Tag: teaching

Work as progress.

— Mateusz, you handsome devil, what is it that you do for a living?

I get this question more often than you’d think, even though the phrasing might be slightly different. My mother, for example, might sigh “Have you got a proper job yet?”

Every once in a while I go through an identity reassessment, especially when sketching a new version of the blog or a business card, or when I stumble upon a piece of insight like Merlin Manns “Watching the Corners: On Future-Proofing Your Passion” — the premise of which is that we hang our identity on old merits long after those merits have ceased to be relevant.

What got me thinking was my first ever end-of-semester gift I received from the students at Chalmers.

I teach courses in photography at community collages in Gothenburg (Folkuniversitetet & Medborgarskolan), and I work as a guest tutor at the international Master of architecture and urban planning studios with Ana Betancour at Chalmers and KTH, teaching people how not to fuck up public presentations, discussing the value of film as an analytical tool in architectural practice and generally asking future architects stuff which I wouldn’t ask if I’ve had architectural schooling.

Many of them don’t seem to know why they want to be architects, nor is there any consensus regarding what an architect does, so the area is ripe for someone like me to come in and ask what they think they are doing — it’s great fun.

The photography courses present a rather mixed crowd, from people who’ve taken pictures their whole life and who just want to learn the digital end of it, to people who’ve become parents and want to document their toddlers with the shiny dSLR the friendly salesperson sold them. I draw diagrams of focal length and JPEG compression algorithms.

That’s the tofu and potatoes of my life, and it’s pretty awesome. Teaching keeps you on your toes and I’ve learned to draw on the eclectic knowledge I’ve amassed, working with people to reach interesting conclusion and alternative angles to problems. The work description could be “talking with people” but in my more interesting moments, and with enough caffeine pills, I become an apophenic Eliza, channeling the on/off-lined world.

I haven’t done freelance media work for a while, but should anyone want to give me money for recording their seminar, proofread their dissertation or photograph something I could give references and manage it. So the question of how I make money is easy enough to answer, but the problem arises when it bleeds into my understanding of who I am, especially when there’s a discrepancy.

For example: I’m not paid to do art. I occasionally apply for grants, which in a sense amounts to spec work, and I do art works and publish them on/off-line, but I’m not getting paid for it. I do it, and my formal art-education opens up related fields (e.g. the urban architecture courses) but it’s not my livelihood per se. I know that this shouldn’t bias me against seeing myself as an artist, but I have always had the notion that one is in part one’s job description, and ones job is the thing one does for money. So if you describe yourself as someone who does something for which you’re not getting paid, the jump to describing yourself as monetarily worthless isn’t big. It’s a way of thinking which is hard to shake.

All this doesn’t interfere with what I actually do, as I’m doing more art now than before, but it’s a shift in perspective which I’m adjusting to.

The professional dilettante.

As much as there is talk about the “death of the professional” and the “century of the amateur” I’d like to propose a new title, which just happens to fit with how I’ve been making a living lately: Professional dilettante.

This would require a slight change of how the word originally was used, with less emphasis on being an interested amateur, and more on someone who does a little bit of everything. I guess there’s already the term “jack of all trades” but it just doesn’t look good on a business card. The skillset of people has changed so rapidly that there’s now a great deal of people like I, who are qualified enough to do professional work without doing it full time. You never become technically great at something, but you’re great enough to get interesting work.

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The trick is not to identify yourself too much with your profession, or rather to be able to switch between roles quickly, not like a chameleon afraid of being caught but rather like a Barbapapa; Equally comfortable as a harp as a car. The past two weeks have been a bit extreme, but let’s list what I’ve done that people have paid me for:

Taught advanced digital photography at ArtCollage
Technical support at a doctoral disputation at HFF
Host & bouncer at fashion show
Updating a homepage for the Museum of Architecture
Substituting at three other photographic courses at ArtCollage
Buying equipment and recording sound for the Art Faculty at the University of Gothenburg

And at one point I drove three drunk guys downtown for money cause I had nothing better to do. It’s truly the Niko Bellic approach to employment, with the difference that I don’t kill anyone (Except that once, and that was an exception!) and generally I’m not paid by italians.

I’ve registered with the unemployment office in the hopes of getting something out of the agency. Elections are coming up next year which usually means that the ruling party is throwing money at the unemployment problem hoping that the statistics will improve enough to get them re-elected. So if you’re looking for seed money to start your own company, or need some on-site-experience you stand an OK chance of getting it right now.

One of the projects that the government has started is the employment of “job coaches” who are supposed to go over your CV, job applications and personal hygiene, and generally try to improve your chances of finding employment. Just this year the government has set aside 1.1 billion SEK for this project, hoping to get 27’500 jobs out of it. This translates roughtly into 40’000 SEK per job created.

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As a result of all of this money laying about, hundreds of coaching companies have sprung up overnight. It’s a buyers market where each person who qualifies for a job coach (which is anyone registered with the unemployment office) can choose which coach is right for them, and the coaches get some 9’500 SEK per person they coach, with an additional bonus of 1’500 SEK if that person finds a job for at least one month.

It would seem that the numbers are unbased in any reality except someones wishful thinking. The coaching companies have very little merit to go on, so the prospective clients are left sifting through hundreds of web pages, trying to gleam from the often bombastic presentations which company, and which individual in each company, might be right for them. And the project also seems to assume that 27’500 jobs are waiting to be filled by people who just can’t seem to layout their CV correctly, or who write so abhorrent job applications that they are disqualified from positions they would otherwise be perfectly suited for.

The matter isn’t helped by the miserable way the unemployment office is listing the companies offering coaching services. At the moment there are 150 companies listed alphabetically, ten per page, with no information about them except a link which might or might not be a pdf-file, which might or might not work. You can limit your search geographically, but not according to competence (if you’re an economist, you don’t need coaching by someone who knows only agriculture) or any other metrics (how long they’ve been in business, have they been reviewed somewhere, etc.) so you’re left with hours of work trying to understand what the fuck some of these companies actually do – They are throwing so many positive and cheery superlatives around on their homepages it would seem that you will climb the career ladder propelled on a rainbow coming out your anus, on top of which you will find fulfillment and joy just by being touched by them in a very special way, should you just have the good judgement of picking their company.

Once this whole coaching thing will be eveluated, to see where the 2.9 billion went, I’m guessing that at least 2’000 of those “27’500 annual jobs” are going to be filled with “job coaching.” In a twisted way I guess it makes sense; Paying people to dig a hole and pay others to fill it in.

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I’m not above taking advantage of other people taking advantage of tax money, so I went to this job coaching fair which is in town. A 100 or so companies are cramming the halls with stalls and tables full of photocopied mission statements and slogans. The first thing that struck me was the similarity of the coaching business and the SEO business; If you think about it, the comparison actually is rather fitting. The SEO’s are telling you that regardless of who you are or what your product is, it’s all about presentation, and by adding a few key phrases here, getting some link exchanges there and “going viral” you’ll be raking the dough in in no time at all. Douchebaggery and selfgratulatory bullshit, in other words. And going by what some of these coaching companies are writing on their homepage, the rhetoric sounds similar.

Anyway. I walk down this hall and there seems to be a 2:1 ratio of coach to job applicant, and they look so hungrily at me that I pull out my cell phone and listen intently to voice mail. There’s a presentation going on entitled “Networking your way to a job!” and for every exclamation point or smily face I stumble across I whimper and curl in on myself. The halls are narrow and just walking from one room to the next you can’t help but to rub up against promotional material, which acts on the coaches much like the spasming of a fly in the net alerts a spider of dinner. Don’t look anyone in the eyes and don’t stop, or they’ll get you.

I’m chalking my trip to the fair down to experience, and will make a second attempt tomorrow morning. After all it would be a good idea to brush my cover letter up a bit, and I would like to discuss with someone about whether or not to include my Twitter posts with every application — especially those where I call people names.

End of show, summery.

The course that I’ve been teaching at Chalmers is over. The fifth year students are finishing their masters projects and there’s some running around and mild panic regarding the final exabition, but for all intents and purposes the course itself is over.

It’s tempting to attempt a summery of things that were experienced and lessons learned, but I refrain from doing one giant monster post on the subject and instead maybe shower you with the golden sparks of detail.

For example: Architect Carl-Johan can be seen below, pointing in the general direction of something visionary and awesome. He joined me and Ana two weeks ago in doing the final critique of the projects. He’s brother of the artist formely known as Andreas-in-Gothenburg, with whom he shares laughter and a mischievous wink.