Wednesday, June 29, 2016

What I Said Last April...Just More of It

Cliff Krieger has teased me a few times about going "RF cold" over here in Bloggistan.  It has, indeed, been a while.

The funny thing is, not much as changed.  In fact, I'm able to write today because of a cancellation (but it's a late cancellation, and yes, I'm getting paid for that time as I write this...but I still have to go Boston in a little while for another).

I figured I would write today about why I think adjuncting is actually great, despite some of the popular portrayals and the misleading, clickbaity headlines about "Professors in Poverty" and the like.

But I actually stopped to look at my own site and saw that I'd more or less written this back in April of 15.

It's still true today, though -- once you really get your calculator out and figure out the math, adjuncting is a more than okay way to make a living.  Especially if you love to teach.  Living in Boston certainly doesn't hurt (I realize geography helps make the adjunct hustle more doable here...though I suppose the Internet sort of wipes away some of that distinction).  I supposedly make a lot per hour tutoring but my effective wage, coupled with some of the qualitative factors, reveals to me that adjuncting will be in the cards for me for many years to come, whereas tutoring will not (but, to badly paraphrase that line from Brokeback Mountain, "I just can't quit you.")

I still play in the NFL...that is, the No Fun League.  But it's a situation that I've carved out, and as I tell my wife sometimes, it would be just as hard or probably an even harder route if I had done something more traditional post-MBA.  As I like to say, people who spend their time vilifying the 1% need to spend more time around the 1%.  Then, make fun of them all you want (of course it's your right!) but you might change the way you view their work ethic.

I started a business, and it basically went sideways.  I emerged, relatively unscathed, but with some lost time to make up for on a couple fronts.  Got my entrepreneur Campaign Ribbon but (thankfully!) no Entrepreneur Purple Heart.  To borrow from Gen. MacArthur, "I shall return."  But smarter next time.

I have a neat project on the side, and it's income investing.  No magic tricks here -- there are companies and funds who will pay you a residual income for buying and holding their shares. Companies with long track records of dividend increases tend to work particularly well here, as they create a sort of 'double compounding' effect when these divs are reinvested.  This is all about temperament, and has nothing to with IQ -- if you're someone who gets excited by the idea of a drop becoming a trickle becoming a creek becoming a stream becoming a river becoming an ocean making tidal waves, then it might be up your alley, too.

Oh, and one thing about recent events before I retreat back into my lair -- if you like to opine about the strange habits of other people who supposedly can't help themselves from "voting against their own interests" then I would just wonder how you'd feel about someone saying the same about you.

They wouldn't, though, would they?  You're probably too enlightened.