Economic instability // Tenured folk.

My economic instability really gets me some time.

I have to do so much work just to find a consistent income, and even then it's not enough.

Then, the insurance through the Affordable Care Act has been nice, but it's been a ton of work to renew and find out who's in network (and to get after insurance companies when their info is out-of-date), and now I find that they just cancelled my plan and I have to do everything all over again, including maybe finding different primary care physicians etc. if they're not under the cheapest plan that I can find.

Then, I have preventative dental work that would basically wipe out my savings, but I have to go for ASAP, otherwise the costs will be much worse.

Then on top of all of that, it's unclear how quickly once I'm finally able to graduate that I'll be able to find an academic job, and that's an "if" too.

Plus plus plus, I still am going to come out with multi-tens of thousands of dollars in debt in my late 30s, which I'll have to pay off at the same time that I should be saving for retirement (or so people tell me).

Economically, I'm kind of fucked.

G-dd-ss knows what will happen if either of my parents are incapacitated, and care falls on me.

I honestly don't think I'd be able to manage that.

Because of all this, so many tenured professors just make me want to vomit.

They're so cozy in their salaries, and study their little things and masturbate all day, and spout platitudes if you raise problems, and don't even fulfill their basic professional or social responsibilities to take care of students or work to ensure a vibrant academy...

As a (Belgian) friend observed, "They got their piece of the pie, then watched as the ladder got kicked out after them."

They really are just this disgusting aristocracy, self-obsessed and decadent.

The worst are the ones who cook up little vendettas to wage against vulnerable staff and students, creating problems to fill their time and fulfill whatever twisted little personality disorders that they have.

As far as I know, tenure is the best academic system out there, but that doesn't mean that everyone with tenure is palatable as a human being, so many are so far from it.