I am in my second year working on the business end of the college where I used to be an adjunct.  I don't miss teaching all that much.  At all really.  Don't get me wrong: adult education has lots of rewards of its own — the god-like deference with which your students treat you, that tasing sensation when knowledge changes hands — unfortunately, none of them are remunerative, and even gods have to eat. 

I do sometimes miss that part of me that used to teach.  You know when you put a part of yourself aside, thinking you'll come back to it? And then you sort of forget about it?  A couple of moves later, and one day you're like: "where did I put that shoebox with my soul in it?  I know it's somewhere around here!"  Nowadays I just don't have anything in my life that matches the zing and pop of the classroom when things click. 

I have my share of dark nights when I worry about what I'm becoming in the absence of all that.  It's nice to have a recognized role in society, a little something that actually legitimizes your existence a bit.  The work we do is important.  It shapes us, it gives us a place to grow and to share what we know.  Not to mention that, as an adult, it's nice to have at least one place in your life where people treat you like one. 

Do we have a right to meaningful work?  No, I don't suppose we do.  But we do seem to need some kind of meaningful social interaction in our lives to keep us truly engaged and not just floating on the surface of them. Can you imagine if Facebook and Twitter were really the extent of it?  But that's sort of what my life and relationships are like right now: a lot of short, peppy interactions with people, nothing too substantive, nothing too deep.  Social snacking, but I'm missing my three squares. 

Teaching is purposive — meaningful — and relational.  So it can be extraordinarily fulfilling intellectually and socially.  But it's also work and sacrifice, and can drain your emotional resources.  Even very gifted teachers get a lot of grief from people who don't understand what teaching is, the resources it involves. And society takes it for granted, because it's always been there, and whether or not anyone enjoys it, it always will be.  Despite claims to the contrary, teaching is the oldest profession (all prostitutes may not be teachers, but all teachers are prostitutes). 

The cost-benefit margin is more often than not razor thin for teachers.  No matter how much you love the warm fuzzies, you still have to eat.  So those of us without a trust fund are eventually forced to make compromises in order to feed and clothe ourselves, our kids, or our pets (admit it — you don't want to be seen with Fifi at the dog run in last year's canine couture).  Sometimes the sacrifice isn't apparent off the bat — it takes time to sink in.  That's been the case with my job as one of a small crackerjack staff charged with keeping the finances of the Institute in order.

But although I have suspected, it was not really apparent to me that I had begun the metamorphosis in earnest from service-provider to bureaucrat until yesterday afternoon.  I've felt tinges and tingles of bureaucratic privilege from time to time, as when I passed the buck when the buck someone had passed to me could have stopped in my in-box, or when I accidentally left someone on hold for half an hour.  In retrospect these were signs that something was changing, although at the time I wasn't quite conscious of it.

There is a whole thought process involved, a way of thinking that becomes a way of being that distinguishes the bureaucrat.  And whereas in the past, from the other side of the glass, so to speak, I found it infuriating, I have begun to see the logic and beauty of it.  There is a certain zen to it.  It requires balance and discipline in pacing.  A certain desktop tai chi.  Prioritizing, too. 

There is a misperception that bureaucrats don't have a concept of efficiency, because they may not address your matter with the urgency it seems to require, but this is simply an inability on the part of critics to understand the bureaucrat's pacing and priorities.  Every bureaucrat has a bottomless in-box, so a good bureaucrat has to be a master at managing the intricacies of work-flow.  This is why bureaucrats sometimes seem peeved at interruptions of their wu-wei.  But what looks like peevishness is actually a method of traffic control. 

I'll give you a perfect example, from just yesterday.  An instructor at the institute came to me worked up into a lather.  He had lost his ipod, and came up to the administrative office thinking we had a lost-and-found.  But things that get lost in a bureaucracy seldom get found, do they?  That would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?  I mean, things get lost for a reason, don't they? 

But the exercise wasn't entirely futile.  It was, first and foremost, a teachable moment for the teacher himself.  For me, while it was a brief interruption in my carefully paced work-flow, it was not unaccounted for.  Because of masterful pacing my work-flow is manageable. I could afford a few moments to savor the mild irritation of the inquiry. 

Of course, one of the perks of being a bureaucrat is that you get to be annoyed at just about everybody.  They expect it of you and you'd actually be disappointing them in a perverse sort of way if you didn't deliver.  And the young instructor before me was perfect.  I mean, coming to me looking for a lost ipod?  It's not like I'm an enemy of ipods, exactly, but it's a treat for me.  It's like annoyance, with a dollop of whipped cream (like, real, homemade whipped cream), sprinkles, and rum sauce drizzle on top.

I mean, from the bureaucrat's point of view, that you're a service-provider is bad enough. You're asking for an object lesson.  But then you're going to interrupt my work-flow to ask me if anyone has turned in a lost ipod?  Like anyone would do such a thing.

I weighed possible responses.  There's controlled outrage:  "What manner of frivolity is this?  I'm very busy here, as you can see!"  Polite disdain: "Oh, how terrible for you."  Stinging sarcasm: "How are you handling the loss?" Delayed disinterest: "I'm sorry, can you come back in half an hour?" Or there's always the Standard Reply: "Form 44A on the counter to your left. Your query will be answered in the order it was filed.  There is currently a six-month backlog."

Needless to say, passing the buck is an option, too.  And I was all set for an intradepartmental pass, when my colleague got a personal phone call.  So it was going to have to be the delayed buck pass. The teacher waited patiently while my colleague conducted her call.  After about ten minutes I got the feeling my colleague was actually conducting a veiled reverse buck pass back at me. 

At which time, the teacher stuck his head through the little window at the counter (real bureaucrats always have a little window between them and the rest of the world) and said, "just email me."
 
Excuse me?  "Just email" you?  Bureaucrats don't "just email" anyone.  We have procedures in place.  They're there for a reason, long forgotten, and short of an office reorganization, following a review, they will continue to be followed.  Because what happens when people just randomly stop following protocol whenever it suits them?  The whole thing unravels, doesn't it?  So unless you have something — preferably chocolate — to offer me, I'm afraid emailing you is out of the question.

Of course, you don't say any of this.  It's all to be understood when you smile wanly and hold up the "one minute" finger. 

Finally, my colleague hung up the phone, and seeing that I had successfully deflected her reverse buck pass, turned to the teacher and said: "no."

But he might come back tomorrow, or he could try downstairs. 

It was worth the wait to see a real master at work.

But the bureaucratic mentality has leaked into my day-to-day life as well, where passing the buck is often not an option.  The other day I was watching construction workers and enjoying the extremely rare treat of a BK Cheesy Bacon Tendercrisp Chicken Sandwich on a park bench in front of Trinity Church on Copley Square when two tourists came up to me. 

Granted, I was sitting next to that tortoise and hare statue that people feel an apparently uncontrollable urge to perch atop to have their pictures taken on.  And if you sit next to statuary like that I guess you should expect strangers to come up to you and ask you to take their pictures perched on it. it's not the sort of thing that appeals to me, personally, but it seems to be human nature.

Still it should have been clear to anyone I had my hands full.  Literally.  I was trying to manage this awful sandwich, and I was obviously preoccupied with the construction going on in front of me there.  So when one of them asked me, almost apologetically, to take their picture, I honestly don't know if it was the tourist exception that kicked in — much like the student exception — but as meek and kind as these two girls from some foreign country were, I felt absolutely no sympathy for them. 

I was like: "what does it look like I'm doing here?  Giving free pony rides?"

She was confused. " I...uh...?"

"I'm kind of eating here,"  I mumbled, my mouth full of gore.  "I mean, here my tomato is dripping out, and I have to manage that, and one false move and the chicken's going to fly right out of this bun. Do you really want me to get mayonnaise all over your camera?"

"Er, uh..." she stammered, still holding her camera out to me.

There was no one to pass the buck to, so by default my response was: "come back in half an hour and someone should be able to help you."

Otherwise, feel free to take a Form 44A. But I should warn you, there's currently a six-month backlog .

Have a nice day.