drop him off at my mom's, and then maybe an hour or so in the evening until his bedtime. The commute sucked, at least an hour each way. I'm enjoying my cushy rush-hour traffic-free commute because the time to get to and leave work is not during rush hour(s). At the end of the fall, I accepted to teach an 8 week course the second session of the spring semester, with the understanding that because of the low enrollment (only 2 students) and if I made arrangements with the students, we could change the class time from 7am to whenever best worked for us. I emailed with the students, both were upset about the 7am class as well- and not just for reasons of wanting to sleep in, we all agreed to meet MWF at 10am. Great. Fast forward to today, I'm trying to arrange with administration to reflect this change in case another student wanted to add the class. Can't do it. Why? Can't schedule a class during chapel time. This university has a chapel time at 10:45 every Monday morning. Neither student goes and I don't either. Oh wait, we can schedule the class for 8:30am, that won't cut into chapel time. I really really REALLY don't want to be on campus 3 days out of my week for 12 hours. It would be even worse if I taught at 7am. Not worth it to go home, or even do anything else. I might see if my boss will let me change my hours but I will still have to work until 7. This is what I wanted to avoid when I came to work here. Having to teach at 8:30 would put me in that rush hour commute that stretches my commute time from 20 minutes to 50 minutes, and then having to work till 7 gets me home just in time for DS to go to bed. These are family people here at this university, and I know it would be ok for me to back out of teaching this class, should I back out???? Right now I don't think teaching to make an extra couple hundred bucks per paycheck is worth the awful commute times and not getting to spend as much time each day with DS. It sucks because I was really excited to teach this class... forensic toxicology... ooooo.

Sorry for venting. I feel a little better now typing this all out but I still wanna cry in a corner. Ugh. STUPID CHAPEL TIME!!!

halvorsonl00 · January 2013

How long do you have to back out of the decision to drop the class? To me, this seems like something you need to sleep on for a night or two. How long is the semester? Is it something that would just be temporary for that semester? Would the extra $$ be helping you? Could you put it away for something? Is there a way you could leave early/go late on the other days to even out the extra hours you are there MWF?

Just a few questions I could think of to consider. Hope that helps some.