Tenured profs are lame.

The other week at a networking reception, I met a (tenured) prof who knew people who donated to my campaign and seemed interested in my activist work, but when I asked him for a donation, he was like, “I have a baby.”

So, in so many words, I said that that major activism at his institution that I’d done had been on my own time while I was making like twenty-four thousand a year and going into over fifty thousand of debt, and now I’m starting over at two jobs, one minimum wage, and so he shouldn’t give me that line when he has more money than I can dream of and he's acting like he's poor.

“Don’t be one of those stereotypes where you applaud and applaud someone else doing stuff, but you don’t do jack, even as simple as giving money,” I was like.  “That’s a typical tenured professor, so self-absorbed, while thinking that you're all that.”

Later, I realized that I should have said that my work has fed his family, so the least he could do was give some of that money back.

Next time I’m in a situation like that, I just might try that latter line.

These people have no idea how they sound to other people; they’re honestly sitting ducks, politically, they’re so out-of-touch about how their situations stack up with those of other people.