Desperate Need
October 2000, and I am on the dole for the thousandth day, the hundred thousandth day, for the millionth-and-first day, on the dole, working, but still on the dole, working a few hours for the university, but still on the dole, still claiming council tax exemption and housing benefit. Working, it is true, but not enough, there are never enough hours, so you’re on the dole. Working a few hours here and there, picking up what hours you can, but on the dole, on benefits, visiting the job centre, signing on every couple of weeks, standing in line and signing on every fortnight.
Working, yes, but you know you won’t get paid until February, that this is the deal, you begin working in September, you teach in good faith, you prepare your teaching, you get the bus to work, you attend the lectures on the courses you are supposed to be teaching and then supply the seminars. Working, but on the dole, because there is always the timelag, always that the university cannot manage to pay you for many months, always the six month lag, always that length of time when it cannot, for some reason, may a payment to you.
So roll on February, you say to yourself, February can’t come too soon, you say to yourself, because although you sign on, you are not entitled to full benefits, you work after all, though you are not paid for work, not until February, but you work nonetheless, which means you are not jobseeking, not entirely, so there’s always the suspicion, always non-comprehension, you have to make your case again each week, over and again, and they search each week on their database for lectureships in philosophy, no, nothing’s come up, they say, have you thought of anything else, they say, and you think to yourself, I’ve thought of everything else and that’s the trouble.
October 2000, housing benefit isn’t being paid, the City Council are months behind, and helping only those who are in desperate need. Those in desperate need are told to come to the Council to make their case. On the bus, up to town, across the squate, into the City Council, along the long corridors, through rooms which are only corridors, and there it is, the waiting room, but it is really a corridor, and the chairs lined up, take a ticket and take a seat, you will be seen, just be patient, so I take my place alongside the others, we sit, minutes pass, then hours pass, and we are asked to fill in forms about our desperate need, then to wait a little longer, and so we fill in forms about our desperate need and wait a little longer, and then we are told to submit our forms about our desperate need and come back another day, so out we go into the sunshine, another morning gone, another half-day wasted, we queued, but we were not seen for all our desperate need, this is the way of things, we are unemployed or half-employed after all, and the City Council is doing its best to sort out the mess, after all, and there is a great deal of good will in the civil servants we meet, everyone wants the best for us, everyone sympathises with us about our desperate need, no doubt they’ve been on courses on sympathising and empathising, no doubt they’ve also gone on courses for negotating and managing, no doubt they know how to deal with us and our about our desperate need, the long term unemployed, no doubt they are prepared to be tough, if necessary, and that they do not and cannot tolerate violence or verbal abuse. Out we go into the sunshine with about our desperate need. Another day, back on the bus, back home, moneyless, rentless, back home with no money and no chance of money, on the bus and wandering about those whose need is so desperate they never made it to the bus and to the City Council.
In desperate need, skint, cashless, rentless, hopeless, I phone the university, but nobody’s there, no one will take my calls, they’ve heard my whining before, they’ve heard my carping, they know what I’ll say, I always say it, the same lament, the same wailing. I go to the library to write a melodramatic e-mail, I’m in desperate need, I write, but am I in desperate need, not really, if I was in such need, I couldn’t write, I’m in desperate need, I couldn’t have made it to the library, couldn’t have logged into to my e-mail account, couldn’t have typed a line, nevertheless, I’m in desperate need, that’s what I write to my employers in the department of accountancy, I’m in desperate need, I write, and I need an advance payment, but it’s university policy not to make payments before February, that’s that. I know that, they know that, my silent correspondents. The issue’s been raised before. I raised it, they’ve heard me raise it. They’ve explained, they’re helpless, it’s structural, what can they do, they wish they could help, but they can’t help.
Should I go on strike? Should I withhold my services? Should I just not turn up to teach my Libyan students English? Should I just not get on the bus and not go to work to teach the students whose company in Tripoli is paying £16,000 to the university in fees but who are taught accountancy, yes accountancy, which is to say the English vocabulary used by accountants in England, by me, who knows nothing of accountancy, not a thing, who is the least qualified person to teach accountancy at the university, but I have to make a living,
I’ll teach anything, and so I teach in the business school, I take on those students who pay enormous fees to be taught by me, an hourly paid lecturer who receives £23 an hour, a fair amount, it is true, but then that includes preparation and marking and everything else, it includes the ride on the bus and the trips to the library, in I come, away I go, without an office, without a room, but in I come, away I go, promptly and efficiently, not overstaying my welcome, another of the ghosts of the academic world, another of the living dead of the academic world, the desperate ones who haunt the university, the ones no one wants to see, the untouchables and unpalatables and we might as well be unthinkable, we who barely exist, who exist only enough to deliver a course, who can be trusted only when all the other teachers have disappeared, only when they’ve vanished and can’t be contacted, then as a last resort, as the last of last resorts, always in a panic and at the last minute, I am contacted, they reach me by phone, after all what else was I doing, what else could I do, but wait by the phone, day after day, hardly existing, in which was never really desperate need, but what was need nevertheless, one day after another lived in need, a half life half-lived in need.
So the day passes, so another day is wasted, so another day am I too cross and frustrated to work, another day in obscurity, another day in vague if not desperate need, another day on the other side of the glass, another day dreaming of February, another day dreaming of payday, when will it come?, and of housing benefit, when will it come?, another day unemployed, but the unemployed have days to waste and time is on their side, all time is on their side, they have all of time, they can do what they please, their time can be wasted because they have time to waste, because all their time is wasted time, because they waste time and soil time, because time is wasted and soiled by them, because they destroy time, and especially work time, the time the civil servants spend at work, the time they spend working to process claims by those of us who do not work, yes we have all day everyday and all the hours of each day, and time stretches before us without markers, each day the same, pretty much, and each week the same, only the fortnightly signing on to mark time, only that fortnightly visit to the job centre, only that vague need that is never yet desperate need, only a vague need that fills the sky and fills the streets we see from the bus, only a need for the world not to be the world but to be something else, only that need which barely knows what it wants, but only that it refuses everything, loathes everything and wants done with everything.
It’s Good for Your CV
And meanwhile, for me, a few hours teaching here and there, a few hours teaching accountancy and economics, a few hours teaching business and politics, a few hours filling in for absent lecturers in philosophy, a few hours, sometimes unpaid – ‘don’t tell anyone about this’ – teaching in philosophy – ‘we can’t pay you, but it’s good for your CV’ – a few hours, sometimes unpaid, sometimes they don’t pay you, because it’s for your own good, it’s good for you – ‘we can’t pay you, we simply don’t have the resources’ – a few hours, they can’t pay me, they are victims just like me, we don’t have enough money, but still, it will look good on your CV.
And what do I teach my students? What do I teach my students in accountancy? I teach them about the fees they pay and where the money goes. I tell them where the £16,000 a year their companies pay in fees goes. I tell them I earn £23 an hour, quite a lot of money, but that includes preparation and marking, and of the conditions of my labour. I tell them this, they sympathise, and we go to the canteen because they like to feel life all around them, I tell them all about it, we talk about life in Libya, and we buy each other sandwiches and sit in the canteen and waste time, the time their companies have bought and paid for, the time for which the university pays me, I tell them about the secret lectures I give for which I am not paid, which are supposed to be good for me, for work experience, and how I am offered these hours as though they were a favour – ‘we can’t pay you, but it’s good experience’ – and that I spend several hours in preparation, several hours writing these lectures to impress, to make a good impression, I am not paid, it is true, but perhaps I can impress the students who will tell the lecturer for whom I’m covering that I was a good lecturer.
Yes, it’s important to impress, I tell them, to be seen to be one of the gang, to attend everything I can, to come to research forums and colloquia, to comment on papers and to drink with the others in the pub. Because there might be a job coming up, that’s the rumour. Yes, there might be a job, in the new year, that’s what we’ve heard. Not a full time job, it is true, but what they call a Teaching Fellowship, half-time, but quite dignified, a monthly wage, no having to wait until February, a monthly wage, not a bad one, considering, £9,000 will get you a long way, by comparison to what you earn now, yes, a Teaching Fellowship might be coming up, it’s a new rank, a new kind of post, ideal for the new academic, ideal for those looking to build a career, £9,000, you can live on that, it’s not a lot, but it’s a wage, and perhaps you can use the time to build up your CV, give a few papers, write a few papers, get a few publications, and then you can go on to another job. Yes, it’s probably unfair, but you’ll be in a better position than you are now, we wish we could offer a full time post, but you’d be unlikely to get it or even to be shortlisted, what you need is to build up your CV, to publish a few papers.
But the new academic year is a long way away. It is October, and I haven’t been paid. October and I haven’t been paid and I won’t be paid for a long time. We go out for a departmental dinner. The head of department: ‘we should do this more often’. The bill comes to £40 a head. I get £50 a week from the dole. It’s October, I won’t get paid by the university until February.
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