I Miss Being a TA

Before the Bug was born, I had what was, in some senses, the perfect job. While it paid almost nothing, it also had almost zero real responsibility. There was enough busy work to leave me feeling as though I had earned my paycheck, but not so much that I was truly overburdened.

Now that I am fancy-pants adjunct instructor of meaningless-liberal-arts-whatever, however, I have all the responsibility I used to so gleefully upward delegate. Grades, curves, all of this are 100% up to me, which is kind of scary. Also in my corner are the 10.000 whiny e-mails that will go like this:

Student: I don't understand why I got an F in your class. I came to class, I did pretty well on the tests.

Me: Well, actually, Student, you did okay on the tests, but you failed to turn in any of the written work.

Student: I didn't know it was assigned.

Me: It was listed on the syllabus, mentioned in class, and an assignment sheet was posted to the course website. 

Student: It's not fair. I'm telling, and I'll do what I have to to get my grade changed to the grade I think I deserve. 

I so wish this was an example was an exaggeration, but sadly, not even a little. Indeed, I might be representing the Student in this exchange as though they were being more reasonable and mature than they actually will be when the excrement hits the fan.

Therefore, I miss my old job. Seriously. I have no desire to deal with any of this. I want to head into summer blissful and ignorant of what a terrible and unfair human being I am. Growing up sucks.