Rate My JIL: Customer Service Edition

The Customer is always right, and the Customer “needs” an A.

This ad for an off-conference TT job at a regional campus of Texas A&M seems pretty normal along the lines of today’s job market.

1. Grueling 4-4 teaching load? Check.
2. Mind-blowingly rote courses? Check. (Freshman Comp! “Sophomore Literature,” whatever the fuck that is. Ooh, Shakespeare once every two years, edgy.)
3. Stupidly specific requirements of applicants? Check. (“18 graduate credit hours” in everything you want to teach…so, your candidate’s expected to have repeated Freshman Comp and “Sophomore Literature” 6 times? Each? In grad school? You do realize that most grad students take one class in a breadth area, not fucking six, right? And that they get their breadth and depth by reading for, and passing, their comprehensives? And writing something called a “dissertation”? Oh, I give up.)

But honestly, that could be any ad these days, in any humanities department…