Academia, macadamia...

...they're both nuts, right?

I was trying to fill out an application for a part-time non-academic job the other day. Not pleasant; I resent trying to contain my capabilities within cramped little boxes. (By the way, I have painfully small, jagged writing--if I say the boxes are cramped, the average Joe or Jane probably finds them minuscule.) I know the tricks of action words, etc., etc. I know how to play up my strengths, even though it makes me feel squirmy and just a tad shameless, and all this was even within the limitations of said small boxes.

Here's what stumped me: salary. (What does that matter, anyway? I would gladly accept the going rate per hour they were offering for the position.) When all was said and done, I listed one job by rate per course (adjunct position), one by hourly pay (tutoring), and two by semester (grad assistantship stipend). I suppose I could have gone back through and converted them to hourly wages, but that just would've been depressing and imprecise at best. And that would just beg the question of whether to calculate it by the number of hours per week that admin estimated (pay level would turn out decently) or by the actual number of hours per week consumed by the work (ugh... not going to dwell on that one--I don't want to think about the amount of time or what the hourly wage would be)...

It's just far too ambiguous for my comfort.

I hope whoever's looking at my application has at least some working knowledge of academia... That way, they know it's not me who's a tad screwed up and schizophrenic-looking; it's my employment.

They can realize their mistake after they hire me.