BACK PORCH...

Recollections,

Cogitations

&

Broodings      

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I remember not too long ago, about 30 years or so, about the time that I moved to East TN from the Piedmont of NC, that I found myself professionally in demand because I possessed skills that were taken for granted in NC, but that were just coming to fruition in TN.  The skills about which I write were:  Total Quality Management, Statistical Problem Solving, Team Oriented Problem Solving, Process Improvement, and Strategic Long Range Planning, along with !SO 9000/2000, QS 9000, and ISO/QS Auditing and being hired as a consultant not just for these but to help organizations prepare for Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, which had been modeled after the Deming Prize in Japan.

My cup runneth over with high paying consulting contracts of no less than $2,500/day plus expenses or $100/hour plus expenses.

In NC, all this training had already been done and was in their past and they were moving on to something newer and more progressive...  which was actually more of the same just packaged differently with a different focus like seemless manufacturing...  that was kinda silly because the OLD MAN FORD started seemless manufacturing when he came up with the assembly line.

So, I rode the crest of that WAVE from 1990 until 2015 when I retired...  after spending my last 3 years teaching business class for a local, but still small and never wanting to really grow university..  And, after having worked 60 plus hours for over 20 years, it was a difficult adjustment trying to find work to do just to fill 20 hours...  The university required 4 to 5 classes taught each semester which is 12-15 hours and then 5-8 hours had to be spent as office hours in case a student wanted to come in and talk to you about something.

So, if there were any papers to be graded, I used my time for that, and possibly class prep but there really wasn't much of that either because all the business knowledge that was in the textbook, was also in my head after so many years of working in the field.

Of course, there might be a meeting or two to attend once a month which took a couple or three hours but being a professor is BORING unless you are on tenure or seeking tenure and you need to research and publish...  then, teaching 12 hours is almost too many.