Tag: white-collar work

TBT^65,536: Back to the Grind 202[6]

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Teachers at my school reported back this past Tuesday. While I am no longer teaching full time, I also had to go in for a day of professional development and training. Unlike my full-time colleagues, I am not present for the various registration days, when kids come in to get their textbooks and what-not.

It’s a tad surreal, but I’m not complaining; I rather like working from home most days. I’ll soon be sharing my weekly chapel sermons/devotionals here, so stay tuned.

One thing that will be an adjustment is not putting together tests, quizzes, handouts, slides, and the like. I was compiling all of my materials for World History for the teacher who is taking that class on this year, and it was a massive folder. The sweet lady who is taking over my Music Ensembles—she is an accomplished singer-songwriter and will do a great job—and I have been coordinating on how to prepare for concerts, etc. I created a Google Drive folder for her with lead sheets and tabs and what-not from the past fifteen years, and it ran to 800+ files. Granted, some of those are *.doc files that I then converted to PDFs, but that still comes out to around 400+ unique files—quite a bit of music.

It’s kind of wild to consider how much sheer content a teacher, especially a history (and, apparently, music) teacher produces. One of my former colleagues and friends once compared us to content creators: we’re basically churning out multiple fifty-five-ish-minute podcasts or YouTube videos every day. I’ve likened it to being an overworked cruise ship entertainer without access to the buffet: you’re giving several performances a day. In education, though, the cruisers are more weekenders out of Orlando with Carnival, not a five-night voyagers on a classier line like Royal Caribbean.

Well, here’s to seeing what this new role and school year hold. Classes resume on 12 August 2026—in six days—and then we’re off!

With that, here is 7 August 2025’s “TBT^256: Back to the Grind 202[5]“:

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TBT^256: Back to the Grind 202[5]

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Well, the long, glorious, hot summer is over—at least for yours portly.  Yes, the summer heat beats on, but I’m back at work today.

It’s that time of year again:  the academic year.  The poor public school teachers (and kids!) have already been back to school.  No student should darken the door of a schoolhouse in July—that’s just brutal.  July should be completely devoid of any structured learning in a classroom.  Kids should be reading for fun, splashing in the pool, running around getting heat stroke, not locked in a stuffy classroom.

And what of the poor teachers?  I’m spoiled—I’ve taught almost all of my professional life, with the exception of two years from 2009-2011.  June and July are sacred.  I don’t to put pants on in July, much less a long-sleeved shirt and a tie.

Not that August is much better.  In my considered opinion—not based on what is best for the student, but what is best for me—school should start the Tuesday after Labor Day and the Friday before Memorial Day Weekend.  The school year is entirely too long (for students, too).

But I digress.  No one ever wants to hear a teacher complain—“I have to work every day!”  Well, I became a teacher for a reason:  summertime (and because it’s my calling and I sincerely love it—just not in August)!

With that here is 8 August 2024’s “TBT^16: Back to the Grind 202[4]“:

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TBT^16: Back to the Grind 202[4]

The Portly Politico6 Comments

My two-plus months of living like a French duke and/or welfare queen have come to an end.  Yours portly returns to the salt mines of secondary education today.  Classes won’t start back until Monday, 19 August 2024, but teachers reports back today for the usual bout of annual trainings, AFLAC representatives, handbook excursions, etc.

[UPDATE:  due to Hurricane/Tropical Storm Debby, we won’t report back until Monday, 12 August 2024—whoa!  But I’m still going to grouse about going back to work.  —TPP]

I’ve never quite understood why we report back on a Thursday, when we could easily cover all of this foolishness in a day or two of meetings the following week.  It seems like a way to deprive us of one, final, long weekend before the drudgery returns.

To be frank, I am not much looking forward to this school year—a sadly common refrain from yours portly the past few years.  Our enrollment is way down, which will bring with it all sorts of austerity measures and demands for teachers to sacrifice more time and energy for the good of the school.

Last year was absolutely brutal, and while I’m always cautiously optimistic, I am having a hard time talking myself into a good attitude this year.  Perhaps simply getting back into a rhythm will be its own reward.

With that, here is 3 August 2023’s “TBT^4: Back to the Grind 202[3]“:

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TBT: Disincentives to Work

The Portly Politico12 Comments

I don’t mean to be all doom and gloom this week, but it sure feels like things are falling apart all around us:  food shortages, rising unemployment, riots.  I think we’re in for a really nasty summer, but I hope I’m wrong.

We’ve been muddling through longer than we realize.  While gas prices have only shot up in the past five months, people have been dropping out of the workforce for a good while now.  Back in the Obama years, conservatives used to mock (rightly) the government’s unemployment figures for leaving out the labor force participation rate, which was pretty paltry back then (something like only 60-70% of working aged people were actually actively looking for work; the unemployment rate was based off that portion, rather than all working aged adults).

Now we’re in the midst of what the mainstream media is calling “The Great Resignation,” with millions of Americans quitting their jobs.  That’s due in part, I believe, to the generous government largesse during The Age of The Virus.  We’ve all gotten a taste of easy money—inflation be damned!—and now we want the gravy train to keep on rollin’.

But I think it goes deeper than that.  My generation in particular—prone to wokery, alas—legitimately has gotten the short end of the economic stick, entering the workforce during a recession, saddled with billions in student loans and overcredentialed.  Granted, some of those problems were our fault—we fell for the siren song of expensive degrees—but we were largely following the advice that had worked for our parents’ generation.

Understandably, many of my peers did not want to go back to waiting tables and pouring coffee for strangers—or going back to other thankless jobs.  Not all of those folks are deadbeats or mooches—some of them are just worn out.

Regardless, the government’s sticky hands are in all of this mess (for example, college tuition is so astronomically high because the government will keep extending loans to anybody to get them to go to college, even if that person isn’t going to earn much with his degree).  Work is annoying, stressful, and demanding—but doing it makes us better people.

With that, here is 26 May 2021’s “Disincentives to Work“:

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Midweek Mad Scientist Movie Madness II: Metropolis (1927)

The Portly Politico16 Comments

Since the first installment of Midweek Mad Scientist Movie Madness two weeks ago, I’ve watched several more films from Mad Scientist Theatre, a collection of mostly bad, mostly public domain films.  As with any such collection, the appeal is in the handful of renowned classics, and some of the hidden gems.

The first three flicks on the very first disc are all silent movie classics.  I’ve already reviewed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which both debuted in 1920.  I appreciated and enjoyed both films for different reasons, and both were very well done, although quite different, films.

The third film is 1927’s Metropolis, perhaps the greatest silent film of all time.  I took a modern German history course in college, and we were supposed to attend a screening of Metropolis for class.  For some reason, I did not attend, which was very out of character for me (I only missed class twice in college:  a session of Human Geography because my saxophone sextet had its recital that morning, and a rehearsal of the University Band so I could play The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion the night it was released).  I guess we were never tested on it, but when I found out there was a robot woman, I was kicking myself for missing the flick.

Now, some twenty years later, I’ve finally watched this classic of Weimar Germany’s wild cinematic scene.  I wish I’d gone to see it in college!

As with Jekyll and Caligari, you can watch Metropolis for free on YouTube (although, apparently, the film won’t be back in the public domain in the United States until the end of this year):

As you can see, it is a long film—depending on which cut you see.  Apparently, there are dozens of different cuts and restorations, and no one knows for certain which is the “definitive” version.  One of my readers asked me which cut I saw, and I have no earthly idea (sorry, cinephiles).  It’s whatever version Mill Creek Entertainment decided to put on this collection.  I do know the film felt long in parts—although I was glued to the screen for most of it—but it didn’t feel like it was two-and-a-half hours long.

What I can say is that Metropolis is worth seeing, not only because it is an important film in the history of cinema (and the height of German Expressionism), but because it is a good movie with an important message:  the head and the hands must work together through the heart.

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Retro Tuesday: Christmas Break Begins!

The Portly Politico30 Comments

Yesterday marked the true “beginning of my glorious, two-week Christmas break.”  It’s been a busy break so far, with a very productive Town Council work session last night, and a meeting with our new Mayor-Elect this morning.  I’m also meeting with a parent later in the day to sign some paperwork for a program for her daughter.

That’s a breakneck pace compared to past Christmas breaks, but it’s nothing too daunting.  I’m looking forward to some time with my parents, brothers, sister-in-laws, niece, and nephews soon, not to mention other family members.

It’s a lazy time of year for the blog, too:  not much is happening in the news, and everyone is settling in for a long winter’s nap.  I will have a guest contribution from 39 Pontiac Dreamer tomorrow—a review of a video game series—and some other goodies after Christmas.  Otherwise, look for a lot of re-runs from yours portly this week.

That said, the topic of this post from last Christmas Break—the need for some time off at Christmas for everyone, not just those of us in the cushy education racket—is still relevant.  Granted, some workers have decided to take the entire year off, it seems, enjoying generous federal unemployment and other kickbacks from The Age of The Virus, rather than return to their honest, albeit grueling, jobs.  Maybe let’s shoot for something a bit more balanced, yeah?

Still, work, while ennobling and healthy, can easily become overtaxing and detrimental.  There are diminishing returns, too:  after too many hours and too much effort, both mental and physical, we all start to get sloppy.  Some folks are built with the drive and energy to go nonstop, but I suspect most of us appreciate having a little downtime here and there.

With that, here is 21 December 2021’s “Christmas Break Begins!“:

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Disincentives to Work

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece, “Fast Food Premium,” which argued that, as restaurants began offering higher wages and even signing bonuses to employees, those increased wages would get passed along to consumers, and would result in wider inflation (a big “thank you” to jonolan at Reflections from a Murky Pond for expanding upon the premise of my post with his own, excellent piece, “UBI —> UBM“).  My observations might be deemed “prophetic” if they weren’t so blindingly obvious:  higher input costs mean higher prices.  That’s basic economics.

Of course, the ongoing labor shortage is not due to a booming economy, per se, but due to excessively generous federal unemployment benefits, which have effectively increased the minimum wage for restaurant employees:  many such employees are paid more to stay at home, collecting unemployment, than they are to flip burgers, wait tables, etc.  Mogadishu Matt highlights this phenomenon in a reblog of a John Stossel piece:  the issue is not a labor shortage, but a problem of incentives.

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Christmas Break Begins!

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Well, here it is—the week of Christmas, and the beginning of my glorious, two-week Christmas break.  If this blog post feels a bit like I’m rubbing in readers’ faces the bloated excess of education’s vacation time, my apologies.  I will note, though, that if you spent hours everyday as a surrogate parent to other people’s children, you, too, would want two weeks off at Christmas.

Indeed, I would argue that more professions deserve more time off at Christmastime.  Naturally, I realize that many folks save up their hard-earned vacation days to do just that:  enjoy a week or so with their families by the yule log, sipping eggnog and hot cocoa in their festive Cosby sweaters.  What I’m advocating for, though, is a widespread cultural movement—maybe even to the point of declaring some federal holidays—in the days leading up to and/or immediately after Christmas.  It always blows my mind when people work a full day—even a measly half-day—on Christmas Eve.

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Flashback Friday: Brack Friday Bunduru: Workers Need a Break

The Portly Politico2 Comments

I’m embracing the lazy logic of Thanksgiving Break with more throwback posts than usual this week.  After Christmas Break, this little Thanksgiving reprieve is my favorite short break of the year.  It combines family, fun, and food, with enough time to enjoy all three.

Last year when I wrote “Brack Friday Bunduru: Workers Need a Break,” I was growing increasingly burned out and fatigued from my job and my various obligations.  Between work, music lessons, and various ensembles, I wasn’t getting home most nights until 9 or even 10 PM.  That clearly showed up in my argument here for giving workers the day of Thanksgiving—and at least Christmas Eve and Christmas Day—off from their toils.

That said, I still believe it.  What’s humorous to me, in re-reading this post after a year of lockdowns and shutdowns, is that my call for “[s]hutting down everything but essential services… would be an admirable goal for at least Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, as well as Thanksgiving” came to pass—with deleterious effect—for not three measly days but for months on end.  That’s certainly not what I had in mind, but I think workers have had all the breaks they can stand this past year.

Still, in normal times, having a couple of days for Christmas and a day or two for Thanksgiving isn’t going to tank the global economy.  Workers could use the break, and the reminder that all that hard work is in service to something greater:  family, faith, and God.

I love hard work—indeed, I think it’s one of the keys to happiness and purpose, particularly for men—but there’s hard work, and there’s exhausting yourself for a pittance.  Let’s reward the former with some downtime.

With that, here is “Brack Friday Bunduru: Workers Need a Break“:

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Progress Report: Teaching in The Age of The Virus

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Progress reports go out to students today at my little school, so I thought it would be a good time to provide an update of my own now that we’re nearly a month into the school year.  I posted about teaching in The Age of The Virus after the first day and the first week, and now I have a much better perspective on how the year is unfolding.

As a refresher, my school is doing mostly face-to-face instruction, but with some students doing distance learning.  Students have the option to go to distance learning pretty much at will (for example, I had one student who stayed home today with a cold, but who tuned into my music appreciation course), and can return to school at any time.  Students engaged in distance learning are required to attend during the scheduled class period.

The caveat to that general rule pertains to international students.  We have a number of students overseas who, because of new restrictions due to The Virus, are stuck in their home countries.  Many of those students’ classes are late at night, or even in the very early morning, after accounting for the time difference.  It’s a long way from South Carolina to Vietnam.

What that means is that we have to teach our regular classes; livestream them; and record those livestreams, making the recordings available after the class.  It sounds easy enough—so long as everything works perfectly.

That’s turning out to be the fly in the pancake batter.  As one of our dedicated science teachers said—the lady who troubleshoots our woeful technological glitches—“I can livestream, or I can record.  The trouble is trying to do both.”  Amen to that.

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