Several years ago, when his college first financed a writing program administrator (WPA) position--reassigned time and a budget to pay adjunct faculty stipends for program development--the author met with all the most senior adjunct faculty. "Without you," he told them, "this effort to build a better writing program won't work. Participation and buy-in among adjunct faculty is essential." The author knew from experience that any changes to curriculum, any new assessment processes, any new professional development initiatives would be viewed with suspicion by the adjunct faculty, who have no job security and who have historically been institutionally marginalized. Yet he also knew that very little had been written about creating and sustaining writing programs (as opposed to a loosely organized collection of classes) at two-year colleges. Since the WPA position was new on his campus and very rare in two-year college English departments in general, the author conducted a survey and then follow-up interviews to better understand adjunct faculty attitudes toward and expectations of WPAs in two-year college English programs. Results show that adjunct faculty working conditions create more than a sense of unfairness; rather, they create a very real energy that works against the movement necessary to build a writing program out of a collection of writing classes, to develop the sense of a "we" moving toward a common goal. In this article, the author summarizes the current context of adjunct faculty in two-year colleges, summarizes the findings of the survey and interviews he conducted, and offers suggestions on how to work within and against this system of use and abuse. (Contains 1 note.)