the secret of happiness

It's been a long while since I last posted - again. It should come as no surprise to the well initiated that I am trying to write a research proposal tonight, so I return to this blog as an old, favourite form of procrastination.

It's been a busy six months for me. Fourteen months ago I started a new job. I know some readers have no doubt worked out where that job is, and even the quickest glance will tell you that I work in tertiary education. I may be able to narrow it down for those who know about Australian tertiary education by adding that it is the most administratively retarded, process and logic starved illustration of a doomed-to-fail business plan run by power hungry, agenda driven pedants.

If any of them were reading this, I'd probably be out on my ear. And I'm not sure that I'd care. I've typed up the resignation a couple of times in the last few months, and frankly - it's beyond me why I haven't handed it in. Well I know at least part of the reason, those in my immediate vicinity at work are not the power hungry, agenda driven pedants but very real, very nice people trying to do their best to offer students who can barely spell their own name some semblance of value for money in exchange for not inconsiderable financial outlay.

I like to think that I'm a pretty good worker. I don't always get everything done, and I make a few mistakes along the way, but on the whole I do my best, put in the extra hours when required and keep the team goals in mind. However recently I have felt the most rundown, beaten down, depleted and totally useless I have ever felt in my work. I have put students on the back burner in order to pander to the pedantic nitpicking of the power hungry agenda driven administration. I have forsake friends and family, added at least 10kg to my waist, let my study and professional development dwindle to nothingness and developed a drinking habit that would be the envy of most undergraduate engineering students (I calmly knocked off a full bottle of vodka the other night and it only just touched the sides).

Well, no more I say. I'm not playing your silly little games any more, large, uncaring institution. Fuck you. Fuck you, and fuck the horse you rode in on. I'm making a list at the beginning of the day, new stuff gets added to the bottom and at 5pm I walk out the fucking door. And I'm not taking it home with me (it should be noted that I do get paid a wage that could expect that I occasionally take work home with me. But not every night).

And next Tuesday I'm re-instituting Tourette's Tuesday. This is not to use legitimate, often debilitating, disorders as a social device. However staff members of our august institution are being invited to attend a well know hostelerie in the city where we will rant and rave and swear uncontrollably with regard to our place of employ, and maybe catch something at the Garden of Unearthly Delights, before scoffing pizza at an Adelaide favourite (the Beastie Boys eat here when they're in town. True Story).