at one time in my foolish past
i cared.
i really did.
i marked up papers
with comments like
“awkward phrasing” and
“what exactly are you trying to say here?”
i believed in things
like rigor
and standards
and the educational process.
what a dumbass i was.
turns out
no one wants that.
not the students,
not the dean,
and definitely not the guy
in the neighboring office
who got promoted for smiling more
and assigning group projects.
it was the department head
who taught me, indirectly,
how to thrive.
not through mentorship
but through that look—
the one that said:
lance. just give them what they want.
so i did.
i stopped grading.
just gave them all A’s.
try it and watch your popularity soar.
smile in the hallway.
say “good job” like you mean it.
save your real effort
for things you enjoy—
drinking wine,
sorting your sock drawer,
imagining parallel universes
where your degree mattered.
for papers,
i used the “staircase method”—
just toss the essays down the stairs
and grade based on proximity.
the ones that landed closest to me got A’s,
the rest got A-minus.
no comments.
no rubrics.
no soul-crushing line edits
that no one reads anyway.
i timed myself.
a whole batch of freshman comp
done in under five minutes.
red wine in hand,
barefoot on the landing.
adjunct enlightenment.
the truth is
you’re not paid enough
to do it right.
so do it wrong
with style.
nod meaningfully in meetings.
make a slide deck with images.
say “scaffolded learning”
at least once a semester.
then lean back,
accept your CTE scores with grace,
and let the university keep
doing what it does best—
collect money,
hand out degrees,
and call it transformation.
