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[porcupine]

alley, no problem - you are welcome. The thing I used to find hardest was having to seem to climb down from a position I'd taken up for good reasons, in order to follow orders and thereby do something ethically reprehensible. It really used to stick in my craw, and I still feel some anger about the actions I took. I am trying very hard to let go of it all, and not to expend any more emotional energy on chewing over the past; I certainly wasted far too much emotional energy in being angry - unproductively, I should add - at the sadist in my former department.

You're right to focus on your own goals and to protect your time and sanity as best you can. Distance really does work towards this end - I always found the temptation to argue and thereby inflame the situation very difficult to resist, and now I wish I'd handled matters much more cleverly.

[alleyoxenfree]

It is difficult when they sort of relentlessly pursue you, because they can, to do the dirty work that's truly dirty, but they can order you to do it or you're "insubordinate."  There are also endless demands that make it almost impossible to have a personal life because you're being expected to be at their beck and call.  They enjoy ensuring that your personal life is disrupted - to the point that I no longer let them know if I have any plans.  I just don't pick up the phone because it is easier to deal with being reamed out for unavailability and how I'm not doing the job and not dedicated enough than to deal with their head games of "I can make you do this, and do it on your supposedly off hours."

[der_gadfly]

Treatment for sadistic emails: Hit REPLY, type in the following: "Please Elaborate", Continue as necessary until you have a solid case for harassment that will stand up to Board of Trustee scrutiny.

Alternative: sneak into their office and glue their pencils together.

Or you can take the high road, as suggested, but that is not nearly as much fun as playing passive-aggressive and messing around with an idiot who desperately needs a good thrashing. my two cents.

[alleyoxenfree]

The "please elaborate" strikes me as an excellent tactic in the sense that this guy seems hellbent on destruction of the department and of himself.  While avoiding him, I am making certain to get all his requests in writing, get him on the record with his demands, and asking him to be specific - to elaborate.  Making him make all the decisions, which he actually wants to make anyway, seems to be helping protect me, because now I can disavow the decision.  He wants troops who will follow his orders and now he's getting it.  No more innovation, no more going the extra mile, and my day is opening up!

[der_gadfly]

I use the 'please elaborate' tactic sparingly, and have found that after a few go-rounds, the perpetrator usually gets the hint that I am going to outlast hu.....

[alleyoxenfree]

I'm kissing Sadistic Boss goodbye - got a one-year position elsewhere!  Yahoo! 

He was as big a jerk as possible when I resigned, to the point that I wish I'd just not shown up to work again.  Sometimes the downside of trying to conduct yourself professionally and leave in the way you'd be proud of is.....you get kicked a little more.  At least it will be an everlasting reminder of why I went.  Thank you, one and all, for your moral support here, and for good ideas that I will take into my next interactions.

[porcupine]

Congratulations, alley! Best of luck for a happy time in your new job.

[wryter]

There's an interesting discussion going on about what happens when the VAP term runs out and there aren't any new jobs available.  You can find it here:

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,63099.0.html

I hope some of you will consider chiming in.  This seems to be an increasingly salient question.

[wild_rose]

Alley, belated congratulations! And I hope the new job is heavenly.

[madhatter]

Wow, one of my first posts was on this thread (page 2). I posted about my friend, Dr. Finally, who had landed a 3 year VAP at a good school after taking a very long time to complete a humanities Ph.D. As expected, his VAP ran out and he was sent packing. He had no permanent offers, and so he is back to picking up what adjunct work he can.

[porcupine]

alley, belated congratulations and hope the new job is going superbly well!

[alleyoxenfree]

Thank you, porcupine, I really enjoy the students here and am only sad that it's a temporary Band-aid.  The bigger issue is to find a permanent job and increasingly it seems that will not be in teaching.  I am sending out applications but simultaneously looking at administrative jobs and jobs outside academia.  It's hard not to thinking about the whole country and all this wasted productivity, talented people spending all their time on yet another CV or resume instead of contributing to a company or school's bottom line.  To pick up on the headline about presidents' pay, it certainly seems as though you could cut it in half, employ 10 more faculty and staff members and, if you made judicious decisions about those things, get much more bang for the buck.  We need to be questioning what we have received for these staggering salaries.  But I digress.....How are others finding the question of what to do when the VAP runs out?

[minira]

Quick question:

I'm starting my first job soon (as a VAP, obviously, as I'm posting here!) and it's all happening really, really quickly. And I was so excited to get the job. I loved the department, the people, the campus, the courses I'll be teaching..all of it. Then I got this email that burst my bubble a wee bit, and started freaking out a little. Just a little.

So, a couple of questions for you knowledgeable forumites:
Is it normal for VAPs to share an office and not have a phone? (also, the opinion was expressed that because the other person and I teach on different days of the week, this shouldn't be a problem. Is this a bad sign? Do they only expect me to be there when I'm teaching? And worse, oh God, are we going to actually be trading off days at a single desk?!)
Is it normal to have to sign your contract in person? And if so, did this mean an extra trip to the new job location for people, or that your contract only got signed the week before the semester started?  I'm finding it a little frustrating that the expectation was apparently that I'd either move to the area right before Christmas (what an awful time to house-hunt!), make an expensive extra trip there on very short notice just to sign my contract, or be unpaid while prepping my courses.  Has anybody else started a job in the middle of the academic year and faced this awkwardness about moving, etc over the holidays?

[womanofproperty]

There might be other threads that have useful information, but my luck with the search function is never very good.

OP, re office space, institutions generally and departments in particular differ in terms of how much space is available.  I've known places where t-t faculty share offices.  Or maybe tenure-track & tenured faculty each have their own office, but lecturers share an office.  I've found that available space is usually something that is outside the department's control.

You might want to phone or email the department secretary to ask about the size of the office, whether you get a separate desk, filing cabinet, etc. and what resources are available.  When I've asked questions like this in the past, I've always phrased it as, "Can you tell me a little bit about <space questions>?  I'm in the process of packing/moving and want to know how much I should plan to keep at home and how much I could have available on campus."

Be sure to ask them if there's anything else you should know (e.g. the earliest time you can set up email or course websites, procedures for textbook orders, etc. and who to contact for whatever).  If you ask as someone who wants to hit the ground running so you can fit in and be a good colleague, I think you'll find people will want to be helpful. 

I'd ask the chair what the expectations for time on campus are - asking "I'd like to be available for students, what have you found works best for department VAPs in terms of that?" might lead to some guidance on what's expected.  If they don't expect you to be on campus every day that could be a good thing.  You might find that you work best at home (I do) or in the library anyway, so sharing an office needn't be the kiss of death.  You might even like your officemate. 

Re contract questions (and arranging for benefits, etc.) I've usually phoned or emailed someone in HR to ask what the process is.  (The first phone call is usually to find out who in HR I should be talking to.) Be forewarned:  I've found that although there are basic similarities among institutions, the details themselves are always maddeningly different.  And they don't necessarily make sense.  Keep in mind that people at every institution are used to the way things are at that place, and think the procedures are obvious.  Stay cool. 

I'm not sure what you mean about not being paid for prepping courses.  I have known people who do the minimum.  So you could wait until the week before classes start to prep and use the old standby syllabus (Week 1 - Chapter 1, Week 2 - Chapter 2 . . . ) though I wouldn't recommend it.  Once I've prepped a course, it's in my repertoire and I only have to tweak it rather than start from scratch, but the first time, yes there's a fair amount of work and it occurs before the paychecks start. 

I hope that helps.

[grasshopper]

And if so, did this mean an extra trip to the new job location for people, or that your contract only got signed the week before the semester started?  I'm finding it a little frustrating that the expectation was apparently that I'd either move to the area right before Christmas (what an awful time to house-hunt!), make an expensive extra trip there on very short notice just to sign my contract, or be unpaid while prepping my courses.  

Well, you're on salary now, not being paid by the hour, and prep is part of your workload, so you are being paid for it. Just not at a convenient time. When I took the position I had now, I had to wait to get here so I could sign all those HR payroll documents before getting paid. It was a nightmare trying to scrounge up enough cash to move. But the good news is, you get a big, fat paycheque very soon after you start!