Last week marked my fifth year grading AP Calculus exams but it also marked my first year of actively not enjoying it. Blame any number of things for this and you’ll surely graze a kernel of truth. The remote environment is less engaging, the year it followed was more miserable, I trained and worked on only two problems which was two fewer than usual—these each contributed, as did the fact that I’ve sorta extracted the marrow from this already. I wasn’t really learning new things so much as being reminded that scoring philosophies can vary wildly and that grading is not a part of my job I cherish. Yes, I wanted to pull my weight getting the grading done and contributing to that end for my students, but the lessons of grading the actual test are ones I’ve already internalized and applied to the classroom. The experience has become stale and monotonous.
Fortunately for me, working from home meant flexible hours. I was expected to do five hours each day whenever I wanted; more were encouraged but definitely not demanded. This allowed me to break up my work and stay sharp, interjecting naps and long walks between one or two hour sessions. Many of the days were slogs even so but, with that flexible schedule, I never graded at less than my sharpest and, in a down year, I didn’t have to grade for all that long either.
Theoretically.
Despite hitting my five hours each day in the early afternoon, I found myself rarely finished then. I would continue for forty minutes of “just one more”-s before showering. I’d start the rice cooker and return for thirty minutes. I’d finish revising a chapter and shut down the computer only to return to the online scoring portal. I wasn’t enjoying it any more during those extended sessions; I might even say I was enjoying it less. But I kept going back to incrementally grow my work time calculation on the side column and, therefore, grow my compensation check that will arrive in August. Each additional hour earned me a mediocre hourly rate before taxes.
That rate I call mediocre, though, is a significant amount of money for many people but, truthfully, not so significant to me. I am well-compensated today, in a way I definitely wasn’t four years ago but became after devoted hoop-jumping in 2017 and 2018. I have maxed out my salary for my experience level and, in a year where special COVID funding facilitated lucrative professional work outside of the contract hours, I chose to monetize some of my otherwise unpaid work making videos and holding review sessions to pay for Sweet Appeal’s editing. I can afford groceries, replacement shoes, an A’s hat or two, and some frivolous Amazon orders each month even after disbursing funds for my mortgage, car payment, insurance, and utilities. I am very fortunate to be in this position. And, although the money doesn’t quite match up with the effort I invest toward it, I no longer have cause to complain about my paycheck. For nine months’ devoted work, I am fiscally content.
And yet there I was grinding out extra hours of grading for middling wages in the midst of actively resenting it. Hitting that fifth hour each day produced gushing relief, maybe even joy…and yet I continued afterward in pursuit of money still on the table. Money that is decent at best; money that is barely half of what I could earn producing Calculus videos for school and just over a quarter of what an hour of professional development or in-person tutoring could net me.
But why? Why was I pursuing more when I couldn’t enjoy the work and didn’t need the extra funds anyway?
Answering this question was at first a struggle. If I’m being honest, recognizing the feeling scared me a little bit. I wanted so desperately to stop but couldn’t. It was more compulsion than decision. I kept coming back. I exercise like this—among so many other obsessive behaviors—but exercise has a firm goal each day and results in a joyous payout of eating what I want and falling right to sleep at the end.
This…was not that. This was doggedly pursuing dollars with no prize at the finish line. This was a gnawing discomfort every time I closed the scoring system. My mind kept returning to that clock and kept computing the potential money I was forfeiting during each walk, each nap, and each meal. I spend a lot of time reflecting in pursuit of understanding how I think, but this drive defied my digging.
I got an answer when my parents took me to dinner after the intended last day. Grading hadn’t finished—it would end up going until Tuesday, although my assigned problem wrapped up two days earlier—and I mentioned that they had solicited extra help and hours from finished graders.
“So you’ll be doing that, right?” my dad asked from the driver’s seat.
“I’m not planning to,” I replied.
“Why not?”
“I haven’t gotten anything from it and—“
“Then what projects are you doing instead?”
I get asked that question a lot. Don’t let the word “projects” fool you; I have learned its connotation well. “Projects” means work. “Projects” earn money. To my dad, my summer break is not the recharging period required after a year of letting most of my waking seconds be dedicated toward my job and the people it serves. Summer is an opportunity for me to earn more money, to be double-compensated, to lock in even more because that’s how being an adult works. There is no rest until retirement.
It’s hard to argue with him. A model employee whose fingers were on the pulse of multiple sectors of the companies he worked for, he was the managing accountant at his last one while also handling relations with the overseas ownership group, redesigning and implementing new inventory systems, and serving as a sounding board for the agricultural team as the guy who rectified things himself when payroll systems failed. He worked in a tiny office with a team of like five but dozens showed up at his retirement party. He worked hard at his job but equally hard at the things that weren’t and never should have been under his purview.
By the tail end of his career, he was well-compensated for it too. Always a determined and painfully patient investor, every extra dollar was invested toward his retirement, assuring his present security and generosity now. Working long hours and driving brutal commutes was the cost for accumulating and providing for his family as he was raised to do. His work was year-round; naturally, he expects the same to be true for everyone.
But there’s a crucial difference: I live a much less expensive life. I live in a humble house purchased in a timely manner with a low interest rate. I have no children and just as many plans for them. I live three minutes from my workplace. I’ve already reached the top of my profession, I’ve already secured health benefits through my death, and I put a healthy amount into retirement each month automatically. Whereas he saw value in panning for flecks of gold at every opportunity to prepare for the future, I crave deep purpose from what I do. I am not ambitious; job dissatisfaction aside, I am not unhappy with the lifestyle I’m living.
Time is more valuable to me than money.
This is an awkward argument to make to people though. I am passing on money that, to someone struggling to make ends meet, could be life-changing. To someone raised with a “live to work” mindset, my “work to live” doesn’t compute because the idea of having enough is tragically alien. Why don’t I just do more? they wonder. I’m left to feel guilty, left labeled a lazy ne’er-do-well, for not clawing after marginally more rather than tearing myself apart earning that enough and asking only for distance from the damned rat race in exchange.
The funny thing about this whole currency compulsion is: there is an answer for my dad. What “projects” do I have planned for this summer to earn me money? I’ve shared the extra video work I agreed to—approved yesterday—as well as the potential for some planning days that can be both productive and lucrative. But there’s one yet-unannounced project out there still:
The book.
But seeing Sweet Appeal as a moneymaking tool only folds into the same toxic hustle mindset. If Alyiah advertises on TikTok and submits copies to advanced readers, that exposure will sell copies. With some additional advertising locally and a targeted ad or two, I could maybe even make a little something from this project. If it goes really well, it could jumpstart the next project and provide some helium for a second act in a completely different field with a slim chance of money and acclaim far beyond what I have now.
In exchange, though, I’d have to confront demons I’d rather avoid. Strangers’ eyes will lead to negative feedback and critical reviews. People will speculate about what I mean, they will bemoan thoughtful, painstakingly methodical decisions I made, and they will criticize characters for aspects of themselves that grew from me and challenge them. Pursuing anything from Sweet Appeal is courting precisely the pressure and self-doubt that I want to get away from in the first place.
Yet, if I could guarantee it sold a million copies and would make writing a legitimate career option, I would take all of that. I’m willing to pay that price to have a chance to actually choose what I want to do rather than stick with teaching because it’s financially the only viable choice. It’s odd to say but, despite my privileged financial position, I feel trapped by it as well because it offers too much privilege to turn away from. But that means I’m working myself to exhaustion as much for money as meaning, which only adds to the cacophony of dissonant chords bleating from the piano in my ear. It’s all a mess and money is at the heart of it.
This all stands in sharp contrast to just more than a month ago. I received an email urging me to complete a time sheet for my work at Diamond Day. The compensation offered was generous and significant for something I had no real choice but to do. Much to the surprise—if not dismay—of multiple people, I declined that money. Now it didn’t go nowhere—I helped direct it toward the three staff members who volunteered, one a first-year teacher making peanuts—but the people I talked couldn’t quite understand why I would pass on a fat check for legitimate, meaningful work.
The thing is: the act of taking that money, of accepting compensation for what I did in a pinch that day, would have cheapened everything about it. It would have robbed Diamond Day of pure purpose and rendered it yet another financial transaction. I’m happy to be paid in the future for similar work, but I didn’t want the one thing from my year that carried meaning to become paid labor. All told, I felt better about I never saw than any I’ve ever deposited.
But, as with everything these days, that wholesome decision has a cost. This past week saw me worrying over far less money for dull work devoid of meaning., suddenly unable to shake the compulsion that I needed to wring every dollar from it even while I’m fortunate enough to know I don’t.
I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place: earning more is unnecessary and makes me feel greedy and cynical, but not doing so makes me feel lazy and ungrateful for everything my dad did to provide for us. I make too much money to leave my profession but not enough to actively control my life as I want. And, although I got to feel powerful declining the Diamond Day check, turning down that money for doing some purposeful only left me grinding for less money doing something divorced from meaning. I could have just accepted that check, said it was advance compensation for summer projects, and that would have both satisfied my dad and augment my bank account to an equivalent level.
It’s all a ridiculous dance. Too much is immoral, too little is unsafe, and just enough is a myth spun by lazy millennials who selfishly pass up dollars others would die for to act unselfishly and not claw for more more more.
All of this feels stupid and slimy.
Ahem.
$tupid and $limy.
Content Consumption
So…I’m changing this section. I’ve long felt like my reviews were trapped in a purgatory of being too long for almost anyone to read, but not substantial enough to be worth anyone reading. I’ve fiddled with the format but never felt good about them. But, after a few months of listening to the Grierson & Leitch podcast, I felt like I was ready to write more open and meaningful film reviews and I began that process this week. I also created a film reviews website: filmsofsteele.com. I’ll be posting my reviews there from now on and including only teasers and links here. I don’t anticipate this becoming anything, but I’m trying things while I have the time to try them.
FILM
(Each link leads to my full review)
Bad people equipped with gravitational charisma are terrifying but also magnetic on the screen
Dementia brought to vivid life with familiar horror tropes and tools
Different than Steve Martin’s 1991 iteration in ways that sometimes work and sometimes strain
Another entry in the “Pixar movies that speak to me but others rip to shreds”
The original Among Us is a masterclass in atmospheric horror, practical effects, and showing just enough but not an ounce more
I have nothing to say here. But next week? Maybe I will.