rungs

I was going to go out and run around in nature a bit this morning. But nature includes a thin but thorough coating of ice, so here I am listening to the furnace blasting away. Oh well, portions of the house need cleaning anyway. 

Note that I'm not doing that either.

I'll go into work in a few hours, where reorg is happening. Boss's job is open, apparently, since Boss got moved up a notch. Assistant Boss is reluctantly applying. Reluctantly, because he's said he doesn't really want the job - is happy in second place - but doesn't want some "unknown" manager stepping in. He used the term "martinet" when voicing his fear, so I learned a new vocabulary word.

mar·ti·net

/ˈmärtnˌet/

Learn to pronounce

noun

1. a strict disciplinarian, especially in the armed forces.

   "the woman in charge was a martinet who treated all those beneath her like children"

Welp, none of the rest of us want the job either, and Assistant Boss is the most likely choice anyways. But then, I don't think any of us underlings want the assistant job either. We're all part-timers with other income trickles, not necessarily in the ladder-climbing season of life. From casual conversations, while it's a nice little part-time gig, it seems clear that none of us want to do this work full time. Plus, we're a state college, so the salary is crap.

I'm just riding along, waiting to see where we are in a month or so.

I was having a similar conversation with one of my tutor cohorts. "K" is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, so I will respect their preference here. They had applied for a full-time math faculty position, but told me they weren't selected. Seems too early to know that, and I have no idea how many applied, but K is now looking at alternatives.

I'm certain K could quite readily get a full-time job teaching high school math, but I know they don't want that! I explored that for a few months, myself. No thank you.

In the meantime, K and I can shoot the breeze during slow times in the math center. I first met K at the tutor kickoff meeting last fall. I thought they were a woman until they spoke to me in a clearly masculine voice. So my initial impression was - that guy who wears skirts every day. No makeup, nothing frilly, they just prefer skirts.

But I've since gotten to know them better, and I realized I don't notice the binaryism so much. K is just K - a helpful tutoring resource, math geek, and confidant.  If they truly want to be full-time faculty, then I would hope that for them, but I don't know that the position was all that desirable other than the increase in pay. Plus, who would I then chatter with in the math center?

So back to the Boss position, a committee has formed to make a selection. Coworker Party Girl is on the committee, presumably to "stuff the ballot box" in Assistant Boss's favor?

Or at least to keep out the martinets.