Thread on #casualisation #AcademicTwitter to everyone out there being "delighted" about this or that promotion or permanent job. I wish I could block that word from my feed. Do you not have casualised friends, if not in HE, outside it? Perhaps we are the quieter echo chamber.

I could be playing the piano (on my imaginary piano), improving my Welsh, hill-walking/climbing, learning to grow veg (in my imaginary garden), or heaven forbid, protecting nature which is the career I wanted since I was small.

Instead I lose sleep to worry, and obediently spend my energy and time on job applications, which is what the neoliberal gig economy says is the best use of my time. Most jobs out there are shite, ~ 6-12 mo, just to make sure I can feel like this again soon and have zero future.

My education is the biggest mistake of my life. It didn't teach me how to think, thinking can actually happen in the absence of being told to do so. I thought it would help me tick boxes, but now the box-ticking has become so arbitrary that anyone can feel never enough.

Don't believe that being good in school or in uni is guaranteed to get you anywhere, it may not. Out there is a system that won't reward passion and talent, it will abuse it and cast you into financial precarity and trap you into a life that never goes anywhere #phdchat

I've only lost, and lost dreams in a tradeoff I thought would bring me happiness in a career instead. I desperately regret going to university. It's been an uphill battle with #FourFights and casualised struggle in #ucu @CymruPrecarity

Out there is a cohort/generation of people disadvantaged & discriminated against by this system, who have felt the only thing they can do, esp. during #COVID19, is to retreat, and limit their social (& s. media) circles to those who understand hardship & injustice.

This means excluding those privileged & blinkered with the emotional depth of a teaspoon who merely function to spread salt on wounds. Unfortunately this defines most employers. Which brings us to the beginning of the circle again, to the emotionally damaging job applications.