Immediately upon returning from her extended holiday trip to an undisclosed location, with a tan on her shoulders and a smile on her face, #1 Groupie declared today (December 5) to be National Thank-a-Troll Day. She called the selection committee's attention to Invictus' statement, "There's lot of good stuff in this thread, but I'd like to nominate this one (Runnin' ragged) for thet thar Citation de le Semaine award recognition." Upon examining the thread to which Invictus referred, the committee voted unanimously to present today's award to an entire "conversation" rather than to individual posters. With that introduction, let me thank Get Real for unwittingly kicking off a conversation among several posters. The entire conversation, containing long overdue content, is today's winner. Thank you, Get Real, for inspiring the following winning discussion:

Get Real: "All should notice that 90% of the whinning comes from the LAB - The Lazy Arts Building!!!!!! In order to be a taxpayer you gotta work?"

Linger Longer: "Whinning? Taypayer? Maybe someone should have spent a little more time in the LAB!"

New Adjunct: "And just where did you get that number? A lot of the people on this board are not at USM, and a lot more are from Business and Education. And, just FYI, everybody in the LAB pays taxes, lots of em."

The Shadow: "Amen. In my more cynical moments I wonder why the faculty works so hard to give [some] alumni a university which is better than they deserve or want."

Biggest Whiner of them All: "Get Real, I gave my soul to your 4th tier university - a mistake which I will always regret. When I see posts like yours I feel I sold my soul to the devil. I am not in COAL, by the way."

Stephen Judd: "One small section of the Arts reporting for adminishment. Get Real is invited to shadow me any day he/she likes . . . . make sure you bring your running shoes and eat well in the morning because it is a long time between meals . . . your view of those who teach in the humanities suffers from a radical case of stereotyping."

Music Patron: "AMEN. I know this from long years of watching (most) of the faculty of the school of music. The days begin early and end late, and often faculty work all weekend."

Runnin' ragged: "The dawn-to-dusk + weekends+ evenings model applies to quite a few faculty members. I don't think even the IHL has the foggiest idea about what a faculty member's job entails. Maybe they should spend a few days following a faculty member around. Tell them to bring their Dr. Scholls corn and blister protecters along."

foot soldier: Wasn't it Klumb (or someone in the H-A) that said all Dr. Thames wants is 'a day's work for a day's pay?' If USM faculty got paid for what they were working, they'd all be making as much as Angie Dvorak!"

Runnin' raged: "If all a university got out of a faculty was 'a day's work for a day's pay' the university would be getting a heck of a lot less from the faculty than it is getting now. USM had better hope that its faculty doesn't decide to merely 'work to contract.' The university would be dead in its tracks"

Jameela Lares: "Those outside of a profession usually have an extravagent--and false--perception of it. Get Real may be thinking that all jobs are 40 yours per week (or - gasp! 50!) at something one really doesn't like but one knuckles down and does anyway. But most of us in liberal arts work something like 80-100 hours per week, sometimes 120; I understand this is true of professors in other disciplines as well. I made more money per hour as a secretary, but I'm not in it for the money. I'm in it because reading and writing and teaching and researching and confering with colleagues and advising students all day, everyday, is what I want to do; it's who I am. In fact, being a professor is just about all I do. Okay, I sing in a choir and I run errands and pet the cats, but even when I go on 'vacation' it's to a conference or to a rare book library. The term 'liberal arts' has been redefined over the millenia, but the term originally meant those studies appropriate to free citizens of a republic--not wage slaves--who couldn't conceive of a different type of labor. What those on the outside don't realize is how odd a charge of laziness sounds. It's entirely off-topic. We're not thinking of 5 p.m. and gritting our teeth until then. We're thinking about how to locate an elusive source that will prove or dispove a theory, or how nice it would be to have a library budget this year, or any one of a myriad of things that occur to professionals while they are doing what they love."

Sweat Shop Sally: If I didn't know we were talking about a university here I'd think we were talking about one of those old 'sweat shops' where women worked long hours sewing piecemeal garments for outrageously low wages and had no meaningful representation to the factory owners. We had sweat shops in Mississippi many years ago. Maybe yet another is surfacing right here in Hardy Street."

Stephen Judd: "It IS the same mentality. After all - those managers who used to run the factories had to go somewhere right? Now they get college degrees and become white collar managers. Just because some of us wear ties or office clothing doesn't mean we aren't being subjected to coercive techniques to produce. I know some of you don't like this idea but the difference between working for a unionized faculty and a nonunionized one is vast. Most of the faculty in the union were just as ambitious and hardworking as we are. They just weren't as oppressed. And guess what --  the union would be on this on-line thing like flies on you know what -- and not just because of the labor issue, but because of the very same issues we are concerned about: quality; integrity, and student education. I know because I was there when this issue hit my school up in New York in 1994."

Invictus: "Just my , of course, but the best teachers aren't 'employees' of 'white collar workers' or even 'professional educators.' They are missionaries. With apologies to Belushi & Ackroyd, my best profs were on a 'mission from God.' And missionaries don't work 9-5 hours & punch out when the mill whistle blows. Sorry, Ol' Roy, but you need to stick to sawmills."

The entire Mr. Wonderful organization thanks all of the posters who participated in this winning conversation. Congratulations for being part of a winning combination. And thanks to you, Get Real. While not part of the winning combination as such, you did provide the impetus for a very meaningful discussion!