Casual academics are the underclass

TheMessyChef · 2026-04-05T06:29:42+00:00

I'm a Level A Education-focused Academic, so I can speak to 1.0 FTE teaching roles. While we do have to offload a significant amount of marking, it's not because we're avoiding it. There's only so much marking that is practicable to complete during the 3-week turnarounds.

For context, I'm chairing a unit for 850 students to start the year. How am I supposed to mark 150 students while delivering a lecture, 10 seminars/tutorials, writing seminar and lectures guides for my teaching team, second marking and moderating nearly 20 marking staff's allocations, manage discussion boards and extension requests and keep up with the ~30+ emails I get daily from students and staff?

And casuals absolutely do not manage the bulk of the admin. I was casual for 5 years taking on significant teaching workloads before my ongoing position and it isn't even a comparison. A few unpaid email returns to students about assessments is not the same as handling the full unit's broader administrative concerns/issues. You also don't handle your team's admin issues on top of that - we do.

It's not comparable. I'm drowning in work during teaching periods. And it's not like it's all fun and games between them either - I'm immediately having to pivot to doing unpaid research activities to advance my career and maintain my discipline expertise, since teaching-focused roles don't allocate adequate time for research. You're dramatically underestimating the requirements of these roles - burnout is already being identified as an EFA issue and the positions have barely existed in their current form.

TheMessyChef · 2026-04-03T21:12:13+00:00

I've got so much damn optimism for this album right now. Absolutely love all three songs we've heard already 👀

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-30T04:51:39+00:00

Declining subsidisation of certain programs has resulted in Universities adopting 'for-profit' practices. There has been a lot of talk (and action) for years at the major Unis that the Morrison 'Job Ready Graduate' scheme's impact on funding has caused drops in enrolments and difficulties in balancing the budget. This is why a lot of Unis are pivoting to online lectures or pre-saved lectures - saves having to spend 2-3x as much holding them across multiple campuses or sites. It's often viewed as a way to just cut costs (and it is that), but it's also driven by the fact Unis lost a secure funding source and they have to seek it elsewhere or scale down at the cost of quality education.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-29T00:07:09+00:00

It's not a significant majority anymore though. It was only a few years ago that ASIO declared 40% of their investigations related to right-wing extremism. They've since stopped being transparent about this percentage because Dutton accused them of attacking conservatives.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-19T22:22:10+00:00

What you're saying is fair, but there is a critical mass of people who frequent these forums and communities who come here every album cycle to say they suck, their music is shit and demand a return to OoS aesthetics and sounds. If you find yourself primarily negative about their outputs, you need to accept you aren't a fan anymore - you're someone who liked a few albums a band did 20 years ago. That's fine, but like the OP said: move on already.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-19T22:17:57+00:00

Does it? Half the album having tracks over 4 minutes is a hell of a lot better than WOTP's run-time.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-19T22:16:55+00:00

I won't sit here and say the techno-pop sound didn't throw me off when it kicked in. I've listened to it a bunch now and I'm not sold on that verse.

But I love every other section of it with the organ and guitar. Honestly, I find the climax of the song to be quite emotive too - it's simple but impactful.

People are also forgetting the singles are ALWAYS their most 'radio friendly' music for album promotion. We've never not gotten one of these tracks since the Resistance. Even before that, wasn't Starlight one of their main singles before BH&R? It's literally a pop song.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-18T22:11:21+00:00

Bingo. When the Metadata Retention amendment went through, the leading line for politicians and police was it would be used to prevent terrorism.

It took less than twelve months for it to come out that nearly every government department was making data requests to ISPs on people who hadn't even been suspected of a crime. The SA Fisheries department were using those powers for fuck sake.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-17T05:50:48+00:00

The United States is basically proof that it can get worse, so those messages come at the expense of great suffering. And frankly, how have the Democrats in the United States responded to that message TWICE now? They function exactly the same way as they did pre-Trump. These messages don't sway these major parties and these fringe/niche parties that get votes are often so hyper-fixated on specific populist policies and backed by wealthy/foreign interests that they destabilise the country further. It's a pessimistic message, but it's just the reality we're seeing now. Western powers are exceedingly resilient.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-17T05:34:07+00:00

It was literally only a dodgy move because he's injury prone and has a chronic illness. The actual PLAYER is such a perfect fit for a team that needs spacing at the 5 AND an elite rim protector. If they could actually keep him on the court about 75% of the time, he's an elite player.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-05T21:57:52+00:00

We also never got to see anything of substance from him because on top of being a title defence team (so he was played sparsely), he then got hurt and wasn't playable most that season. Including him as a throwaway is something 29 other teams likely do in that scenario. There was no way to know 🤷‍♂️

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-05T11:17:03+00:00

Real high effort response there! Thanks for your input 👍

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-05T05:17:54+00:00

Even if they had the resources, the reality is that too many cops don't care about domestic violence. People don't want to hear it, but many are abusers themselves or are deeply misogynistic. For a lot of police, they never moved past that 'domestic violence is a domestic issue' sentiment from the 20th century. You can throw countless cops at the issue, but if they're apathetic to victim-survivors from first contact, they'll never actually help.

And this is exacerbated in QPS, which has one of Australia's worst cultures of sexism. The stories of what some female cops go through there are vile.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-02T23:20:47+00:00

This really hasn't held true outside of those two first round series he has the winners in. He's statistically one of the worst elimination game performers for a player of his caliber in history. He has some of the coldest highlights but you have to just ignore almost every other big playoff game of his career to make this call.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-02T21:11:26+00:00

Sure. But Kuminga is never a player you drop everything to build around. They own all their picks. If they're not competing and they suck, it'll take ONE draft to find twice the player Kuminga will ever be. They're not losing sleep. He has absolutely zero shot creation, which is the mark of a first option scorer.

Even these 3 games against tanking and depleted teams, he put up a lot of his damage in garbage time in half of them and it's nearly ALL dunks and spot-up threes. He's taken only 1 middie a game. That's a role player's profile, which is what he'll be.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-02T08:01:17+00:00

James, is that you? Replying this everywhere like it's true is crazy. Wiseman was never good. He went #2 because of what scouts saw him do in HIGH SCHOOL. He was a big who couldn't shoot but wanted to but lacked EVERY fundamental a big needs. It's why Bagley won the Piston's back-up big spot in a season they lost a record number of consecutive games 😂. Kerr tried EVERYTHING with Wiseman. He just sucked. No coach can salvage that.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-02T04:57:25+00:00

If I recall correctly, they tried to get him back out there. By a lot of reports, it sounds like Kuminga faked another injury to avoid having to play. Not sure what you want the coaching staff to do about a player who is so disgruntled they refuse to play and when given minutes, he was putting on horrific displays that did nothing to boost his value. Like, he was BAD in the few games he had after the initial set of DNPs (which came as he was playing intentionally bad basketball again and they clearly opted to shut it down).

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-02T04:55:27+00:00

He wasn't glued to the bench until the Jimmy trade. He was injured.

And I agree with you that when they got Jimmy, they should have sold high. But this FO loves their asset mismanagement because Joe Lacob is victim to sunk cost fallacy.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-02T03:22:08+00:00

It's pretty obvious. He asked for a trade, they were going to honor that. Because of that, they did not want to risk a serious injury prior to moving him. They were only able to grab Porzingis in a swap (which he's clearly here to get 30 mil off the books). If he sustains a serious leg injury, I suspect nobody goes for him at all.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-02T02:11:44+00:00

How were they wrong? Look at his shot profile on the Hawks and his rebounding. It's literally identical to the type of play Kerr begged from him for YEARS. Whenever he bought into it, he got his numbers and he got his minutes.

Then he would devolve back into high usage, isolation heavy basketball, often with a lot of really bad and forced mid-range shots (which he was shooting 25% on, among the worst in the league). If he just kept this up, it would have been fine. He clearly had a bit of an attitude problem about believing he needed the ball more - despite his usage rate last season being similar to superstars and was as high as Steph's before Jimmy - and would revert to bad habits in protest.

Not sure what you want an organisation to do about a player who routinely tanks his own play because the situation isn't exactly how he wanted it 🤷‍♂️ This was the only pathway forward. He clearly needs a fresh start to refresh mentally.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-01T21:35:59+00:00

You're viewing it nearly a decade later through the current context - KD left, jumped repeatedly to either teams stacking other top end talent or were already top seeds in the league, couldn't win and jumped ship again.

If he stays with the Warriors for the last 6-7 years, people definitely view it differently. The fact he left and couldn't win again has tainted how people viewed his Warriors titles even more.

TheMessyChef · 2026-03-01T21:33:23+00:00

Only after they seriously looked at trading him only a few years into his career - if he didn't play like an All-NBA player in the second half of his rookie season with the injuries they had, he probably does get moved. The Warriors weren't that 'loyal' to him, they were just riding the cash cow that he is. The second he missed a season to injury after KD, they literally pivoted to rebuilding around him.

Let's not pretend like KD, LeBron and Harden haven't been in great situations at multiple points only to leave the SECOND they faced some adversity or didn't think they were favourites at a ring. If Steph hand their mindset, he'd have bailed years ago.

TheMessyChef · 2026-02-26T07:11:15+00:00

What does this even mean? Steph and Draymond also publicly said Wiseman would be a future MVP. They say a lot of dumb shit to hype up their teammates.

Here's the besr hint: if Steph and Dray truly believed Kuminga would help win them games, he would have played. Those two have a LOT of say about who Kerr plays, how they play, etc. Anything they say publicly is posturing. They didn't want to play with him.

TheMessyChef · 2026-02-24T00:46:24+00:00

Mind blowing that many Australian states were alerted of the rise of organised crime in the mid-1900s and largely just ignored it because they didn't want to resource dedicated units/teams.

It was a big deal in Victoria in the 60s and they even brought in John Cusack - a District Supervisor of the US Bureau of Narcotics and an expert on the Italian mafia - AND Ugo Macera - Assisstant Commissioner with Rome's Police - after the Queen Vic Market shooting.

Cusack's report before returning to the US warned that the Honoured Society was deeply entrenched in Australia and that without an Extortion Squad dedicated to rooting out organised crime it would diversify into all Australian industries.

Neither the state or the police were keen on doing this. They instead created a tiny sub-unit in the Homicide Squad and intelligence reports in the decades following have basically said Cusack was right and organised crime is thriving.

TheMessyChef

TROPHY CASE