How to Write an Academic Literary Bio

[Writer Name] is the author of [Novel/Short Story Collection/Chapbook Title] ([Name of Small Press]).  [His/Her] work has appeared or is forthcoming in [Insert list of other journals where the writer’s work has appeared, in order of most to least prominent].  The recipient of [Insert list of awards and fellowships received, in order of most to least prominent], [he/she] teaches in the [program name] at [name of university]. 

Literary bios are a common sight in creative writing journals where writers get published primarily as a way of getting or keeping a job as a tenured professor.  “Bio” here is different from “biography” in that a biography is usually the story of someone’s life, whereas a bio is primarily a tool for highlighting important things the person has done.  The goal of a literary bio isn’t to tell an interesting story (“He moved to the Yukon at the age of six and learned to clean and gut fish with only a butter knife”) or to reveal unique information (“She’s ambidextrous and teaches fine woodworking courses on weekends”), but instead to portray the writer as an established, competent, and esteemed individual whose writing should be viewed as important.

Literary bios usually consist of four parts:

1. The Lead. This should be a larger work that the writer has published.  (If no larger work is available, the Works List can serve as the Lead.)  Including the press name is a plus, since a higher-status press carries more weight than a lesser-known one, and mentioning the press name is good publicity. 
2. The Works List.  This is a list of places the writer has been published, starting with the most well-known.  (The Holy Grail for writers is to begin this list with The New Yorker.)  The names of the stories or poems aren’t important, since the focus is really on the status of the journals that have selected the writer’s work.  (This is especially evident when mentioning places where the writer’s work is forthcoming, since such unreleased work cannot by definition be appreciated by anyone—it is only necessary to mention the new outlet as soon as possible.)
3. The Awards List.  Fellowships, prizes (especially the Pushcart Prize!), shortlists, residencies, and the occasional artist grant all denote the writer’s work as worthy of such commendation, further establishing the writer as an important person.  Announcing the writer as the “recipient” of an award also sounds more prestigious than saying that the writer merely “received” it!
4. The Current Position.  Most bios mention the writer’s university and job title at the end almost as an afterthought, thus implying that the writer’s (usually academic) day job is less important than the writing itself, when in reality the writer’s procuring such a position is a large (even primary) motivator behind publishing in creative writing journals at all.  It is especially necessary here to mention the job title of “professor” or “assistant professor,” since saying that the writer “teaches in the creative writing program at X University” is often code for “works as an adjunct.”

In short, the secret to an effective bio lies in its predictability: bios are a tool for conveying information, measuring a writer’s achievements, and establishing a reputation, and thus serve the same purpose as the ingredients list on a box of fruit pies.

Ode to the Candy Machine at the University of Nebraska Press Building

For Chrissy Osmulski (1981-2015)

In the lobby of the office where I work there used to be a small candy machine perched on a pole by the elevators, the kind where if you put in a quarter and turned a crank, a mass of candies would drop down a chute, clatter through a hinged doorway, and fall neatly into your hand.  This machine, though, was different: while most candy machines have only three or four slots in a neat line, this one was a cube with slots on all sides, two on each horizontal face, with a total of eight candies to choose from.  It had M&Ms, Skittles, Reese’s Pieces, Mike and Ikes, Hot Tamales, trail mix, novelty gummy candies, and even some brown nuts of a kind I’d never seen in a vending machine.

The candy machine was the one iconic feature of the building lobby, where I spend no more than a few seconds waiting for the elevator each time I go into work.  It’s a long, rectangular lobby with entrances on either side, both of which are covered by square, flat awnings.  Oversized American flags and a potted plant attempt to instill a friendly atmosphere in the corridor, and perpendicular to the entrances large glass doors open into large offices, though both of these offices have moved and printed notices remind visitors to come to their new locations.

I noticed the candy machine on my first day because it was the one object in the lobby that actually stood out, and I swiveled around it to see the types of candy on its four faces, two of which were tilted inconveniently close to the wall.  It occurred to me that if I had a quarter (which I usually don’t—I rarely carry change anymore unless I’m doing laundry or happen to have purchased something with cash that day) I could turn the crank and get a handful of Reese’s Pieces to eat on my way home, a reward for making it through the workday.  I could also have tried the brown nuts I’d never seen in a vending machine before, or bought some Skittles to eat one at a time (since Skittles are best savored individually, rather than in a mixed handful).  I wondered how much candy one got for a quarter—had the manufacturers considered inflation by working an adjustable valve into each slot’s measuring mechanism, or did twenty-five cents buy the same number of M&Ms today as it did in 1980?  If it did, then buying candy from the machine might be a better deal than buying it in single-serving bags from the gas station, a bargain the building owners may or may not have foreseen.

Then, one day, the machine disappeared.  When I came into work and found it not in its usual spot, I looked first to the other end of the lobby to check whether a thorough janitor or furniture mover had placed it there temporarily, but it wasn’t at the other end of the lobby either.  Nor was it there the next time I came, or the time after that, and even though the American flags and potted plant were always in their same places, the candy machine wasn’t.

I often remember how the candy machine’s compartments were always full, and though I’d initially considered this an illusion maintained by slanted surfaces inside the case, it occurred to me that fewer people passing through the lobby meant fewer candy purchases, and fewer of those people carrying change meant fewer purchases still.  I wonder how much money the building owners made from the machine, or whether some rental agreement had actually caused them to lose money by keeping it there.  I also wonder whether I could have halted them from removing it if I myself had started carrying change and actually used the machine.  I wonder what those brown nuts tasted like and what they’re called; I can’t describe them exactly, but would know them if I saw them again.  But most of all, I wonder about the men who’d come while I was away and pulled the machine down the outside ramp on to a truck, and whether they’d taken that truck to a warehouse somewhere with all the other candy machines no one wanted.  If I’d happened to be walking in the day they were bringing the machine out, I could have done nothing more than watch them from the back stairs. 

I miss the machine now that it’s gone, since there’s nothing else in the lobby to look at, and without it I find my thoughts at the beginning and end of the day much emptier than they used to be, with fewer things left about which to wonder.

Hiebner Teaches Ian About the Midwest: A Play in One Act

IAN and HIEBNER sit working at computers in adjacent cubicles.  On IAN’s screen are pictures of farms and farming equipment.  He considers one photo with confusion and, after some thought, pokes his head over the cubicle wall.

IAN: Hey Hiebner, what do you call those long things with the wheels that farmers have in their fields.  I think they’re for spraying or something.

HIEBNER (nonchalantly): Those are pivots, or you can call them circle pivots.  They’re for watering, and what’s really cool is when you see pictures of fields with circle pivots taken from the sky and the whole field is just these huge circles of green.

IAN: Okay, thanks.

IAN returns to his computer and types something.  Several beats later, he pokes his head over the cubicle wall again.

IAN: Hey Hiebner, what do you call it when the machines are gathering up hay from a field, and they bundle it up in this big roll—like a really big one?

HIEBNER: A bale?

IAN: I thought bales were for rectangles of hay.

HIEBNER: Either one.  You can call it a circle bale if you want.

IAN: Okay, thanks.

IAN returns to his computer, types something, and this time immediately pokes his head over the cubicle wall again.

IAN: Hey, what do you call…

REPEAT performance until audience gets up and leaves.

Why I Don't Like Direct Deposit

I get paid by direct deposit now (on the last day of the month, unless that day is a weekend or holiday, in which case the money goes in on the business day immediately preceding), though I miss the days when I first began working and got paid weekly by check.  This was at Market Basket, where every Thursday after one or two o’clock the paychecks would come in on a truck, and you had to go to the courtesy booth and tell the woman (it was always a woman) behind the glass your employee number, after which she would rifle through the stack of paychecks and slip yours through the slot between the glass and the counter.  If you went right at one o’clock this usually took longer because there were still many checks to rifle through, but if you went on the weekend the woman was usually able to find yours without much time at all.

I didn’t think about this then, but having a physical paycheck and stub (in my case the kind where you tore off three of the edges and the stub came open, still folded on its fourth edge with the paycheck loose inside) provided a physical reminder of the work you’d done, and that you were being rewarded for it with money, the reason you went to work in the first place.  Sure, the paycheck was only cheap paper with numbers and a printed signature, but the act of tearing it open, signing it, and depositing it at the bank linked the act of working with the reward of having money.

Now, though, the money goes directly into my checking account without my seeing how, and though I can check the same numbers on my computer or a deposit receipt, there’s no talk of money when I’m at work, or anything that associates money with work at all.  When I’m at work now and people talk about money, they speak of the rewards of their labors as being disassociated with the act of work itself, as if the money was being deposited into their accounts on its own, as if work and money were completely separate.  Though we all know that the money we receive comes because we performed work that month, there’s very little within the working experience to remind us that this is true.

When we forget that money comes because of work and that work leads to earning money, we start doing the work without understanding why, and spending the money without remembering where it came from.  Work becomes an aspect of life rather than a chore done to earn a reward, something we do without thinking, that we’ve always done and continue to do, while the money flows in and out like the water from a tap that we know not to waste but leave turned on anyway. 

Such disassociations are dangerous because they make it more difficult to leave a job we don’t like, or are ready to move on from.  The more passively we view earning money, the harder it is for us to risk disrupting the flow.  I try not to forget that, even if I don’t have a tear-away pay stub anymore.

Workers Say, Academics Say

People at Work Say...	Academics Say...
Get hired	Get funding
Get a raise	Get more funding
Work overtime	Have a large courseload
Look for a job	Go on the [job] market
Boss	Adviser
Co-workers	Colleagues
Work, the office	Campus (or building name)
TGIF	ABD (All But Dissertation)

Academia, I've noticed, carries with it a language all its own, often meant to distance the work performed by professors, adjunct faculty, research assistants, and graduate students from the language of traditional 9 to 5 office or labor jobs.  Money, for instance, is referred to less in terms of salaries or paychecks, but instead as funding, and those looking for a new job are said to be on the market (as if they were planning to purchase a new beach house or sport utility vehicle).

What is the purpose of such distancing?  Avoiding the language of the working world creates the impression that the tasks performed by academics aren't actually work at all, but something greater and more important.  This, however, makes more sense when referring to writing or research performed of one's own volition and far less sense when a research assistant performs the same data entry a low-ranking temp would be paid an hourly wage to type out in a cubicle.

Academic jobs involve work the same as any other jobs, and to pretend that they don't is to allow for the type of exploitation worthy of an Upton Sinclair novel.  Considering that academia is experiencing an adjunct crisis as more and more high-paying professor jobs with benefits are transferred to low-paying adjunct jobs with no benefits, one would think that academics everywhere would want to unite themselves with the rest of the workforce by not referring to the work they do as somehow deserving of its own vocabulary.

The new academia is a scary place.

When the Market Basket Workers Fight Back, Everyone Wins

I didn't make this, but it sums up the movement's feelings pretty well

Market Basket supermarkets, my first-ever place of employment, has made the news for its companywide demonstrations against the ousting of former president Arthur T. Demoulas as part of a longtime family rivalry.  Arthur T.’s firing led to employee demonstrations in front of every store (“Honk if you love Artie T!”), a call for shoppers to boycott Market Basket, and empty grocery shelves as truck drivers refuse to deliver products. 

The rivalry between the two Demoulas families has been longstanding as the board of directors split into two factions: one in favor of keeping employee benefits substantial and its store prices ridiculously low (Arthur T.’s side), and the other (led by Arthur S., a.k.a. the Bad Arthur) plotting to make more money by raising prices and looting the employee profit-sharing pool.  The pictures on the movement’s Facebook page sum it up pretty well.

I don’t work for Market Basket anymore, but the Warner store was a big part of my life for a long time.  I spent most of high school and college there, used its paychecks to buy my first two cars, and spent a great many hours in its dairy cooler goofing off with my friends. It’s also where I learned about work, how not to fake sick when going to a music festival, and how to balance a part-time job with school, creative work, and a social life.

It’s more than just nostalgia, though, that drove me to follow the saga of the company where I once earned my living stocking the half and half shelves; it’s what the Market Basket battle represents in our country’s struggle to counter trends of increasing imbalance.

Right now, Market Basket employees earn twice yearly bonuses, varying in size depending on the worker’s wages and the time spent at the company.  They’re also offered shares in an employee profit-sharing program where they can cash out a large sum of money after retiring.  Again, this amount varies depending on the time spent with the company.  In an age where the pension and profit sharing programs of the post-war era have been dismantled in favor of individual retirement plans, Market Basket offers its workers (even the part-time ones) a long-term deal that rewards loyalty and discourages job-hopping. 

Think of it this way: if the grocery store across the street offers an experienced worker with profit-sharing benefits a higher salary to do the same job, that worker is less likely to accept because the offer involves a greater long-term loss.  Employee longevity offers pluses for both sides as workers enjoy higher benefits and the company spends less money training new employees.  It also gives workers more incentive to stick up for their rights, while a culture of job-hoppers will just grumble and seek out a better deal somewhere else.  The people in charge don't always like that.

Profit-sharing weighs heavily in company politics, as when Arthur T. replaced a full $46 million in bad investments lost in the 2008 crisis.  Such an act did not go unnoticed, and with Artie T. gone, workers fear their profit-sharing and other perks could be taken away. 

Financial matters aside, though, building a loyal worker base offers social benefits that, as Arthur T. has stated, “can’t be measured in dollars and cents.”  Higher benefits mean workers can put their children through college, buy houses without being foreclosed on, and take vacations to improve their quality of life.  Developed skillsets and company loyalty also yield positive results for communities as customers enjoy consistent service and interact with happier employees rather than a revolving door of untrained workers and policies favoring anonymity.  Customers are growing tired of the big-box model anyway, as this 2011 NewEgg commercial suggests.

These values go beyond company profits and bottom lines.  Contrary to what Mitt Romney might think, corporations are just abstract entities existing around the people who work for them.  When real, human workers (the people who make up the majority of the company) are seen as transient and expendable rather than loyal members of the group, it becomes easier for CEOs to dismiss them as undeserving of the company rewards while they quietly increase their own salaries.  Americans are becoming more aware of increasing gaps between the top and bottom of the corporate hierarchy, and one way to discourage such behavior is to consider all members of a company as playing for the same team.

It’s one thing, though, for us to sit around on the internet discussing poor working conditions and another to actually do something about them.  The Market Basket delivery boycotts and employee protests (thousands attended the Tewksbury rally on Friday) are the closest I’ve seen to a full worker strike in my area, the kind of Upton Sinclair/Sylvester Stallone-style protests that gave us the five-day workweek, safer working conditions, and hundreds of other benefits that people every day take for granted.  The strength of the Market Basket protests sends a clear message that corporations can’t manipulate workers and get away with it, and that people will take action when they’re treated unfairly.

Some may argue that with capitalism, workers are free to get a new job if working conditions don’t meet their satisfaction, and that a competitive free labor market can only help workers as companies fight to win their favor.  Unfortunately, though, with nationwide unemployment still at 6.1% and some states as high as 7.9%, finding a new job is easier said than done.  Worse still, if every company offers low wages and minimal benefits, what incentive does a new company have to offer more when it knows that workers will settle for less?

The Market Basket workers have said they’re not going to give in until Arthur T. comes back.  Meanwhile, the bad publicity, empty store shelves, and lost revenue have prompted rumors of Arthur T.’s buying out the other side as the quickest path to resolution.  No matter what the outcome, the New England grocery world isn’t likely to remain the same, and if we’re lucky, both workers and board members everywhere will take notice.

Morning Walks

In the mornings before work I walk down Milford Street to where I park my car. The morning air is cool and my mind is calm without the demands of the day to overwhelm me. I notice details like the raised carvings on a neighbor’s porch, or the electric lamps sticking crookedly out of a garden, things that make the world a more interesting place.

It is during these three minutes—the elongated stretch after leaving the apartment but before putting keys in the car’s ignition—when the day’s opportunities are open and waiting. I do not have to drive to work if I do not want to; I could easily go somewhere else where I could discover something new or pursue some goal I would like to achieve. Now that summer’s begun and I no longer wear my button-down shirts and ties, the morning walk could easily be the start of a long journey to a place I have never been.

The feeling exists for those few minutes and is gone, because the drive to work is familiar: I know where I’m going and I’ve been there before. The feeling does not exist on the way home, when the workday is complete and tasks accomplished. Evenings abound with other possibilities, but I think about the daytime ones most.

Officespeak Dissected: On Use vs. Utilize

In his groundbreaking work, Talk Around the Watercooler: The Syntax of Officespeak (2003), Chicago linguist Bertrand Hillworth describes the twelve syntactical and dialectical patterns that differentiate Officespeak from regular English. In chapter seven (“Throwing Out the Phrasal Verbs”) Hillworth documents the tendency among Officespeakers to choose longer, more complex Latinate verbs where casual English speakers would use shorter, Anglo-Saxon ones:

Officespeak	Casual English
purchase	buy
initiate	start
identify	find
disseminate	let (someone) know
utilize	use

Hillworth, however, understates both the overwhelming predominance of the utilize substitution in Officespeak and the discord between utilize and the more casual use. Consider the dictionary definition of the former:

utilize vt [F utiliser, fr. Utile] (1807): to make use of : turn to practical use or account 

A synonym study of use reveals that

UTILIZE may suggest the discovery of a new, profitable, or practical use for something 

These definitions imply that utilize, in the strictest sense, means to use something that is otherwise not being used, or to use something for a purpose other than its intended one. Thus, one can say:

Having accidentally brought the backpack full of office supplies on the camping trip, I utilized a letter opener to clean and gut the salmon.

I utilized my brother’s toothbrush to clean the inside of my hubcaps.

In the Macgyver pilot, the title character utilizes chocolate bars to plug a leak in the reactor. 

Consider situations where use would be more appropriate for these same items:

Rather than risk a papercut, I used a letter opener to open the morning mail.

I always use the same toothbrush for longer than I should.

Don’t eat the chocolate! Let’s use it for smores instead. 

However, as Farnsworth (2005) and Creyton (2008) document, Officespeakers are more likely to use utilize as a synonym for use in their everyday work speech:

Our organization can utilize the technology grant to purchase new computers.

You can utilize either the main entrance or the side door in the morning.

I suggest utilizing your time productively. 

In each example, (all taken from Creyton), the speaker uses utilize as a synonym for use while ignoring utilize’s definition of using something for a purpose other than its intended one. So widespread is utilize’s appearance in American offices that the literal definition has become all but lost, with the majority of Officespeakers expressing disbelief when confronted with the difference.

Creyton offers further proof of utilize’s ubiquity in the administrative world by noting that utilize is the most common dialectical trait for casual English speakers to copy when attempting conversation with Officespeakers. Simply put, if a non-Officespeaker meets an Officespeaker, he’s more likely to slip a stray utilize into his speech than to pick up on any other aspect of the dialect.

Why is utilize so common? Linguists differ widely on this question, but Farnsworth’s theory holds that because utilize is such an easily copied way of giving a matter the illusion of importance, those who aspire to pomposity in their professional lives subconsciously emulate it as a way of sounding more important, though they’ve not yet mastered the other Latinate verbs on Hillworth’s list or learned to alter their verbs into nouns (i.e. say be a recipient instead of the simpler receive). Thus, an overuse of utilize implies that not only does the speaker harbor dreams of advancement, he or she may be an apprentice Officespeaker not yet comfortable with the dialect.

The Economist recently gave a nod to my coining of the term Officespeak in an article on reflexive pronouns. Click here for the full article.

A Very Short Story About Job Searching

At work I occasionally receive unsolicited e-mails inquiring whether my school has any job openings. My usual course of action is to print them out, give them to my boss, and then place them unread in a large filing cabinet full of overloaded hanging folders.

Usually the resumes are from people well-established in their teaching careers, but one came from a recent college graduate. She was interested in counseling and social work, and currently working an unpaid internship at another school far away from where she lived. She was looking for a two-day-a-week counseling job to supplement her internship, and wanted to be paid for doing what she loved.

I read her cover letter several times and decided it would be worthwhile to ask the principal whether we had a place for this girl, even an unpaid one, for there was no money in the budget to compensate her. I rehearsed the manner of introduction that would portray her in the most positive way possible. She has solid experience. She’s good with kids. She’d be willing to work for free.

I was very busy that week (with kids needing to go home sick, forgotten musical instruments to be delivered, announcements to be read, substitute teachers to call, and report cards to file), so I did not find the time to explain these things to the principal, who was also busy. The girl’s e-mail fell behind others of more immediate importance, and after two weeks it seemed silly to follow up on something so late.

I felt bad for neglecting her, and thought back to all the resumes I’d sent out during my job-searching days. Nothing hurt more than not getting a response back, and facing the agony of waiting. In a faceless world indifferent to the sufferings of young people, this girl deserved to know that someone had been thinking about her. I was overstepping my bounds here, because only the principal can decide who gets hired and who doesn’t. This would be my act of subversion—to restore humanity to the job-searching process. I would write her a genuine response, and maybe even allude to my own difficulties finding a job that suited me. But keep at it, I would say, because the only real failure is submitting to less than your ideal. That thought might give her hope in a difficult world.

But I was very busy the next week too, and didn’t write the e-mail. Instead I threw her message away.

School Administrative Office Fill-In Game

Instructions: There's a problem at the school, and the office assistant needs some help! Fill in the blanks in the sentences below using one of the choices under (A), (B), (C), or (D):

Office Assistant: Is it OK to (A) ____________________?
Principal: (B) ______, because if (C) __________, then (D) __________.
Office Assistant: I see.

(A)
...sign this welcome letter?
...let this kid with a broken leg use the elevator by himself?
...remove this tick from a junior high girl’s scalp?
...ask a fifth grader to help me move this very large and heavy fish tank?
...give Tylenol to this girl who’s having menstrual cramps but doesn’t want to tell me?
...post pictures from the science fair on the school website?
...let this kid go home with his grandmother without a note, even though I talked to the mother about it earlier today?

(B)
No...
I wouldn’t if I were you...
Uh-uh...
You’d better not...
Technically, we're not supposed to...

(C)
...anything in that letter was inaccurate or could be claimed as false advertising…
...the cable suddenly snapped and the elevator hurtled downward into the basement...
...the tick burst, spewing lyme disease-filled puss everywhere...
...that fish tank fell on his foot...
...you gave the wrong dosage and she had to have her stomach pumped...
...any of those parents didn’t want their children to be photographed...
...there were to be a car accident, kidnapping, fire, molestation, abusive situation, air raid, or if the kid got sick or had an allergic reaction to something in the car or tripped and fell on the front stairs or bit down on his popsicle too hard and cut his tongue or got really upset and cried a lot on the ride home...

(D)
...the parents would sue the school, they’d sue me, and then they’d sue you
...you’d be legally responsible
...you’d be held liable for that
...it’d be a legal nightmare, and you’d be dead in the center of it
...there’d be grounds for a lawsuit, and you wouldn’t like that very much, now would you?

Officespeak Dissected: On the Overuse of Myself

From the Journal of Contemporary Linguistic Study, Volume 21, Issue 2:


Because Officespeak as a dialect spoken by middle- and lower-level administrative workers and bearing its own unique vocabulary, idioms, and grammatical structure has only recently come under the close scrutiny of linguists, many of its idiosyncratic uses (or usages, as Officespeakers would say) have not yet been isolated for further study. This journal proposes to chronicle some of the emerging distinctions drawn between Officespeak and our own variety of Common English.

One of Officespeak’s most widespread traits is its use of the reflexive pronoun myself to increase the formality of a sentence. Consider the following Officespeak sentences alongside their common English equivalents:

Example #1:
Mr. Graham and myself are expecting you in the meeting room by 3:30. (Officespeak)
Mr. Graham and I are expecting you in the meeting room by 3:30. (Common)

Example #2:
He gave copies of the guest list to Donald and myself to proofread. (Officespeak)
He gave copies of the guest list to Donald and me to proofread. (Common)

Example #3:
Return this letter, signed and dated, directly to myself. (Officespeak)
Return this letter, signed and dated, directly to me. (Common)

Linguists theorize that Officespeak’s use of myself in place of I or me deviated from Standard English in one of two ways:


Theory 1: Base Uncertainty: As in the first two sentences, Officespeak’s myself often appears when the speaker is referring to both himself and another person. The speaker may have been unsure whether to use I (a subject pronoun) or me (an object pronoun) and thus risk appearing unprofessional by making the mistake. Myself, however, shrouds the sentence in a more formal tone whose grammatical structure is more difficult to decipher (one of the dialect’s main purposes), ensuring that the mistake will not be noticed. Over time, use of myself grew to include sentences in which the speaker refers only to one person, as in Example #3. (For a more thorough discussion of this transition, see Hartwick pp 17-293.)



Theory 2: The Fear of Unprofessionalism: In common English, small children are often criticized by teachers and pedantic parents for making the following error:

X Josh and me got really wet!
O Josh and I got really wet!

The top sentence is wrong because the italicized portion is a subject, not an object. However, using Josh and me is correct when it serves as the sentence’s object:

O Ryan splashed Josh and me with water!

If this is still confusing, try reading the sentences without Josh around to muck them up:

O I got really wet!
O Ryan splashed me with water!

However, through overcorrection, many children learn to shun using Josh and me in both cases, thus transposing the taboo onto both subject (correctly) and object (incorrectly). When attempting to form a sentence that would accurately use Josh and me (see Example sentence #2), the Officespeaker substitutes myself, fearing that any use of Josh and me would be viewed as improper.  Kincaid M. Fowler, the theory’s leading proponent, reasons that Officespeakers attempted to escape their childhood humiliations instead of correcting them, and widespread Officespeak use of myself then grew to include subjects (as in Example #1) and objects without a second noun (Example #3).

Altered use of other reflexive pronouns (yourself, themselves, etc.) has not yet been adequately documented among Officespeakers, though the linguistic community is currently awaiting a promising study of the speech patterns of manufacturing accountants in the 128 corridor of northeastern Massachusetts.

Stock Responses

The Scene: Our hero, on a break with a co-worker, is discussing a recent string of terrorist scares in which white powder was mailed to schools around the continental US.

“Everyone thinks it couldn’t happen up here,” my co-worker says with an air of authoritative experience, “but if it did, as soon as you opened that envelope, there’d be that moment when suddenly, BAM—you’re in the real world.”

“That’s true,” I agree. “I don’t think people consider serious threats a possibility, though I also don’t really like the term “real world” because, I mean, we all live in the real world—”

In the middle of this sentence my co-worker’s eyes take on a vacant, glazed look, his mouth forcibly curls upward into a smile, and his cheeks crease unnaturally with the strain of listening to something he is so clearly not interested in, for he is annoyed by my insinuation that he has just used a clichéd term inappropriately and could not care less about my interpretation of the phrase “real world.” That’s when he says it, in a long, slow drawl:

“Yuh-huh.”

More and more often I find myself noticing moments like these when my interlocutor acts on his or her obvious disinterest by either changing the subject or (more commonly) using a stock response. In this instance I am uncertain whether the culprit is simple disinterest or my having chosen to speak at all. Or, is it a fear that I may take the conversation to a place in which my co-worker has no bearing, and thus nothing to articulate? (He would have to be quiet, then, and might become embarrassed if it appeared that I knew something he did not know. After all, he is older than me.)

The stock responses people regurgitate in these situations have no real meaning, but are easy to say and create the illusion that the person is listening or interested in the topic at hand. (To my great disgust, they have also become more socially acceptable.) Common examples include:

I know!
Oh, sure.
Definitely!
Absolutely!
Amen to that.
Yeah, I know, right?

Stock responses are often accompanied by a lack of eye contact, forced smiles like the one described above, an overabundance of laughter, or continued involvement in a task or activity while speaking. I believe the majority of people accept these encounters as a conversational norm (particularly in the workplace or when meeting people at parties before the alcohol has worked its desired effect), but we don’t have to let this happen. If we all listened more, made more of an effort to engage ourselves in what other people had to say, and focused less on sharing personal accomplishments, our conversations would flow more genuinely. They would also be more interesting, and talking to others would be more fun. It would be a more dynamic world.

But there are a lot of people out there, and a lot of them are stuck in this conversational rut. Is it too late for some of them whose souls have been dulled by years of flagrantly self-centered behavior? I wish I had the answer.

We Want....Information

This is what happened today:

A girl: Mr. Rogers, can you send my application to B____ B_____?

Me: Of course. Let's just make sure you're not missing anything. (skims over papers briefly) Looks like you forgot to put your phone number here.

Girl: Oh, it's fine. My sister goes there, so they can just get it from her.

Me: What?! This is an application to high school, which, along with college and job applications, is one of the most important documents you will fill out in your entire life! You have to fill these out perfectly! If they ask you for something, you have to give it to them, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. If they ask you which cereal was your favorite when you were six, you'd better tell them! It's a simple sign that you can follow directions, which is all these schools really care about anyway! The simple act of filling out the form correctly implies responsibility, and thus proves you will be successful at their institution. How can you be expected to expound upon the relationship between deism and quantum theory if you can't even take the time to fill in your phone number?

Girl: (writes her phone number in the blank) Can I go now?

Me: Yes

Writing Every Day

These days I think a lot (and I know my fellow writer and former roommate Randall does too) about whether it’s better to write every day, or whether some days are just not worth squeezing creativity from.

“Do you write every day?” George Packard asked me once.
“Um,” I said, “I try to.”

I’ve heard from books, teachers, and peers that writing every day keeps us sharp, focused, motivated, and—most importantly of all—moving toward a goal. Being busy, they would say, is no excuse. If I really wanted to write, I would find the time. (I find that most of the things I really want to do I eventually get around to doing, and those I don’t get around to doing I don’t want to do all that badly in the first place—like visiting Niagara Falls or reading Crime and Punishment.) Being busy is no excuse. Or is it?

When I was unemployed, I didn’t write every day (see this blog post as to why ), so I don’t think it’s a simple matter of free time. Rather, I look at my ability to sit down at the computer (or notepad) with confidence. If I have something clear to say, if I believe in whatever that something is, and I have confidence in my ability to express it well, then it’s less daunting for me to switch into creative mode and make it real. But on days when I’m fearful, pessimistic about the future (much less often now), discouraged, lack confidence in my prose, or afraid that a certain project will never amount to anything greater than a blog post, I find myself lying petrified on my bed unable to develop the ideas, in their place a swirling fury of worries about my very real existence, and not the fictional one I’d like to be working on. Some of these are days when I would very much like to write, and I become frustrated when I cannot.

Other days I find myself too burned out and tired to even think about writing, if I’ve worked late or had a long week, or just been through some exhausting ordeal. Is it better to fight through the fatigue and force the words to come, like an angry lover after a long night of fruitless intercourse? Some of my worst work has come on days like this, but some people might argue that bad writing is better than no writing at all.

On still other days, I have things that I would like or need to do. The April Fool’s Mix CD Swap for instance, while a lot of fun and creatively satisfying, takes up a tremendous amount of time. I write a lot of e-mails to friends now, but am still forgetful about communicating with some. I also read less often than I did in high school, which is something I’m trying to change. Last week the school where I work had a snow day, and instead of writing, I touched up the paint on the door panel of my car. I enjoyed doing it, and the Volvo certainly looks better now, but was it a good use of my time?

I think the ideal solution lies in settling all this other stuff—whatever it may be—so as to leave as much time, energy, and confidence to allow productive writing time. If I lack free time, I should cut back on other activities. If I’m low on energy, I shouldn’t work as hard. And, if some outside factor is affecting my ability to focus positively on writing, I have to fix it.

Perhaps writing every day is less of an ultimatum to be adhered to and more of a goal worth shooting for.

Japanese Meetings

The following entry, like everything else in this blog, is a work of pure fiction. The incidents and opinions do not refer to the author’s employer or any other actual Japanese company, and all sentiments herein are the compiled result of heresay and careful research. Any implied connection between modern corporate Japan and Showa-era aggression policies is also purely imaginary.

One of my students is a college professor at the local university. On this particular Friday evening he came into class with his head down and shoulders slumped after what he described as an egregiously boring meeting. Having that afternoon suffered through an hour-long meeting rife with excessive Head Office managerial control, I empathized.

“Are American meetings,” he said, thinking over each word before he spoke, “similar to Japanese meetings?”

The time it took for me to respond in the negative was approximately equal to the time it takes a beam of florescent light to travel from the Teacher’s Room ceiling to the hastily pinned up copies of this month’s Self Study Achievement Ratios. We had a good laugh over this.

“My image,” he continued, again choosing his words carefully, “is that Western meetings have some...purpose.”

Yeah, that sums it up pretty well.

It is difficult to describe the stiff, uncomfortable atmosphere of a Japanese meeting; particularly on the days when some unseen committee at the Head Office has contrived some elaborate procedure for classroom management and passed it on to the Branch Managers, who’ve passed it on to the Head Teachers, who are holding a meeting to pass it on to the foreign teachers, who will promptly ignore it as soon as the meeting is over. All decisions of any importance have already been made before the meeting starts, and the actual meeting is merely an assembly to formally pass on these orders to subordinates like yours truly. We sit in a semi-circle around the Head Teacher as she reads from neatly typed Head Office documents (which often contain simple English mistakes that I take great pleasure in circling with my blue pen) and nod robotically, mumbling the occasional hai, wakarimashita, or “I understand.” Breaks for questions are followed by brief silences where we stare uncomfortably at the floor; for to ask a question would be seen as admitting one’s weakness in not understanding orders; or worse: an attempt to oppose the Head Office’s wishes.

Orders from a superior have a kind of sanctity in Japan. For teachers to question an order from the Head Office, no matter how much it adds to their workload or how nonsensical it appears, would be unheard of. Other decisions made by Branch Managers, School Mangers, or Head Teachers carry similar weight; and should any employee be daring enough to point out some flaw in the plan or justify an alternate method, their argument would be immediately dismissed as going against the established order. In corporate Japan, your opinion does not matter.

It is no wonder then that I was so surprised upon coming here and seeing people nod mindlessly at their boss without so much as a stray comment; behavior that would be interpreted by most Americans as blatantly not listening. It disappoints me to see them accepting orders without critical thought, questioning whether the order is feasible, or attempting to understand the intentions behind it. Don’t even think about refusing, for that would be unheard of (people would look at you strangely). Theirs is a culture of obeying; often expressed in English by bosses with that ubiquitous phrase we need you to:

We need you to wear a suit to work every day.
We need you to talk to students in the lobby between every class, even if you’re busy.
We need you to schedule a counseling session with all students, whether they want it or not.
We need you to use the daily pronunciation practice sheet at the beginning of every lesson, no matter how good the students’ pronunciation already is.
We need you to finish these measurements by tomorrow morning, even if you have to work all night without sleep to do so.
We need you to go on a business trip to Seoul this weekend. We know you had vacation plans, but you’ll have to reschedule.
We need you to work six days a week until after ten PM. We know that you have a wife and children who you want to spend time with, but we’re very busy now and the work must be finished.
We need you to transfer to Osaka next month. We know that your friends, family, and your entire life are here, but we’re closing your branch and you have to go.
We need you to crash this special kamikaze plane into the foreign battleship, killing all of the enemy onboard and yourself. We know that you really wanted to live past age nineteen, but it’s imperative to our success in the war.

Shikatta ga nai. In Japan, these things happen.

How Eikaiwas Work

The following entry, like everything else in this blog, is a work of pure fiction. No references to any actual people, events, or corporations (including that which employs the author) is intended; and any resemblance to such persons, events, or corporations is entirely coincidental. Any claims the author makes regarding the motivations or business tactics of any corporation are completely fabricated for the purposes of fiction. Copyrighted images of Duke Togo have also never been used in company advertisements without proper permission.

To advertise a discounted TOEIC test preparation class, one of the Japanese teachers at my school made magnetic signs featuring a grim-faced Golgo 13 and some flashy statements about the cheaper price. She stuck the signs in the upper left corner of the whiteboards in every classroom where they could grab the attention of students during lessons. Though it was pretty cool to have Duke Togo looking at me during the day, the sign got in the way when I stuck practice cards on to the whiteboard and took up space I needed for writing. My annoyance with the sign grew so great that I finally moved it to the lower left where it wouldn't obstruct my teaching. Some days, however, after another teacher had used my classroom, I couldn't help but notice that the sign would be blocking the upper corner of the whiteboard again. We played a back-and-forth game for about a week until I took to shifting the sign back to the upper corner myself every time I left the room for fear of getting a talking-to.

If that's not the perfect metaphor for how English conversation schools in Japan operate, I don't know what is.

Time Management

Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22 over a six-year period while he worked at an advertising agency in New York. Every day he got up, put on his suit, and went to work like everybody else; but every night he worked on that enormous novel whose character timeline he’d painstakingly laid out on his desk blotter. He had rent to pay, plus a family to support; and he managed to finish such a huge project at the same time. I wonder if he ever came home after being belittled by his bosses, overwhelmed with too many assignments, or frustrated by bureaucratic nonsense, and found that work had drained him of the energy necessary for writing. More importantly, I wonder what his attitude toward his job was.

Some nights I also come home too exhausted after shouting out pronunciation and answering grammar questions to do the things I’d like to do. Other days all I can do is lay down on my bed and stare into space because some nonsense order from an invisible superior has left me so bitter and frustrated with Japanese offices that I want to shout in their faces that all their regulatory nonsense is a misguided waste of everyone’s time. On those days I can’t do much at all. I especially can’t write.

In that respect, my job fails me a small but significant percent of the time. When I envision my ideal job, I of course imagine something that would challenge me, stimulate my thinking, and would give me pure satisfaction at the end of every day. My second choice (and a more reasonable option for the present) is a job that is not at all stressful or mentally taxing; supplies the necessary income for food, rent, and student loans; and leaves me mentally free to do my own work after I’ve clocked out.

My brief stretch painting houses was the closest I’ve come to the latter scenario. Every day I drove to Hillsborough to touch up windows and coat walls while listening to NPR, and came home still energized enough to write the bulk of the Carcrash Parker script (it just didn’t pay enough to let me move out). If I were disciplined, I know I could work a day job purely for the necessary sustenance and focus my main energies on writing. Keyword being if.

My current job strikes a tenuous middle ground between these two extremes. It’s interesting enough to stimulate my creativity and allows me to live on my own, but the stress interferes with my free time often enough so that I must mention it here. While it’s true that I’m not working on a novel, and most of what I write can easily be described as hack work, it’s still important to me to keep at it. I have an adventure game script to finish, Japanese to study, kanji to learn, and observations that beg to be written down.

It’s a challenge anyone with aspirations outside of their job has to face, and one that is especially pronounced in all us twentysomethings with lofty dreams set adrift in the Post-College Abyss. I can’t force myself to write on the bad nights (though some sources tell me I should try), but I can work on the good.

If it’s any hope, I will say this: I’m writing this entry on a weeknight after work.

Charisma Man Walks Among Us

click for larger image

I briefly mentioned Charisma Man in an earlier post after Tom introduced me to its greatness, but found it far too brilliant to lay buried in an entry with a half dozen other links no one would bother to click on. The comic ran from about 1998 to 2005 in an old gaijin mag called The Alien (which later became Japanzine), and I'm currently on the lookout for a reasonably priced copy of the out-of-print collected series. (If any gaijin out there can help me on this quest, I'd be much obliged.)

Charisma Man is the epitome of the arrogant, self-interested, ill-qualified English teaching gaijin who flees a humdrum existence in his native country to seek fortune, respect, and lots of hot sex. Upon reaching Japan, he is transformed into a muscular hunk of pure confidence who draws scores of hot females to his side until he encounters his arch-nemesis: Western Woman.

What captured my attention most about this strip is this idea of a misfit gaijin not being able to make it in his home country, and coming to Japan as an easy way to gain power and popularity. Just like Superman on Earth, the most ordinary of Western attributes become extraordinary feats here in Japan. Guys who worked deadbeat jobs back in the West discover that their ability to speak one of the most in-demand languages in the world instantly qualifies them for a high-paying teaching position that demands instant respect from the Japanese people. Those misfits from the Western dating scene can come here and—with the help of a little confidence—win instant attention from females of all ages, sizes, and levels of English ability. The capacity to consume more than three glasses of beer, reach tall items on shelves, accomplish the simplest of home-repair tasks, wield a phallus longer than four inches, and instantly answer colloquial English questions impress people like magic. And even the simplest of Japanese language skill or chopstick handling will never fail to impress a crowd.

But this existence is all a facade. However much his newfound powers boost his ego to superhuman proportions, Western Woman proves that Charisma Man's popularity is all a sham by knocking him back to his true geek status. I see plenty of guys here using their gaijin status just to win girls, but the Charisma Man phenomenon goes deeper than that. Success in Japan for all but the truly qualified is just a lot of smoke and mirrors; most gaijin aren't doing anything that any number of Westerners couldn't do as good or better than themselves (in the classroom or the bedroom). Without real talent you are nothing; and all the colloquial-English in the world won't deliver you real success. Maybe every gaijin needs a Western Woman to hold up the mirror and show him his true form.

Still, for those who can't stand the reality of that mirror, Japan makes a great hiding place. Why face the humiliation of your pathetically-low Western job qualifications when you can make a real salary, sleep with dozens of women, and be worshiped as an eigo no sensei instead?

For more Charisma Man strips, click here or here. This article is also informative reading.

Life in Japan #1: My Job

In the Japanese office in which I work there are eight people of whom I am afraid. Each of those eight people is afraid of twelve people in addition to the other seven, for a total of one hundred and four people who are afraid of or feared by at least one other person...

Ha, ha, just kidding. I work for the Kriasho Corporation, a chain of eikaiwa, (English conversation schools) with 300 branches across Japan where adults and children come in once or twice a week for a fifty minute English lesson. Kriasho schools employ both Japanese and native English speaking teachers, with most of their classes taught solely in English. The corporation prints its own textbooks and trains its own teachers. Most schools average about four hundred students and are open from noon to nine PM, with classes ranging from private lessons to group lessons capped at twelve. Foreign teachers are not required to know Japanese and work thirty-six hour weeks while teaching anywhere from twenty-four to twenty-eight lessons per week.

My school is in Kofu, a small city about two hours west of Tokyo, on the fifth floor of this building:



It’s the one front with the HOTEL sign mounted on top. The smaller building to the right is a pachinko parlor that I have not yet dared to enter, and the bigger building to the left is Yamako Department store across the square from the train station (not pictured).

As you may be able to tell from the picture, Kriasho Kofu, like most things in Japan, is quite small. Outside the main lobby are eight classrooms, each about half the size of a Bennington single, and a teacher’s room crammed with lesson materials and office equipment. You can view pictures on the website , though be warned that it’s in Japanese. (The fourth tab from the left is the Staff page, which is helpful for when I can’t remember my coworkers’ names.) The staff includes a manager, an assistant manager, two full-time Japanese teachers, five part-time Japanese teachers, and one other native English speaking teacher.

Kriasho Kofu’s size extends to its student population as well. One hundred seventy adults and twenty-six kids attend Kofu school, about half the size of the other Kriasho East Japan schools my training mates are teaching at. Most of my classes are only one or two students, and my largest so far has been five. (This has made it much easier to get settled in.) I teach classes ranging from low-intermediate to advanced, plus one advanced class for middle-school students, two elementary school classes, and one preschool class. I have met many people and remembered few names.

The Kriasho East Japan Corporation handbook also specifically prohibits me from releasing any information on my blog, personal website, or social networking page regarding Kriasho business practices or personal student information; as well as any words or pictures that depict the company, its staff members, or students in a potentially offensive, embarrassing, or otherwise negative way. (I’d quote that section of the manual here, but I’m not allowed to reproduce that either, in whole or in part.) The consequences for such infractions include suspensions, pay cuts, immediate dismissals, or worse: a talking-to.

(“They can’t deport you though,” Marcel explained as we sipped eight-hundred yen glasses of draft beer at the foreigner bar in Omiya made up to look like a British pub where Japanese businessmen gathered after a long week of work and cigarette-smoking Brits chatted idly on high stools. “That’s one power they don’t have.”

“What do you mean?”

“South Korea’s much lot stricter,” Marcel said with all the experience of his two years teaching there. “Working visas are given under sponsorship of a Korean company, and are only good for one year. If they fire you, or if you get caught taking private lessons as a violation of your employment, you lose your visa and they can deport you. But in Japan, the rules are different. Our entry visas are good for three years regardless of whether you’re employed. That’s why so many teachers were able to stay when NOVA went under. If we quit or lose our jobs, we can just find someplace else to teach.”)

Because of this blogging rule, I probably won’t be talking much about work here and will instead focus on other aspects of my adventures in Japan. Any anecdotes that do make it into this blog will be heavily obfuscated, with all names changed or blanked out as with my tutoring and substitute teaching entries—because now what I post online could have far more serious consequences than just the crazy cigarette-smoking Amber waiting to accost me in the shadows outside Commons.

Here are some other resources if you’d like to read further:

Kriasho's Recruiting page
Kriasho Kofu’s website (for all the skimmers)
Jobs in Japan – Choosing a school
Just some article I found

In which Ian discusses his thoughts on Marriage with a twelve year-old, and is accused for the first time of being a Homosexual.

I am in the midst of a very one-sided Jenga game with S——, a twelve year-old girl I am tutoring. This is a girl who has repeatedly told me that I would make a good candidate for Beauty and the Geek. We are playing Jenga while I drill her on her times tables as a reward for her success with solving exponents and adding fractions with the same denominator.

“How old are you, anyway?” she asks, poking a block from the stack with her pencil.

“You always forget how old I am. I’m twenty three. What’s eleven times six?”

“Sixty-six. Are you married?”

“You know I’m not married.” I pull out a center block. Easy. “Besides, I’m too young to get married.”

“That’s not true! My mom was married when she was your age!” S—— shouts to her mother who is in her bedroom enjoying a much-needed break from parenting. “Mom! How old were you when you got married?!”

“Twenty-eight.”

Her face falls. “Oh.”

I take up my point again. “Some people do get married young, but plenty of people get married when they’re older too. Eleven times twelve.”

“One thirty-two.” She yanks a block from an unstable part of the tower. “Hey, I know! You can marry my mom!”

“Uh, I don’t think so.”

S——‘s mother seems to share my sentiment, and tells her to go back to the game. S—— tries again.

“What about when you go to Japan? I bet you’ll meet a girl there you can marry.”

Everyone brings this up when they find out I’m going to Japan; as if it were a requisite of the teaching abroad experience to return home with an exotic Japanese bride in a kimono and slippers. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. Eleven times ten.”

“Yes it will!” She becomes noticeably excited. “Unless you’re....”

Her eyes suddenly become wide and she covers her mouth as if she has just heard an adult tell a lewd joke and needs to hide her understanding. She chooses her words carefully: “...unless you’re like my mom’s friends up the street!”

Her mother rushes to my rescue, and I am so taken aback that I feel the need to protest before calming down and slowly pulling out another Jenga block. I gather my thoughts.

“As I was saying, I don’t feel ready to settle down and live that kind of life. I’ve got other things I want to focus on, and a whole lot of living to do. Even if I was ready, I haven’t met the right person. And how terrible would it be to marry the wrong person?”

S—— ignores me and carelessly pushes another center block onto the table, toppling the top half of the tower with the satisfying crash that signals my time to go home. Another lesson learned.