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Last night, I did some very rough calculations to explain why, when I move to Montréal, I will probably look for a retail / office-type job. It's not that I don't love teaching, and it's the one thing that I really am qualified to do, but it's likely that if I picked up classes as an adjunct somewhere while working on my dissertation I would be a tired, underpaid ABD (All But Dissertation) for the rest of my life. To wit, the following are all very conservative estimates of the work that I have seen during my five-ish years as a supposedly part-time (at least according to my pay rate) TA. During this time, I have:

• Read, graded, and commented (often profusely) on 550 essays;
• Read, discussed, and co-edited with the author 377 other essays;
• Read (and, more often than not, discussed) 450 essay drafts.

Looking at these statistics, I can see a) just how damn good I am at managing and allocating my time, and b) why, during the past few years, it's gotten a tiny bit easier to designate grades. (Though the cluster of non-objectionable AB-ish papers will always be my Achilles' heel.) So, yeah. Unless a teaching opportunity jumps into my lap, I'm looking forward to a few years of a job that stays in the workplace.

When you apply, consider places that will give you a discount on good stuff... like Tim Horton's, Swiss Chalet, or Shopper's Drug Mart.

Not sure what your feelings are for the company, and it is what it is, but my sister (who worked there all through college) says Starbucks is a GREAT place to work, and if you move, transferring is easy if you want to. She worked at one in Boston while at school, and even when she would come home for winter and/or spring break, they'd transfer her for a week to one of the local shops. She was just a part-time barista kid (age 19-21 at the time)! Just saying. Plus, non-traditional hours (whether it's early morning or nights) are SO much better than 9-5. If you work early, you still have the whole rest of the day to yourself, or if you work nights, you can sleep in and still have a few hours to do your thing. I'm convinced 9-5 was designed to suck our souls.

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