Scanning The New York Times today I recalled the words of the late, great George Carlin of Manhattan: “Here’s another pack of jagoffs who ought to be strangled in front of their children.”
First up for a vigorous and final throttling: Whoever coined the abominable “polyworking,” which sounds vaguely sexy, like “polyamory,” but actually describes the need for more than one job to cover the payments on the used Ford Focus in which one sleeps between shifts in the barrel(s).
Erin Hatton, a sociology prof at the State University of New York at Buffalo who studies the labor market, told the NYT that the practice can be “a way to take back ownership of work and one’s career in a meaningful way, pushing back against the sense that you are identified by one job, one employer.”
But Hatton conceded that not being identified “by one job, one employer,” is … not always optional.
“There is an element of gloss to it that minimizes the hardship and economic need that forces them to cobble together a variety of subpar jobs,” she said.
Will this be on the final exam? Doesn’t matter, I’ll be working that day, and all of the others, too.
Next: Come on down, Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree!
Matt told the NYT — in a story about people who have to finance their groceries — ““If you’re living paycheck to paycheck and you’re on a tight budget and you have several of these loans out at one time, it can be very easy to get over your skis here.”
“Over your skis?” You need a short-term loan to buy your Hot Pockets and you’re over the skis you don’t have? I mean, shit, dude, read the room. The room that looks a lot like a Ford Focus without a (duh) rooftop ski rack.
And as George reminds us: “Try to pay attention to the language we’ve all agreed on.” It probably won’t help you understand the kids on TikTok, but at least you’ll be able to read your job(s) application(s) and the fine print on that buy-now-pay-later deal.
Mad Blog Media 
Seems that Erin and Matt don’t spend much time in the real world. Having one job with one employer that allows you to live comfortably is a bad thing? Ask a person living in their car in Aspen if they are “over their skis. Christ on a bike! Maybe they are really just AI writers?
WARNING: FOAMING RANT FOLLOWS.
(and it’s not even Friday….)
Jesus Christ on a crutch. Being a tenured full professor sure does insulate you from that tough “permatemp” work force. I sure hope she treats her teaching assistants (TA’s) better than the Sociology Dept. treated theirs back at Stony Brook when I was a grad student. The sociology TA’s got paid a base teaching assistant salary to teach entire courses while their faculty advisors sat on their asses writing books no one will read. I knew all that from being on the graduate student senate and temporarily dating a sociology grad student involved in the unionization movement. I was fortunate enough to be in the sciences, where we got paid to do our research, thanks to the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the occasional NOAA grant.
Fuck me running, trying to put a smiley face on having to slave away at multiple jobs to make the rent and food budget much be soooo much fun while gleefully taking back your identity from one employer. Even if it is the one who actually pays a decent salary and provides some job security.
I am sure the sociology grad students I knew at SUNY Stony Brook would like to read Erin’s books. After a grad student strike, a tent city, multiple arrests, and a lot of anger, the grads there eventually unionized, CWA, 1104. I do note Erin researches graduate students being the equivalent of forced labor. Interesting that she seems so blithe about it in that quote you provide.
Below is Erin’s web page. Sorry, Patrick, but I guess you hit a nerve. I too could have written a journal article on grad students as “Coerced: Work Under Threat of Punishment”. Thing is, many people think grad students are just lazy and avoiding the work force. What actually happens, especially at state universities and colleges, is that the grad students, adjuncts, and temps do a shitload of the work at starvation wages, which keeps tuition down.
https://arts-sciences.buffalo.edu/sociology-criminology/faculty/faculty-directory/hatton-erin.html
I got lucky, with my shit GPA and small-town schools. Most of what I learned about my trade I learned on the job — first at the Colorado Springs Sun, and next at the Gazette-Telegraph.
Also, I had a good adviser at Adams State in Alamosa (he advised me to add a Plan B to my “Become a rich and famous editorial cartoonist” scheme). And one good prof (former Dayton Daily News journo) at the University of Northern Colorado, where the “journalism school” was a subsidiary of the Business School. Talk about your early wake-up call. Neither school was big-time enough for profs to write books and boink coeds while the grad students taught a full load, though I heard that shit happened at CU-Boulder.
Mostly I was earning while learning, which sure sharpens the focus. Especially when the people you work with are cool. My first two newspaper gigs were like being paid to go to college. Not well-paid, but hey — with my grades and various side gigs it was a miracle I didn’t wind up pressing license plates for the state.
Shit GPA? Mine was so bad my department chair ridiculed me in front of my mom, kid brother, and all my classmates at graduation. Luckily, that was before I owned any handguns.
I vowed to get even. I had a good friend at Rochester who was getting his Ph.D. in structural geology, Otto Muller. He said his was even worse than mine as an undergrad (for some of the same reasons) but he told me to just muddle on and not give a shit.
Degrees only mean one finishes a course of study. Learning occurs independent of pieces of paper. You shoulda seen my wife the English Professor’s eyes widen when she saw what my stepdad was reading, and he was a high school dropout. He was reading stuff that her college students would give up on.
Haw. I was on academic probation after my first quarter at Adams State in Alamosa. An auspicious debut this was not. I was on the dean’s list, all right; just not the one anyone wanted to be on.
As in grade school, junior high, and “high” school, I was interested in what I was interested in and nothing else. Lucky for me, what I was interested in wound up paying the bills, kinda sorta.
I’ve always enjoyed Mark Twain’s satirical, but accurate, wisdom: “I never let school interfere with my education.”
It seems “economic feudalism” exists in virtually all sectors, industries, endeavors, eh?
O, indeed, JD. Twain was both satirical and accurate on many topics, and thank Dog my maternal grandmother gave me that first copy of “Tom Sawyer.”
The world has changed a ton since Twain’s days. And grandma’s days, too. Even mine. It was possible in 1974 for a dropout from a small-town college to stumble into a rock-bottom job at a minor-metro newspaper and learn just enough to make a career of sorts out of it. Is that possible today? I seriously doubt it. Fucking up is rarely rewarded in the 21st century. Low-level fucking up, that is. Go big or go home, as the fella says.
Even in 1974 feudalism was on the march. My first newspaper was half of a two-paper “chain.” The second was part of a bigger chain. Likewise the third and fourth. In 15 years I only worked for two locally owned outfits, my fifth paper and the final one, No. 7, The New Mexican in Santa Fe, the one I left to start a 30-year career as a freelancer.
If I were trying to gain a foothold in what remains of the newspaper game today, it would be a very tough row to hoe.
I always use my own profession as an example because it’s what I know. Check this out. Here’s an ad for a “trending reporter” at my fifth paper, The Pueblo Chieftain, once locally owned, now part of the Gannett machine.
Check out what Gannett expects of applicants for $18-20 an hour. Consider that we were making that much in 1984, when the paper was unionized and we had a number of protections against ridiculous exploitation (some exploitation was unavoidable, of course; it was a job, not a party, even if occasionally it felt more like the latter than the former).
Consider also that according to its online masthead, the Chieftain under Gannett has just seven newsroom employees. We had nearly that many people on the copy desk in 1984. The reporting staff was sizable, with separate sports, lifestyle, and regional reporters and editors. There was a managing editor, an editorial-page editor, a city editor with two assistants, a statehouse reporter in Denver, correspondents scattered throughout southern Colorado, and so on.
Now there are seven. Imagine applying for that $18-per-hour gig doing … well, everything, from social media to video to podcasting to actual journalism (if time permits) with a shit-ton of college loans to pay off. The Golden Pride burrito dealership here in Duck!Burg will start you at $14, and I bet you get to scarf at least one free burrito per diem.
We enjoy many marvelous things in 2025. One of them is even named “Marvel,” though to be honest “marvelous” it mostly is not. But damme if I don’t thank my lucky stars I was born when (and to whom) I was. My one-man carnival toured the country for 45 years just a few klicks ahead of the coppers and bluenoses and was safely parked in the garage before anyone could get the license-plate numbers.
Speaking of feudalism, have a peek at this piece in The Atlantic.
Writes Cullen Murphy:
Marc Maron made it with a podcast when most folks didn’t know what a podcast was. He did some standup and writing. You could/can do all those things. You would have put in kibble in the bowl no matter what. Shit, you could’ve had Barack Obama in your garage. The Secret Service probably would have intervened when you searched his pickets for stolen components, Hey Barack, is that a seat post in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?
Ah, ’tis a shame Maron decided to hang up his headphones. I get it, though. That podcasting is a tough hustle, especially if you’re on twice a week and have guests (other than the ones residing in your head).
He reinvented himself at an age when most folks say, “Well, I guess this is me now. …” I respect and honor that.
When Herself and I bailed on our respective gigs in Fanta Se in 1991 and moved to the B-burg to deal with my mom, neither of us had any idea what was going to happen next. We observed, experimented, adapted, and survived, just like Maron did.
Good thing, too. Her career (bookstores) and mine (newspapers) were both circling the bowl. We just beat the rush to the exit. And just look at what a success Herself made of herself!
Me, I basically just kept on doing what I’d been doing. I just wasn’t doing it for newspapers anymore. And without having to punch someone else’s clock 40 hours a week I carved out a little breathing space to teach myself a few new skills that came in handy on down the line.
It was and is an interesting way to live. I hope it’s still possible, though I have my doubts. Reinvention seems a high-risk option these days.
Yeah. Newspapers now print “content”, whatever that is. Just something to fill space and make money for the CEO and investors. Who the hell needs staffing?
Well, speaking of the Daily Fish Wrapper, at least Fanta Se and Albuquerque still have locally owned rags. And on that note, looks like you folks in the “Duck” City got more than a passing shower yesterday. Wow.
https://www.abqjournal.com/news/article_7bbc7671-0b78-4553-9b2b-244457d0b197.html#tncms-source=home-featured-7-block
Pollen so thick and wind so strong that a bike ride would be near death for Old Herb. Will stay inside today trying to help an old friend price out his two 58 cm? all Campy Motobecanes. One Team Champion and one Le Champion. Both with sew ups. He’s had them carefully stored for the past ten yrs but repacked bearings two years back. Due to health he hasn’t been able to ride. I once had a Le Champion which was a very sweet ride but alas, left my stable when I got the Mtn Bike bug.
Pollen and wind. Right up there with Beelzebozo and Spaceman Spunk in terms of annoyances. And drugs won’t help with that B+SS infection. Worser than drug-resistant clap that is.
But bicycles, now .. that’s the ticket, Sparky. You guys settle on prices for those Eyetie Frogmobiles? Do we get to see pix?