A story. Way back in the year 2010 I had started my first job. I defended in July. Moved in August. No furniture in my house til September. No real money until October. I thought I was okay but something was brewing. I couldn’t get out of my mind that once I got back to my old

Stomping grounds to see my friends and go to my hairdresser and also to attend a very important conference, Id feel better. Every day for 8 weeks I said that to myself.

I get to the stomping grounds and the conference and instantly sigh of relief. Felt like I could breathe. But still there was something brewing.

Got to conference and was delighted to see people who knew me and who i didn’t have to posture as “ready made asst prof” but they all wanted to know how it was on the other side. And I got the sense they wanted confirmation it was everything we imagined. It didn’t seem like I

could say “I’m feeling really tired and drained and I think my hair is falling out and I feel like my insides are a sponge that’s been rung out and I’m hot all the time and I didn’t know my bank was not in town so I had to do a bunch of things to make sure paycheck went where

it was sposed to go and I don’t know anybody and...” Instead I said “oh it’s going well. I’m doing fine. It’s going well I’m doing fine. It’s going well doing fine.”

I went to my hair dresser and we decided to big chop off my relaxer and start unrelaxed because I lost so much hair. (I started my job with healthy growing hair).

I pre scheduled a meeting with my therapist before I left for the job bc I just figured it’d be a good idea (she’d later told me that she could see the depression setting at our meeting).

I left stomping grounds and while momentarily invigorated it wouldn’t last. Adjustment disorder: it lasted 8 months. It was ridiculous and a little scary and maddening.

I share this story about my first year because whenever I see those takes that stew from injury about how much better the folks who have what they’ve been denied are doing, I think about how much I couldn’t say because I didn’t want to be seen as ungrateful.

I didn’t want to be seen as spoiled and entitled and neglecting to see how good a fortune I had. I was a unicorn. One market year; one job. One job application (rest were postdocs bc I didn’t believe I had the materials for a job job). I couldn’t utter the sadness and the worry

And the angst and the fear about money and loans coming due and my general fatigue and teaching a masters seminar my first semester to folks who were at the time real reticent to read and think. I couldn’t say any of that Bc I got a job. A good one.

I don’t tell this story for RTs or for sympathy. The precarity folks are facing is real and a villain you can see is a whole lot easier than the ones you can’t. But this is why I can’t simply just allow those jabs. My humanity and my occupation get too conflated. I let it get

conflated. Many of us do. And the psychic consequences of that mistake ripple and cause even more injury—inwardly and externally toward others.

I am an immensely practical academic and colleague. I also understand that the greatest weapon of precarity is the manner that it obscures true villainy with bodies who are accessible and nearly as vulnerable as you are.

So I get it. Go ahead and jab if you need to. But listen here: if I jab back? It’s because I’ve had enough.