My success no matter how humble angers people.

[Mrlonelyone]

I am a adjunct professor now. I only have a Masters degree but I am a professor because my research record has that much impact . In 2015 peer reviewed citations will start to accumulate rapidly.

 

For someone my age, an age where most PhD's are on their second or third post doc position this is great. By all rights I should not have my jobs. Yet my modest success seems to irritate annoy and anger people I know or have known. I have tried to downplay it with humility but still.

 

Give me an alternative to this. I really want to just be like eff it and just be a total *ick. Call myself Prof. MLO MS in all correspondence, not just official documents as is my right (in the USA one does not need to be a dept. chair to use that title. Unlike the UK where prof. is reserved for the dept. chair or someone holding an endowed chair. All those who teach college courses for college credit are professors.)

[GorillaTheater]

I've been in higher ed for 17 years, but as "staff", not faculty. At the risk of generalization, here's what I have observed:

 

1) Adjunct faculty are generally treated fairly crappy by tenured or tenure-track faculty. They tend to rank adjuncts about as lowly as staff. Even staff like me that they have no choice but to pay attention to.

 

2) Faculty can be surprisingly prone to petty jealousies regarding the achievements and success of other faculty.

 

Put the two of them together, and you find yourself where you are (assuming of course you were talking about your peers and not those outside academia).

 

I think I can explain the source of the problem, but not the solution. I don't know that you have any other options but to just deal.

 

Big congrats on your scholarly success!

[TXGuy]

Who is this angering? I'm not mad at you about it (I don't care). Is it people at work or in your social life? I would think people in the university would recognize publishing is a very big deal and apparently (in your case) gives the same status as a phd.

[Mrlonelyone]

Actually it's not the other faculty. Where I am most faculty are adjuncts and those who aren't have been adjuncts at some point. Even when I interact with people who are faculty where this is not the case they are pretty good about it. They know the real score, that it's not that big of a deal. In fact at this point in my life if I wasn't some kind of bonafide faculty it would be odd.

 

I'm talking about people my age or younger who are not staff or faculty at colleges or universities. They range from people I've known in college for years or since last year, a couple of family members one by blood another by marriage. Some were mere acquaintances. Yet they are people who it really disappoints me would act that way.

 

Frankly it is as if they don't feel I deserve something I've worked hard for for many years.

[GorillaTheater]

Okay, strike one for GT.

 

Let's see if this is what's going on:

 

I was the first person in my family to get a graduate degree (my dad was the first to finish college). I got a lot of blue-collar blow-back, the "educated idiot" kind of stuff. Any of that sound familiar?

 

Whatever the case, it sounds like jealousy to me, and there's still nothing you can do about it. Of course, it reflects far more on them than it does you, but I'm sorry you have to deal with this.

[Mrlonelyone]

Okay, strike one for GT.

 

Let's see if this is what's going on:

 

I was the first person in my family to get a graduate degree (my dad was the first to finish college). I got a lot of blue-collar blow-back, the "educated idiot" kind of stuff. Any of that sound familiar?

 

Whatever the case, it sounds like jealousy to me, and there's still nothing you can do about it. Of course, it reflects far more on them than it does you, but I'm sorry you have to deal with this.

 

That's sort of it. My family has a couple of branches. One branch are my half siblings and their descendants, one in particular was angry even that my father married my mother. While her children, now adults, are cool they have lingering resentments. Maybe they don't like that I am so blaze about something they would feel was a bigger deal? I don't know. I just know when I am resented.

 

As for the old friends and acquaintances, it may be that my entre to the professoriate, as part time as it is, divides me from them now. They are some kind of student and I am no longer a student. That's that....kind of like an commissioned officer who started out as an enlisted person. Maybe I should just not want their friendship.

[almond]

I find it unusual that so many people in your life are outwardly expressing their "anger" towards you in relation to your professional achievements.

 

Exactly how are they indicating to you that they are angry, and in what context?

[Mrlonelyone]

I find it unusual that so many people in your life are outwardly expressing their "anger" towards you in relation to your professional achievements.

 

Exactly how are they indicating to you that they are angry, and in what context?

 

Subtly and in a variety of context.

[Mr Scorpio]

Might the economy have a role in it? That is to say, are the folks who are criticizing you struggling to find work themselves?

 

Personally, I would run into people in law-school who slacked-off and got 2.5 GPAs, but didn't care because they had a job lined up with their father's firm "back home". While this didn't make me angry per se, it did elicit a

.

[almond]

Subtly and in a variety of context.

 

That doesn't explain much really. I don't know you or your situation, but I would suggest evaluating your relationships with the people in question. From your description, I would assume that they are quite close to you. Why would they not be happy for you? Perhaps it would be wise to have a think and determine if your interpretation of these "subtle" slights may be a little skewed, or if you need some better people in your life.

 

As I said, I don't know you or your relationships with these people, but if after your evaluation you decide that they do care for you, it's always good to check yourself just in case you're contributing to the problem.

[Candy_Pants]

You've earned your spot as a professor. **** what other people think of you. Instead of bitching they should be working harder and using you as an inspiration. Or at the very least, not being so damn green with envy.

[Eggplant]

They all killed themselves getting a PhD and worked like slaves as post docs and are fighting like sharks for the few scraps of positions available to PhD's, and then in you walk with just a masters and get one. Haha! (No doubt you also have worked hard).

[gaius]

If nobody hates you then you're doing something wrong.

 

Congratulations by the way!

[Glinda.Good]

I'm not mad at you. Congratulations!

[EasyHeart]

That's sort of it. My family has a couple of branches. One branch are my half siblings and their descendants, one in particular was angry even that my father married my mother. While her children, now adults, are cool they have lingering resentments. Maybe they don't like that I am so blaze about something they would feel was a bigger deal? I don't know. I just know when I am resented.

 

As for the old friends and acquaintances, it may be that my entre to the professoriate, as part time as it is, divides me from them now. They are some kind of student and I am no longer a student. That's that....kind of like an commissioned officer who started out as an enlisted person. Maybe I should just not want their friendship.

There's always going to be someone who doesn't like you. Screw 'em.

 

I once heard that you can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself. Do you know who said that? Ricky Nelson, that's who! And if you can't trust Ricky Nelson, then who the f*ck can you trust?

[Priv]

I am not saying you are doing something wrong, but maybe unintentionally you are handling something about your promotion wrongly.

 

 

I find it weird that family + family by marriage + acquaintances + friends act jealous and/or hostile towards you. If it was just one or two people I can relate. But this many?

[carhill]

You'll always be professor cosmology to me, the person forever looking to the stars and understanding them a lot better than this amateur, and uneducated, astronomer.

 

Tip: Surround yourself with people of all educational and intellectual levels who share a commonality, that being happiness with who they are and their place in the world. It's a big world with a lot of people so provides wonderful opportunities. The rest is, well, the rest.

[Tbisb74]

I'm going back to Uni for a degree. I hope the bar-stewards hate me. I will be cleverer than them and intelligently rise above such trivia. If it chokes them, it will be their problem to digest, not mine.

[Haydn]

I applaud you on success. Alot of people who drift along sometimes resent success. They are usually waiting for something to happen instead of going out and getting it. They feel they deserve it somehow. My family instilled a strong work ethic on me. Encouraged education. Don't worry about it.