Getting paid
I don't want to give the impression that I never leave my house. I leave my house plenty, mostly to go to Michael's, Walmart, the Dollar Store, or Home Depot. Yesterday, in fact, I left my house because my friend Melanie was moving.
She graduated with her Ph.D. and had no job prospects. This is a point I fear, but one I'm a little less scared of now that I'm convinced I could make a fair sum of money making scenery. Let me explain. During the dog days of Summer, I averaged about $30 a day selling stuff on Ebay, which sucks. But keep in mind, that's a lot of money when there were entire weeks when I didn't sell anything. From everyone I've talked to, that's a Summer thing. Winter is just the opposite. Supposedly, between October and January, I will sell everything I put up on Ebay for 150% of what I put it up for now. Keep in mind, the reason that I thought this would work was because I had done my research during the Spring and during the Spring, $60 a day averages seemed very do-able. Also keep in mind, that I have been the ONLY one in the U.S. selling on Ebay the kind of stuff I make with any success. I watched people try, fail, crash and burn all around me, and my stuff kept selling. Not much, but it kept on keeping on.
And now that it's the end of the Summer, my sales are booming even though its the end of the month (notoriously slow for sellers). I've got two custom jobs in the pipeline, both of which will probably bring in the low two hundreds. So, when I heard Melanie say that she had no job prospects after she finished her doctorate, I could see the feelings of being lost. I had that same feeling when I finished my bachelor's and started working at Rite Aid, or when I finished my Master's and I started working at the woodshop.
But I will not have that feeling no matter what because I have this. If I can average $100 a day, that's $36,000 a year. I make a third of that now while starting up a company, building a reputation, during the off season, and watching my child half the time. During my most productive time, I almost made it to the $100 a day average.
I said on my last blog that during my low points, I wondered at staying in the Ph.D.. I will be honest, the drag of scholastic beaurocracy has really taken its toll on me. Things are simply progressing at a snail's pace, and not because I'm slow, but because I must wait on people who only think of their obligations to me when I am standing directly in front of them. Here I am in my fifth year of graduate work with a possible three more to go knowing full well that when I graduate, I might very well end up like Melanie--unable to get any work except for adjunct professor-hood making less money than what I make now as a funded grad student. This is, of course, assuming that the government doesn't initiate a draft or begin publicly funding the programs necessary for war (math, engineering, chemistry, computers, etc.). As an English professor, I need a culture that believes that reading is important and that there is some value to what people said 100 years ago...this is not the American cultural landscape, where wisdom's shelflife is related to the speed of the text message.
Plus I'm white. Plus I'm male. Plus I'm interested in literature that is increasingly viewed as white male elitist, blah blah blah. The best I have is that my work will become ground breaking in the Jewish studies department, which I would be happy about if I felt that I had done the necessary homework to make myself an expert in the field. I ought to speak yiddish, no?
So, if I'm not going to get a job after I put in all this work, if I can't get published because I say things that the experts haven't been babbling back and forth to each other for the last twenty years. If I'm doomed to take one freshman comp class every semester at a university that can decide not to hire me back on a whim, then why not? Why not go full bore on this scenery making thing. Hell, try to press out $200 worth of stuff a day. After all, I'm selling to people in foreign countries already. When Bush and his cronies have finally devastated the national economy to that of Mexico, I can still sell scenery to whatever new national power takes our place. Why not?
So, I'm driving in the car with Melanie towards her storage unit and I'm telling her all this, and I say, "I mean what does a professor make anyways? Forty five thousand." "Starting," she answers. "So, why not?" I retort.
"Because they get raises. So-and-so makes 140,000 a year." And that ends the discussion folks. Regardless of how much child care I get, I don't think I can make $400 worth of scenery a day. So, I think I'm going to have to get that doctorate after all.
She graduated with her Ph.D. and had no job prospects. This is a point I fear, but one I'm a little less scared of now that I'm convinced I could make a fair sum of money making scenery. Let me explain. During the dog days of Summer, I averaged about $30 a day selling stuff on Ebay, which sucks. But keep in mind, that's a lot of money when there were entire weeks when I didn't sell anything. From everyone I've talked to, that's a Summer thing. Winter is just the opposite. Supposedly, between October and January, I will sell everything I put up on Ebay for 150% of what I put it up for now. Keep in mind, the reason that I thought this would work was because I had done my research during the Spring and during the Spring, $60 a day averages seemed very do-able. Also keep in mind, that I have been the ONLY one in the U.S. selling on Ebay the kind of stuff I make with any success. I watched people try, fail, crash and burn all around me, and my stuff kept selling. Not much, but it kept on keeping on.
And now that it's the end of the Summer, my sales are booming even though its the end of the month (notoriously slow for sellers). I've got two custom jobs in the pipeline, both of which will probably bring in the low two hundreds. So, when I heard Melanie say that she had no job prospects after she finished her doctorate, I could see the feelings of being lost. I had that same feeling when I finished my bachelor's and started working at Rite Aid, or when I finished my Master's and I started working at the woodshop.
But I will not have that feeling no matter what because I have this. If I can average $100 a day, that's $36,000 a year. I make a third of that now while starting up a company, building a reputation, during the off season, and watching my child half the time. During my most productive time, I almost made it to the $100 a day average.
I said on my last blog that during my low points, I wondered at staying in the Ph.D.. I will be honest, the drag of scholastic beaurocracy has really taken its toll on me. Things are simply progressing at a snail's pace, and not because I'm slow, but because I must wait on people who only think of their obligations to me when I am standing directly in front of them. Here I am in my fifth year of graduate work with a possible three more to go knowing full well that when I graduate, I might very well end up like Melanie--unable to get any work except for adjunct professor-hood making less money than what I make now as a funded grad student. This is, of course, assuming that the government doesn't initiate a draft or begin publicly funding the programs necessary for war (math, engineering, chemistry, computers, etc.). As an English professor, I need a culture that believes that reading is important and that there is some value to what people said 100 years ago...this is not the American cultural landscape, where wisdom's shelflife is related to the speed of the text message.
Plus I'm white. Plus I'm male. Plus I'm interested in literature that is increasingly viewed as white male elitist, blah blah blah. The best I have is that my work will become ground breaking in the Jewish studies department, which I would be happy about if I felt that I had done the necessary homework to make myself an expert in the field. I ought to speak yiddish, no?
So, if I'm not going to get a job after I put in all this work, if I can't get published because I say things that the experts haven't been babbling back and forth to each other for the last twenty years. If I'm doomed to take one freshman comp class every semester at a university that can decide not to hire me back on a whim, then why not? Why not go full bore on this scenery making thing. Hell, try to press out $200 worth of stuff a day. After all, I'm selling to people in foreign countries already. When Bush and his cronies have finally devastated the national economy to that of Mexico, I can still sell scenery to whatever new national power takes our place. Why not?
So, I'm driving in the car with Melanie towards her storage unit and I'm telling her all this, and I say, "I mean what does a professor make anyways? Forty five thousand." "Starting," she answers. "So, why not?" I retort.
"Because they get raises. So-and-so makes 140,000 a year." And that ends the discussion folks. Regardless of how much child care I get, I don't think I can make $400 worth of scenery a day. So, I think I'm going to have to get that doctorate after all.