Minimum Wage Work = Success ?

From the Chronicle of Higher Education Forum:

Well, I don't know if it counts as a success or not, but I did manage to land some academic piecework for the coming year. My job hunt as an ABD only managed to accumulate (if I was fortunate) a collection of rejection letters, but mostly silence. Wal-mart was looking to be the serious contender.

Three days after I defend, the department chair offers me a lecturer slot (2/2) at graduate assistant wages per course. Plus, these are frackin huge sections -- more students than many SLACs.

Did the math: worked out to be slave wages, but I jumped at the job. Like I had any reasonable alternative -- and it is a teaching job at a research university.

Even so, that wouldn't pay the bills. I ran into a friend who was teaching a DL graduate course for a federal agency, and got a contact. It turned out that they needed some guest help, and my mix of experience and new PhD was just the ticket. So now I have an on-line job as well (and not at a for-profit school).

As I said up front, I don't know if this counts as success -- it's probably more accurate to describe it as a way station. Hopefully I'll be able to chisel out enough time to get something from my dissertation published, and that plus PhD in hand may slightly up my chances. Not that I'm expecting the market to get any better next time around, but any ray of light at this point is a good thing.