I feel like there’s a problem with hiring somebody under the table so they can keep their work visa. I know, it feels like it’s cheating for government departments to compare notes, but sometimes they do it anyway!
But the whole point is for it to be over the table, right? So that Jason can point to it and say, “See, I have a job as a TA.” A job that was “official” but paid very little would suit his purposes (though if he was paid five dollars, it would also clearly be illegitimate).
Leslie hires him as a TA. She is then “shocked, Shocked!” to learn of the allegations against him. She suspends him without pay pending the conclusion of an investigation. So he can point to the paper saying he has a legit education job. While he works off the books as a bartender to pay his bills.
Oh no. You made me think… You know who *is* a real professor, although they really shouldn’t be? And who would love a chance to swoop in for wacky hijinks to show Leslie up/to make an excuse to spend more time with Leslie? I think we’re about to see Robin again.
That’s what I was thinking too. And Robin would be all about it. Paying someone to do the work she’s supposed to do? Oh yeah, please, grade all this annoying homework, the kids haven’t received their assignments back at all this semester.
For as much as the price of a cup coffee you can help support a brit with such trials as
-Mushing their peas
-Bangering their Mash
-Beaning their toast
-Cheesing their toasties
And more.
Also, it wasn’t until I posted it that I realized all of those sound like british specific euphemisms and I hope they all get used when Jason’s in bed with Ruth.
I’m not the only Brit who comments around these parts, but I would like to be the first to claim that I’ve done at least three of these, and they weren’t all trials.
Grayscale shots of Jason doing ordinary tasks then looking dejected roll in the background:
– He goes to drive a car, and gets into the starboard side out of habit.
– He buys a bag of Lay’s, the register rings up “chips” and adds sales tax.
– He’s typing a Word document and every word he spells with a U (like “colour”) gets a squiggly red underline.
Oh God, please no. I spent the week before Christmas watching Edie Falco shilling for the ASPCA, backed by endless photos of miserable puppies. It was so effective I would have donated, except I spent the week calling Suicide Prevention.
Imagine Leslie somehow could hire him as a TA and did, and then on his first day in the class, a student was like, “Hey, didn’t you get fired for sleeping with a student?” Now THERE’S an interesting day in Gender Studies.
…Plus, it wouldn’t do any good. He’s already bypassed the amount of time that a nonimmigrant on a work visa has to be between jobs, and by this point he’s likely accrued enough unlawful presence to become inadmissible and barred from returning or adjusting status in the States.
So, ha! If the university never got around to reporting the firing to USCIS, and if Jason’s recertification or regular reporting haven’t yet come due, and if USCIS hasn’t yet “determined” that Jason’s “duration of status” has ended… maybe there’s hope for him yet?!!?
eaking, as far as we know, they never actually performed an actual investigation. OR maybe they did offscreen. They basically just took Penny’s word for it, and by her own admission she was lying just cuz she thought it was funny. (now that lie actually happened but as far as I know the only people who know are Sal and Walky and I dunno if either of them would testify if they knew it’d get him deported. Well maybe Sal would. I can never tell how they feel about each other.)
Given that he received an official e-mail from the university stating that there would be a tribunal, and he didn’t contest it? His failure to contest it means that he’ll have automatically been determined to be guilty, and he’ll have been terminated with cause, and ineligible for rehire, so even if Leslie wanted to hire him, they should have HR systems that should flag the application as by someone ineligible for rehire.
Now, there’s issues with the tribunal process as depicted in that strip – given that, as far as Penny knew, it was a false accusation, she didn’t actually have knowledge of which specific student to claim. If she didn’t specifically name Sal as the affected student, he may have been able to lie and say that there was no affected student to bring to vouch for him.
Yeah I think that’s the rub for me. The fact that Penny didn’t actually know that Jason was having a snog and sly canoodle with Sal makes it strange that Jason didn’t try to fight back against it. His entire life is in the balance and they had NO PROOF by Penny’s own admission. Now, maybe it was guilt or a concern Sal would step up and say “He fraternized me!” but it woulda been worth contesting.
Right? All he had to do was point out that Penny is his ex, in large part because she is vicious and destructive. There was literally nothing against him except ‘he does it too!!’ fired in his direction on her way out for provably sleeping with students. But Jason chose to quit ahead of his hearing instead of just saying ‘god, she’s a nightmare, ask me anything’.
I mean, it works for the story, but in reality Jason would likely to be here on an F-1 education visa, not a work visa. But that wouldn’t create a story dilemma (except maybe how to pay for it without relying on his father’s wealth).
That’s the problem. So far as we know, Jason’s not at risk academically of being kicked out of school or anything. Without a job though, he’d need to leave because he can’t afford to stay.
Under an F-1, you can work on-campus (which would include as a TA/RA) for up to 20 hours a week. This is (likely not coincidentally) the standard number of hours for those positions (on paper*). You may not work off-campus without a hardship waiver.
* When I was a Ph.D. candidate, my advisor once told me a ‘half-time’ RA position meant half the time they work, which is 80-100 hours, even if it is 20 hours on paper.
The bulk of student loans are federal, so wouldn’t be available to a foreign national.
As for scholarships: graduate students are funded rather differently. AFAIK there aren’t a whole lot of scholarships floating around for graduate students, at least not of any considerable size (a few small ones that act more like a bonus). The TA-ship would’ve provided both “tuition” and a small stipend to live on.
Depends on the department but in general there are too many math phd students to fund them all on research or merit scholarships and there a lot of undergraduate math classes that need TAs. In econ we try to fund 4 years without requiring teaching for most students at many schools, give or take.
It’s still his job not to have sex with students. Even (maybe especially) if they suggest it in return for fixing their grades. Also even if you don’t accept that was the reason.
Also this, which is at least enough to creep her out and probably enough to suggest he’d be open to such inducements.
Exactly this. And part of the reason these relationships are wrong is because they make all the other students wonder about what they need to do for their grades. You don’t excrete where you eat.
It does not matter who approached who. TA/student relationships are wrong and the responsibility is on the TA to say no.
Agreed, he should have kept it in his pants. But he’s not that much older than the students he was working with. And if we’re gonna give some of the other characters (Dorothy and Walky; Dina and Becky; Jennifer and Ruth; Joe and Roz; and I’m sure there are several more) who have canonically canoodled a pass for letting their hormones run away with them, I feel it’s only fair that Jason deserves at least a modicum of tolerance here as well.
Nope. Consequences are important. Ruth is the only person on your list who was in a similar position and she potentially should have been fired for many reasons and that would have been fine. Instead they moved Jennifer and she kept her job and got a bunch of therapy and medication. She’s actually a better RA after the retraining and Carla did the right thing.
Jason’s not going to jail he just lost his job that put him in power as he should have. If the bar were a campus job or he weren’t an International student that would have been a fine solution to his problems.
Also there is an enormous difference between 22 and 18. But even if he’d been a TA for a grad class it still would have been wrong and fireable.
That’s a really weird response. It’s almost like you think there’s something inherently wrong with any of these characters having sex that they need to be given a pass for, rather than it being the specific circumstances of Jason and Sal.
Yeah. I’d really hope Leslie would be a lot less sympathetic if she knew why he’d been fired. And if there was any possibility of her hiring him or otherwise finding him a job, I’d expect “what happened to your old TA position” to be the first question asked.
…so wait, are black dots just what grey eyes look like in this universe
I realize that I’m overthinking it, and that across 25 years and two continuities several characters’ eyes have snapped from one state to another here and there, and also Willis tried giving them more detailed anatomy in closeups for a time, but I kinda assumed that these people just look like cartoon characters in-universe.
That’s something that I find so fascinating: The question of how much of a comic’s art-style is part of their in-universe look. It’s like the old question: If a manga character draws a stereotypical big-eyed manga character, then is it photorealism to her?
I like the gag where a cartoon character draws something in a much more realistic style, and then someone in-universe is like, “That looks nothing like x.”
IIRC it was sometime in It’s Walky!, when Joyce was an amnesiac Jane Doe under medical supervision at SEMMF. Walky was drawing a “have you seen this woman” poster or something.
I seem to recall Walky making a joke about Joyce getting contact lenses once, only they’d have to be the size of hubcaps, so you might be onto something there.
I remember an anime where a robot maid asked why everyone could immediately tell she’s a robot. And a character explained that the robot maids are designed to look like anime characters but the other characters in the show, from their perspective, look like normal humans. Followed by a quick shot of that’s character rendered in a realistic style.
Lately my computer is really struggling with this site for some reason. The webpage is slow and keeps becoming unresponsive. It did not used to have this problem. Are there new add pop-ups on this site, that might be angering my security software? The problem does not seem to occur on Microsoft Edge, just Chrome (but I can only use the comments board on Chrome, so I’ve been trying to stick to that browser). Any ideas?
I wish I have an answer that’s not like “use AdBlock” because it’s a incoming to the owner.
Somebody told me is possible to contact Hive Works about the issue.
Yes, I searched all over two continents for a secondhand or free black leather trench coat, in my youth. Just when I had finally given up, I accidentally found dozens, all free. Factory rejects. Amazing. I wore two or three at once.
This just makes me ask again. What exactly can Ruth realistically do to fix Jason’s situation? It really seems like nothing. I believe Ruth is capable, but this just seems out of her realm of expertise. Like expecting her to perform heart surgery, or train a bear to tap dance.
I keep forgetting that. She could get her hot ex to marry him. Or Leslie, since she’s asking. Or Walky! Walky likes Jason enough. Just let him marry the dude. Don’t worry Jason, we’ll marry you off yet!
Ruth’s citizenship has not been made clear in the comic. I looked up the rules for children of one U.S. citizen born abroad, and they are quite complicated, depending on particular dates when certain rule changes became effective and on the sex of the U.S. citizen parent. Certainly our author does research at times, but he does have a comic to write and draw and kids to raise, and the story he wants to tell may not depend strongly on the details.
Willis is usually pretty good about the research, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he did write Ruth and Jason getting married for citizenship, he’d have looked into how that would work.
Assuming the parents in question are married (which I’m fairly certain Ruth’s parents were, considering that she’s Ruth Lessick and not Ruth Hughes/i>), the rules for US birthright citizenship aren’t quite as complicated as all that; as long as Ruth’s mom—Mr. Hughes’ daughter, the American side of her family—was at least 16 or older by the time she married Mr. Lessick/had Ruth, Ruth herself would qualify for birthright citizenship outright.
That particular aspect of citizenship law’s been in place since the ’80s, so Dumbiverse!Ruth (born in 2001 right now, born in 2002 next IRL-month due to the sliding timescale) proooobably doesn’t need to concern herself with 20th-century citizenship policy. 😛
If her mother was American (which she was, since Clint is her maternal grandfather), and her father was Canadian, and she was born in Canada, she’d have dual citizenship by birthright if her mother still had American citizenship at the time.
At least that’s how I understand it works, anyway.
They can be complicated, but mostly on the edge cases. A lot of the weirder and more gender specific edge cases were cleaned up long before Ruth was born.
I can’t see any reason to assume she’s not a dual Canadian/American citizen. It’s possible, but it would take a pretty specific set of circumstances that haven’t really even been hinted at.
even with the marriage thing i imagine there’d still be a bit of background check for the legitimacy/green card marriages would have to stay together for atl east a year or more i’d think (tho impulsive 20-somethings aside, i can totally also imagine “yeah i’m marrying this guy i met online buti ‘m already in my late 30s/40s so might as well”)
Yes— marriage doesn’t work with citizenship like in the movies. It’s a drawn out process and you need a lawyer and there’s all sorts of rules and yes they will send you back in this kind of situation. (Source: friends who have gone through the process lawyered up and low income locals married to citizens who have been deported.)
Unrelated to the legal stuff – Ruth specifically said she’s helping solve this to ensure that he’s not unfairly beholden to her. A green card marriage would not help that part of the issue at all.
feels like, other than reports of his fling with sal being spread to other places, that he should teach at a diff uni as opposed to low key being another prof’s TA (this is gonna lead to hijinks of him working for Robin isn’t it lol)
There actually are no reports of his fling with Sal and the only people who know about it are him and Sal. There’s a generic report of ‘he did it too!’ leveled in his direction by someone (Penny) leveled just out of viciousness, which he chose to confirm by quitting ahead of his hearing.
In art school, they were legitimately two separate colours. Well, in my art school, anyway. (Gray is very slightly warmer than grey) (Yes really) (I swear to christ I didn’t go to one single normal school)
Adjuncts are real professors—or many of them, at least!! Anyone who has earned a Ph.D. is a professor. (I know what Leslie/Willis means, of course. But it must be said, just the same.)
I’m not sure if you meant any instructor at a university with a Ph.D is a professor, but certainly not all holders of that degree are. Post docs aren’t, nor are holders who don’t work in academia. And not all adjuncts have Ph.Ds – I’ve know numerous people from industry with bachelor degrees who taught courses at universities as adjuncts.
I was an adjunct for one course, for pre-frosh at summer school, with a Bachelors. It was like a gig job to be an instructor. One course I took was from an adjunct in a similar situation. Another was from a grad student who was an adjunct.
Real professors had say within their departments, some sort of job security, PhDs, and were expected to do research / publish or something, and had grad students. IIRC
Well, even if she was teaching a ‘required’ class to graduate or so, i’d think most professors wouldn’t have hiring power versus having an intern or only get to choose TAs among a pre approved list/interview
You know, I’d suspected Leslie was an adjunct instead of a proper tenure-track/tenured professor, but I don’t know if it’d been confirmed before now!
Poor Leslie. At least a quick search suggests IU maybe gives adjuncts some benefits? (Though I’d assume they are still worse than a professor’s and the pay is worse.)
I mean, Jason was only in trouble because Penny (thought she) lied to the board/panel that fired her for sleeping with students. She was surprised as all get out that he actually had, meaning there were zero other reports about him other than hers.
Considering what he was fired for he’s got to be on some list that stops him from being hired again as a TA at IU or something, so what’s even the point of this? And Ruth doesn’t have any connections at any other universities
I have a feeling Leslie knows why Jason was fired and doesn’t have sympathy for him at all. But Ruth has come to her looking for help and Leslie will end up doing something to help both of them, even if that might mean asking Prof. Robin for help. Anyway, Ruth is way too adorable in these last two strips♡.
Jason wasn’t fired. He quit ahead of his hearing, the result of which he believed would have been him being fired.
Which honestly, probably there was no actual evidence or witnesses or reports about him. Penny trash-talked him on her way out for the same thing she’d been caught doing and, much to even HER surprise, happened to be factually right. All he’d have had to say was ‘Penny is my ex and our breakup was vicious, of course she’d try to screw me over’ but instead he chose to quit and unofficially confirm his guilt.
(goddammit, I flagged this post by accident, sorry. Stupid clumsy fingers.)
Ahem. Anyway, broad strokes, yeah, but inter-office drama? Nah, I’d be very surprised if anybody outside of the math department knows what happened with Jason.
I’m not sure “trust” is the word I’d use for Becky and Robin. Also, Ruth is now in Leslie’s class so has at least some personal connection.
And I don’t think Robin’s an actual professor. She was hired this semester to teach one class. Getting tenure out of that seems beyond even Robin’s shenanigans. Did I miss something explicit?
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you can hire ANYONE
…under the table
(although he can only work for, like, a MINUTE at the prevailing wage I imagine)
re-alt: guess Jason didn’t bulk up much since Sal
He’s on a diet. It’s called being too broke to eat much.
Or as said by Brits: in for a Penny, in for a Pound.
Holy shit, I really really hope Joe used that line on Penny when they were boffin’.
I feel like he would have :0
That was legitimately genius.
As they say, in for a penny, in for a pounding.
He’s probably making an okay living as a bartender, liking being paid off-book plus tips. The problem is that restaurants don’t sponsor work visas.
He’s probably “supposed to” have an on-campus job, too.
He’s pretty tall though. His bones must be hollow like some kind of posh flightless bird.
Well he’s certainly trying to avoid flying (home).
I feel like there’s a problem with hiring somebody under the table so they can keep their work visa. I know, it feels like it’s cheating for government departments to compare notes, but sometimes they do it anyway!
But the whole point is for it to be over the table, right? So that Jason can point to it and say, “See, I have a job as a TA.” A job that was “official” but paid very little would suit his purposes (though if he was paid five dollars, it would also clearly be illegitimate).
Leslie hires him as a TA. She is then “shocked, Shocked!” to learn of the allegations against him. She suspends him without pay pending the conclusion of an investigation. So he can point to the paper saying he has a legit education job. While he works off the books as a bartender to pay his bills.
I think somebody here knows something about working the system.
Don’t be disrespecting grey eyes in here. There’s dozens of us!
Good thing posted said that. I was prepared to write a comment disrespecting grey eyes in here.
Maybe even scores!
Ruth speaks from experience.
Her own eyes were gray before she picked green!
Grey eyes mean he hasn’t gone through a personal character arc yet.
According to the tags, that’s not Ruth, that’s Robin! In disguise! To win Leslie’s love!
“Look at how altruistic and helpful I am. Definitely girlfriend material, amiright?”
Oh no. You made me think… You know who *is* a real professor, although they really shouldn’t be? And who would love a chance to swoop in for wacky hijinks to show Leslie up/to make an excuse to spend more time with Leslie? I think we’re about to see Robin again.
As if Leslie and Robin weren’t already (reluctantly) joined at the hip via their mutual unofficial stepdaughter.
That’s what I was thinking too. And Robin would be all about it. Paying someone to do the work she’s supposed to do? Oh yeah, please, grade all this annoying homework, the kids haven’t received their assignments back at all this semester.
Have I forgotten something about Robin being a full professor? Don’t let the pipe and the mustard elbow patches fool you.
Joe from a week ago was still tagged as Walky last I checked, guess this chapter’s just full of imposters
Secret Invasion *is* coming out in March.
Nah that’s just me, you’re resident alien parasite 😛
*your
damn phone
That’s how you serve notice. “You are resident alien parasite. Put your affairs in order.”
With an entire planet to conquer, why do the shapeshifters consider all these clowns strategically important?
They know that in another universe most of them were SEMMF.
Plausible. Ruth shouldn’t be so nice to someone who use bowtie and overcoat.
Jason deserves pity. Donate now to 1800-555-BRIT to support a Jason today. Each dollar pledged goes to new bow ties and tea time.
For as much as the price of a cup coffee you can help support a brit with such trials as
-Mushing their peas
-Bangering their Mash
-Beaning their toast
-Cheesing their toasties
And more.
Also, it wasn’t until I posted it that I realized all of those sound like british specific euphemisms and I hope they all get used when Jason’s in bed with Ruth.
I don’t think I want to know what mushing the peas means in bed.
Knowing Ruth’s proclivities it is either not fun or VERY fun. I don’t kinkshame.
I’m not the only Brit who comments around these parts, but I would like to be the first to claim that I’ve done at least three of these, and they weren’t all trials.
Well, to be trials, you’d all have to be wearing those wigs, right?
I, an Englishman, laughed so hard at this that my monocle fell out and into my cup of tea.
What, no “spotting their dick”?
I think you need to go to the clinic if you’ve got spots on it.
Toading their hole, or holing their toad?
-Shepherding their pie
-Steaking their kidneys
-Massaling their chicken
-Beefing their Wellington
-Treacling their tart
In addition, the more northerly Brits need help
-Neeping their tatties
-Culling their skink
-Finning their haddies
Grayscale shots of Jason doing ordinary tasks then looking dejected roll in the background:
– He goes to drive a car, and gets into the starboard side out of habit.
– He buys a bag of Lay’s, the register rings up “chips” and adds sales tax.
– He’s typing a Word document and every word he spells with a U (like “colour”) gets a squiggly red underline.
🎵 In the arrives of an aaaaangel 🎵
🎵 In the arms of an aaaaangel 🎵
Oh God, please no. I spent the week before Christmas watching Edie Falco shilling for the ASPCA, backed by endless photos of miserable puppies. It was so effective I would have donated, except I spent the week calling Suicide Prevention.
Huh, I wonder if Robin is a real professor.
I’m pretty sure she’s a fictional character. I can’t be certain though.
oh god how much does she get paid
Is it more than what an indiana congresswoman gets?
Ball State U is depicted in Willisworld as an incredibly corrupt crony-dominated institution.
So, like real academia.
Depends on whether she’s gotten her professorin’ jacket back from the cleaners.
That was what I wondered.
Look, Ruth, you can’t be dragging *strays* in here.
Imagine Leslie somehow could hire him as a TA and did, and then on his first day in the class, a student was like, “Hey, didn’t you get fired for sleeping with a student?” Now THERE’S an interesting day in Gender Studies.
Yeah, even though he was a dogshit teacher at least Jason was qualified to do maths
“And today’s class will be about why I shouldn’t have done that.”
For sure. Bad news all around. 🙁
…Plus, it wouldn’t do any good. He’s already bypassed the amount of time that a nonimmigrant on a work visa has to be between jobs, and by this point he’s likely accrued enough unlawful presence to become inadmissible and barred from returning or adjusting status in the States.
https://www.uscis.gov/archive/uscis-publishes-final-rule-for-certain-employment-based-immigrant-and-nonimmigrant-visa-programs
BUT SEE:
Guilford College v. USCIS, et al.
https://immigrationimpact.com/2020/02/12/uscis-unlawful-presence-court-decision/
https://jcsla.wordpress.com/2020/08/04/2018-unlawful-presence-memo-declared-void/
So, ha! If the university never got around to reporting the firing to USCIS, and if Jason’s recertification or regular reporting haven’t yet come due, and if USCIS hasn’t yet “determined” that Jason’s “duration of status” has ended… maybe there’s hope for him yet?!!?
(Color me flabbergasted.)
eaking, as far as we know, they never actually performed an actual investigation. OR maybe they did offscreen. They basically just took Penny’s word for it, and by her own admission she was lying just cuz she thought it was funny. (now that lie actually happened but as far as I know the only people who know are Sal and Walky and I dunno if either of them would testify if they knew it’d get him deported. Well maybe Sal would. I can never tell how they feel about each other.)
Selling him out would run counter to Sal’s anti-authoritarian personality.
Given that he received an official e-mail from the university stating that there would be a tribunal, and he didn’t contest it? His failure to contest it means that he’ll have automatically been determined to be guilty, and he’ll have been terminated with cause, and ineligible for rehire, so even if Leslie wanted to hire him, they should have HR systems that should flag the application as by someone ineligible for rehire.
Now, there’s issues with the tribunal process as depicted in that strip – given that, as far as Penny knew, it was a false accusation, she didn’t actually have knowledge of which specific student to claim. If she didn’t specifically name Sal as the affected student, he may have been able to lie and say that there was no affected student to bring to vouch for him.
Yeah I think that’s the rub for me. The fact that Penny didn’t actually know that Jason was having a snog and sly canoodle with Sal makes it strange that Jason didn’t try to fight back against it. His entire life is in the balance and they had NO PROOF by Penny’s own admission. Now, maybe it was guilt or a concern Sal would step up and say “He fraternized me!” but it woulda been worth contesting.
Right? All he had to do was point out that Penny is his ex, in large part because she is vicious and destructive. There was literally nothing against him except ‘he does it too!!’ fired in his direction on her way out for provably sleeping with students. But Jason chose to quit ahead of his hearing instead of just saying ‘god, she’s a nightmare, ask me anything’.
Because he felt guilty, because he’d actually done it.
Let’s see, what’s the name of this comic again?
I mean, it works for the story, but in reality Jason would likely to be here on an F-1 education visa, not a work visa. But that wouldn’t create a story dilemma (except maybe how to pay for it without relying on his father’s wealth).
That’s the problem. So far as we know, Jason’s not at risk academically of being kicked out of school or anything. Without a job though, he’d need to leave because he can’t afford to stay.
OK, yes, tell me about that? Could he have worked as a TA on an F-1? Do we know if he is still enrolled in school?
Under an F-1, you can work on-campus (which would include as a TA/RA) for up to 20 hours a week. This is (likely not coincidentally) the standard number of hours for those positions (on paper*). You may not work off-campus without a hardship waiver.
This is according to this DHS website: https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/guide/f-1/f-1-postsecondary
* When I was a Ph.D. candidate, my advisor once told me a ‘half-time’ RA position meant half the time they work, which is 80-100 hours, even if it is 20 hours on paper.
Also, Jason heavily implies he will remain enrolled: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/jason/
Ah. Fascinating!
…He probably wouldn’t qualify for any student loans, though, right?
…Scholarships?
The bulk of student loans are federal, so wouldn’t be available to a foreign national.
As for scholarships: graduate students are funded rather differently. AFAIK there aren’t a whole lot of scholarships floating around for graduate students, at least not of any considerable size (a few small ones that act more like a bonus). The TA-ship would’ve provided both “tuition” and a small stipend to live on.
Depends on the department but in general there are too many math phd students to fund them all on research or merit scholarships and there a lot of undergraduate math classes that need TAs. In econ we try to fund 4 years without requiring teaching for most students at many schools, give or take.
Yes! Exactly!
He got fired for a good reason. University would be a better place if all the dudes in charge of grades who preyed on undergrads got fired.
I agree completely.
I think we need to remember that it wasn’t Jason who made the first approach, but that it was SAL who literally threw herself at Jason.
It’s still his job not to have sex with students. Even (maybe especially) if they suggest it in return for fixing their grades. Also even if you don’t accept that was the reason.
Also this, which is at least enough to creep her out and probably enough to suggest he’d be open to such inducements.
Exactly this. And part of the reason these relationships are wrong is because they make all the other students wonder about what they need to do for their grades. You don’t excrete where you eat.
It does not matter who approached who. TA/student relationships are wrong and the responsibility is on the TA to say no.
Agreed, he should have kept it in his pants. But he’s not that much older than the students he was working with. And if we’re gonna give some of the other characters (Dorothy and Walky; Dina and Becky; Jennifer and Ruth; Joe and Roz; and I’m sure there are several more) who have canonically canoodled a pass for letting their hormones run away with them, I feel it’s only fair that Jason deserves at least a modicum of tolerance here as well.
Nope. Consequences are important. Ruth is the only person on your list who was in a similar position and she potentially should have been fired for many reasons and that would have been fine. Instead they moved Jennifer and she kept her job and got a bunch of therapy and medication. She’s actually a better RA after the retraining and Carla did the right thing.
Jason’s not going to jail he just lost his job that put him in power as he should have. If the bar were a campus job or he weren’t an International student that would have been a fine solution to his problems.
Also there is an enormous difference between 22 and 18. But even if he’d been a TA for a grad class it still would have been wrong and fireable.
That’s a really weird response. It’s almost like you think there’s something inherently wrong with any of these characters having sex that they need to be given a pass for, rather than it being the specific circumstances of Jason and Sal.
Yeah. I’d really hope Leslie would be a lot less sympathetic if she knew why he’d been fired. And if there was any possibility of her hiring him or otherwise finding him a job, I’d expect “what happened to your old TA position” to be the first question asked.
RE: alt-text, just like Dina in the elevator that one time, huh?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/room/
…or Booster
Exhibit B!
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/bloke/
Dina does only weigh roughly three atrociraptors.
I don’t know if that’s really a fancy overcoat. Kind of more of a Columbo overcoat
…so wait, are black dots just what grey eyes look like in this universe
I realize that I’m overthinking it, and that across 25 years and two continuities several characters’ eyes have snapped from one state to another here and there, and also Willis tried giving them more detailed anatomy in closeups for a time, but I kinda assumed that these people just look like cartoon characters in-universe.
That’s something that I find so fascinating: The question of how much of a comic’s art-style is part of their in-universe look. It’s like the old question: If a manga character draws a stereotypical big-eyed manga character, then is it photorealism to her?
I like the gag where a cartoon character draws something in a much more realistic style, and then someone in-universe is like, “That looks nothing like x.”
Pretty sure Willis made that joke once
IIRC it was sometime in It’s Walky!, when Joyce was an amnesiac Jane Doe under medical supervision at SEMMF. Walky was drawing a “have you seen this woman” poster or something.
Ha! Found it!
https://www.itswalky.com/comic/whats-that/
I think there was an earlier joke about “inventing anatomy” as well.
Yes, a few years ago here in DoA. Walky drew Joyce and got reactions like “what, who looks like that”.
I seem to recall Walky making a joke about Joyce getting contact lenses once, only they’d have to be the size of hubcaps, so you might be onto something there.
Oh my bad, it was frisbees. But still.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/contacts/
He does go on to hubcaps, so you’re good.
I remember an anime where a robot maid asked why everyone could immediately tell she’s a robot. And a character explained that the robot maids are designed to look like anime characters but the other characters in the show, from their perspective, look like normal humans. Followed by a quick shot of that’s character rendered in a realistic style.
Not all of them are grey I don’t think, but Jason’s are.
So a photorealistic-to-us Jason rendering would probably have desaturated light blue eyes.
Lately my computer is really struggling with this site for some reason. The webpage is slow and keeps becoming unresponsive. It did not used to have this problem. Are there new add pop-ups on this site, that might be angering my security software? The problem does not seem to occur on Microsoft Edge, just Chrome (but I can only use the comments board on Chrome, so I’ve been trying to stick to that browser). Any ideas?
I wish I have an answer that’s not like “use AdBlock” because it’s a incoming to the owner.
Somebody told me is possible to contact Hive Works about the issue.
Use an adblock and subscribe to Willis’ patreon.
I do both and I’ve still had the site be down for me for hours two times in the last week.
It was down for everyone for a while yesterday at least.
Oh my fucking gods, Ruth is adorable right now.
Especially panel 4.
Aww, she’s trying to do A Nice…
amen to that
I don’t care about Ruth: my teenager dream is pick-up a overcoat.
Mine too!
But it’s a very specific clothes. I never saw any coat for sale in my life.
Yes, I searched all over two continents for a secondhand or free black leather trench coat, in my youth. Just when I had finally given up, I accidentally found dozens, all free. Factory rejects. Amazing. I wore two or three at once.
It’s funny because Ruth used to have eyes like that, but she picked a color.
Actually, she’s Canadian and he’s English, so I guess it’s a colour.
EXACTLY I came here to say “shouldn’t that be a colour, Ruth?”
This just makes me ask again. What exactly can Ruth realistically do to fix Jason’s situation? It really seems like nothing. I believe Ruth is capable, but this just seems out of her realm of expertise. Like expecting her to perform heart surgery, or train a bear to tap dance.
She could marry him, or adopt him or put him in a large dog costume and claim he’s her pet.
She is a candian citzen which doesn’t help Jason stay in US
I keep forgetting that. She could get her hot ex to marry him. Or Leslie, since she’s asking. Or Walky! Walky likes Jason enough. Just let him marry the dude. Don’t worry Jason, we’ll marry you off yet!
I support Walky/Jason marrying.
Ruth’s citizenship has not been made clear in the comic. I looked up the rules for children of one U.S. citizen born abroad, and they are quite complicated, depending on particular dates when certain rule changes became effective and on the sex of the U.S. citizen parent. Certainly our author does research at times, but he does have a comic to write and draw and kids to raise, and the story he wants to tell may not depend strongly on the details.
Willis is usually pretty good about the research, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he did write Ruth and Jason getting married for citizenship, he’d have looked into how that would work.
Assuming the parents in question are married (which I’m fairly certain Ruth’s parents were, considering that she’s Ruth Lessick and not Ruth Hughes/i>), the rules for US birthright citizenship aren’t quite as complicated as all that; as long as Ruth’s mom—Mr. Hughes’ daughter, the American side of her family—was at least 16 or older by the time she married Mr. Lessick/had Ruth, Ruth herself would qualify for birthright citizenship outright.
That particular aspect of citizenship law’s been in place since the ’80s, so Dumbiverse!Ruth (born in 2001 right now, born in 2002 next IRL-month due to the sliding timescale) proooobably doesn’t need to concern herself with 20th-century citizenship policy. 😛
(Dangit, messed up the formatting)
If her mother was American (which she was, since Clint is her maternal grandfather), and her father was Canadian, and she was born in Canada, she’d have dual citizenship by birthright if her mother still had American citizenship at the time.
At least that’s how I understand it works, anyway.
They can be complicated, but mostly on the edge cases. A lot of the weirder and more gender specific edge cases were cleaned up long before Ruth was born.
I can’t see any reason to assume she’s not a dual Canadian/American citizen. It’s possible, but it would take a pretty specific set of circumstances that haven’t really even been hinted at.
even with the marriage thing i imagine there’d still be a bit of background check for the legitimacy/green card marriages would have to stay together for atl east a year or more i’d think (tho impulsive 20-somethings aside, i can totally also imagine “yeah i’m marrying this guy i met online buti ‘m already in my late 30s/40s so might as well”)
Yes— marriage doesn’t work with citizenship like in the movies. It’s a drawn out process and you need a lawyer and there’s all sorts of rules and yes they will send you back in this kind of situation. (Source: friends who have gone through the process lawyered up and low income locals married to citizens who have been deported.)
Unrelated to the legal stuff – Ruth specifically said she’s helping solve this to ensure that he’s not unfairly beholden to her. A green card marriage would not help that part of the issue at all.
Wow. I thought I was just weird for feeling fancy in a coat. Turns out I’m not alone.
Pathetic, but in company. Fancy company.
feels like, other than reports of his fling with sal being spread to other places, that he should teach at a diff uni as opposed to low key being another prof’s TA (this is gonna lead to hijinks of him working for Robin isn’t it lol)
There actually are no reports of his fling with Sal and the only people who know about it are him and Sal. There’s a generic report of ‘he did it too!’ leveled in his direction by someone (Penny) leveled just out of viciousness, which he chose to confirm by quitting ahead of his hearing.
Other people know that he slept with a student though, just not that it was Sal.
Walky, at least, since he was there when Penny told him he was fired and I think Walky spread it on.
Being English, Jason would say “grey,” not “gray.” How can you tell the difference? You can’t, but an Englishman can.
I like to imagine now that Jason for no reason at all adopted a very American accent ONLY for the word “Gray”.
Like a bad TV dub, like Don’t Be A Menace.
In art school, they were legitimately two separate colours. Well, in my art school, anyway. (Gray is very slightly warmer than grey) (Yes really) (I swear to christ I didn’t go to one single normal school)
Honestly it’s a smart decision. Cuz cool grey and warm gray are two very different greys.
Adjuncts are real professors—or many of them, at least!! Anyone who has earned a Ph.D. is a professor. (I know what Leslie/Willis means, of course. But it must be said, just the same.)
I’m not sure if you meant any instructor at a university with a Ph.D is a professor, but certainly not all holders of that degree are. Post docs aren’t, nor are holders who don’t work in academia. And not all adjuncts have Ph.Ds – I’ve know numerous people from industry with bachelor degrees who taught courses at universities as adjuncts.
Leslie’s also only 25, and while it’s not impossible to get a PhD at that age, you’d have to be really, really focused for it.
I was an adjunct for one course, for pre-frosh at summer school, with a Bachelors. It was like a gig job to be an instructor. One course I took was from an adjunct in a similar situation. Another was from a grad student who was an adjunct.
Real professors had say within their departments, some sort of job security, PhDs, and were expected to do research / publish or something, and had grad students. IIRC
Well, even if she was teaching a ‘required’ class to graduate or so, i’d think most professors wouldn’t have hiring power versus having an intern or only get to choose TAs among a pre approved list/interview
You know, I’d suspected Leslie was an adjunct instead of a proper tenure-track/tenured professor, but I don’t know if it’d been confirmed before now!
Poor Leslie. At least a quick search suggests IU maybe gives adjuncts some benefits? (Though I’d assume they are still worse than a professor’s and the pay is worse.)
At some universities adjuncts do get benefits. The one I know of has a faculty union.
=
Ruth tried HELPING. It’s not very effective.
…the solution is gonna be Robin innit.
I see we are of the same mind. 😉
Ruth: Help him, he’s stupid!
Poor Jason XD
While it’s not going there, I really would love Leslie to handle Jason’s firing and deal with the two elements:
* One: He’s guilty as sin.
* Two: The defense for him was to bring the student involved to his defense.
I’d love to see her thread the needle of both sides being awful.
I mean, Jason was only in trouble because Penny (thought she) lied to the board/panel that fired her for sleeping with students. She was surprised as all get out that he actually had, meaning there were zero other reports about him other than hers.
Considering what he was fired for he’s got to be on some list that stops him from being hired again as a TA at IU or something, so what’s even the point of this? And Ruth doesn’t have any connections at any other universities
I mean, again, part of the comic is showing how utterly corrupt Ball U is in the Willisverse.
Ruth slept with a student too.
Jason wasn’t fired. He believed he would have gotten fired at his hearing, so he quit ahead of it to spare himself and Sal embarrassment.
Wow their relationship actually survived the night
You know, I’m starting to think that Ruth actually has real feelings for Jason.
He’s like a British puppy.
I have a feeling Leslie knows why Jason was fired and doesn’t have sympathy for him at all. But Ruth has come to her looking for help and Leslie will end up doing something to help both of them, even if that might mean asking Prof. Robin for help. Anyway, Ruth is way too adorable in these last two strips♡.
Jason wasn’t fired. He quit ahead of his hearing, the result of which he believed would have been him being fired.
Which honestly, probably there was no actual evidence or witnesses or reports about him. Penny trash-talked him on her way out for the same thing she’d been caught doing and, much to even HER surprise, happened to be factually right. All he’d have had to say was ‘Penny is my ex and our breakup was vicious, of course she’d try to screw me over’ but instead he chose to quit and unofficially confirm his guilt.
Ok. But the result is the same, Leslie very probably knows about Penny’s accusations and that Jason, going away, pretty much confirmed them.
Honestly, I doubt it. He was a MATH TA. I work in a fairly small university, and nobody knows what’s going on in different departments. Not remotely.
Sex scandals with students might spread beyond normal gossip channels. Especially two at once.
(goddammit, I flagged this post by accident, sorry. Stupid clumsy fingers.)
Ahem. Anyway, broad strokes, yeah, but inter-office drama? Nah, I’d be very surprised if anybody outside of the math department knows what happened with Jason.
Robin is also trusted by Becky, but is also an actual professor and has money. Does Ruth just not know about her?
There was Robin’s concession speech, but I just assumed that most people who know Becky know that Robin is significantly less trustworthy than Leslie.
I’m not sure “trust” is the word I’d use for Becky and Robin. Also, Ruth is now in Leslie’s class so has at least some personal connection.
And I don’t think Robin’s an actual professor. She was hired this semester to teach one class. Getting tenure out of that seems beyond even Robin’s shenanigans. Did I miss something explicit?
In the grayscale comics, Jason’s eyes were dark. Has any other character with the dark eyes been described with an eye color?
The spelling in this comic needs to be corrected. Jason would never say “gray” instead of “grey”. A for American and E for England.
Jason’s next line should be “An overcoat.”
I wonder if Leslie can still fly helicopters in this universe
Jason’s just being strategic: dressing like Doctor Who is obviously a good strategy for gaining sympathy considering Leslie’s love of sci-fi.
The best part is, he didn’t even do that on purpose!