Adjuncts Don’t Get Summers Off, Karen

Still working. Still unpaid. Still refreshing our inboxes like it’s a cursed slot machine.

Ah yes, the classic summer fantasy: adjuncts lounging poolside, sipping rosé, their inboxes set to “out of office” while tanning evenly between teaching gigs.

Yeah. No. I’m in my kitchen wearing my Patagonia Baggies from 2009, updating a syllabus for a course I’m 60% sure doesn’t exist.

Here’s what my summer actually looks like: rewriting syllabi for classes I haven’t been hired to teach. Submitting applications to courses that may or may not be real. Playing scheduling Tetris with schools that treat my availability like an optional feature. My fall calendar? It looks like a patchwork quilt attacked by moths and I’m trying to stitch it together with oven mitts on.

Being adjunct means you’re always prepping, never promised. You teach twelve hours in five buildings across three cities, duct-tape your schedule together, and answer student questions about next semester before knowing if you’ll be there. You’ve got just enough visibility to know you’re underpaid, and just enough respect to be cc’d on emails asking if you’re “still around.”

So no, Karen, we don’t get summers off. We get the academic gig economy, ghosted contracts, and inbox roulette, and the joy of watching permanent faculty go hiking while we refresh our inbox like it’s a cursed slot machine.

Schools need to stop treating adjuncts like seasonal patio furniture. I’m the year-round model—sun-bleached, missing screws, slightly unhinged—and still showing up. Just don’t ask me to Doodle.