Having an employer

I went to a fancy shindig last night to celebrate the retirement of my department chair. It was nice: tasty dinner, decent drinks, good conversation. Two of my colleagues showed a movie they’d created—a compilation of reminiscences about our chair, as told by faculty, staff, and administrators. There were some very funny and very touching stories. (And my own little story didn’t sound quite as stupid as I thought it did when I was actually being videotaped!)

After the video, B., our retiring chair, said a few words. He’d organized his talk into three parts: a rant, a sermon, and a poem. In the sermon part, he talked about how he’s always seen himself first and foremost as a rhetorician and teacher, then as an administrator, and finally as an employee at a particular institution. On that last idea, he said something like this: I’ve always thought of myself as someone who happens to have an employer, rather than as somebody’s employee. Then he said: I think that’s a particularly useful way of thinking of ourselves in this age of increasing corporatization of American higher education.

Those lines really struck a chord with me, and I want to remember them.* Having an employer suggests some degree of agency on my (and other workers') part; being an employee is just, well, passive. If you have an employer, you need to hold that employer accountable to YOU somehow. Very refreshing, given the current conditions I work in (not conditions made by B.; obviously, he's been a pretty awesome employer to have).

*(Of course, I do realize that it's much easier to think the way B. does when you have certain safety nets, like being part of a dual-income couple...)