The rich get richer.

Like PGS, I spent the weekend barfing out applications. Unlike PGS, I spent some time before grad school doing admin work in the special circle of hell that is temp work. So I've got the mindless busywork thing down cold. I make one hell of a fine secretary. And I actually find the work relaxing, in its way. "Take a break today, brain. Won't be needing you for this one. Here, have some schlocky pop music to drool to. You like the new Iron & Wine album? Sure. Perhaps a beer and some salty snacks? I'll let you know if we need you for anything."

While I don't mind the work itself, I do mind the obscene amount of time it seems to take. I really do have better things to spend my time on. (Like, oh, say, finishing the dissertation. Fuuuuuuck. The dissertation.) Which is why I kind of threw up in my mouth a little bit when a friend of mine told me that his dept's secretaries take care of all their mailing for them. Now, said friend's dept is admittedly a lot more Leiterrific than mine. But I'd thought the perks of coming from a fancypants program were supposed to be limited to things like name-brand recognition and big-name letter-writers and posh funding and non-exploitative teaching responsibilities. Now I find out these fuckers get all their secretarial work taken care of too? WTF? How common is this?

No wonder they're getting all the fucking jobs.