More on Football Coaches’ Salaries

Are you enjoying the work you do in this job? 

You could always push some of that admin work off your desk and onto someone else’s. That’s what administrators do at my college. 

Why, this is work!  Nor are you out of it!  But it is not, to answer your question, a function of time or workload — though both play a part.  It is instead a function of desire.  Always has been.  After toting barges or lifting bales for ungodly hours, there are those among us who still find the spark needed to drive long nights of investment in those activities which feed the soul.  We make time, we always have, for what we love, what we crave.  But if that hunger is sated, if those articles and blog entries which once filled those lazy afternoons seem more a nuisance than a need, why then you have your answer. 

Academia is filled with research and writing, full of sound and fury signifying not much of anything.  Perhaps yours is too?  Or so we would suspect since much of all our production can be described in similar tones.  But all is not lost.  A common mistake is to attach a higher value to our articles and blog entries than our actual 40-50-60 hr./week jobs.  This is patently false.  Hundreds of faculty, thousands of students, the future of the institution — as trite as it may sound — they all depend upon what we as administrators and leaders (more the latter than the former, we hope) do with those many labor hours.  Do we help the University shine?  Do we work to educate those who seek to learn?  Do we build a brighter future, with surer standards, and higher goals?  Do we add something of value to our shared communities? 

Ultimately, we ask:  will we be missed when we are gone?  Not because we added just that much more ‘blogviate’ to the blogosphere but will we be missed because we made our part of the world a better place, when we had the chance, for those with whom we live and work?  

You ask:  How do we stay productive in Leadership jobs?  We do those jobs to the very best of our ability… we build vision in the midst of blindness…we inspire in the face of apathy…we provide hope when surrounded by indifference.  That is what it means to be productive.

Um – I stepped from full time consulting to academia and found the best of both worlds – unlimited time to pursue my interests on my schedule (I was, and hope to return to, a 10am to 3am kind of person) and still have a steady paycheck and steady stream of students with interesting ideas to mentor.  

Then came administration.  Here are some statements from various colleagues and mentors as I struggled with the transition:

- “You can’t be a great teacher, researcher, and administrator, but you darn well better be two of them.”  Since administrator takes one of the slots, a decision needs to be made on the other.

- “You can be a king, or a king maker;  both are important, but tough to be at the same time.”  One of the most fulfilling parts of my position is I get to live vicariously through the amazing accomplishments of the faculty I serve.  While there is some amusement when I ask questions of the biologists that I should remember from that high school class in the mid-70′s, they are patient and help me understand what they’re doing, and why it is important.  That’s there job.  Mine is to help them be the best they can possibly be.  At times I wish I could be more active, but I’ve made a choice.

- “Seek balance and be fair to yourself.”  To meet the first point, I chose to work with graduate students in the department’s masters program.  This choice allowed me to schedule regular meetings in blocks of time that didn’t interfere with my administrative commitments – mostly between 4 and 7 at night.  Also, balance refers to family.  It’s amazing how few middle of the day events with my family kept things even at home when I had to stay late, travel, etc. 

- “We never find time for anything, we have to make it.”  Time allocation is made, whether a conscious decision occurs or not.  Be deliberate and realize that the trading of a more scheduled calendar helps provide a framework for building a balanced and solid career.  It’s a fact of life that more work than time to do it will always exist – live with it.

Saving the best for last …

- “Administration is not a life sentence.”  It’s important to realize that the struggle to balance everything out will be more difficult at times then others and you should know ahead of time when you are approaching a line you will not cross.  There are multiple lines involving commitment to family, friends, self, integrity, legality, etc.  It’s best to draw the lines before they’re in the rearview mirror.  Finally, administration in service to students, staff and faculty can be one of the best career paths, providing the decision is made to balance what that service looks like and accepting the fact that things will change.

Here is how I stay productive:

1.  I schedule protected time for scholarly activity.

2.  I maintain a secondary office that is remote from my boss and my executive assistant.  When I am there I never answer the phone or email.  I try to spend at least 5 hours a week there (see #1).  If I feel that people are starting to track me down in my secondary office, I retreat (with my laptop) to the student union, Starbucks, or McDonald’s.

3.  My executive assistant schedules my meetings, drafts my memos, and records/distributes the minutes of meetings that I chair.

4.  My senior postdocs draft my manuscripts, read and edit my draft grant applications, and perform a good deal of the supervision of my graduate and undergraduate student investigators.

5. My TV viewing (other than sports) is limited to what I can watch via DVR, Hulu, AppleTV, or DVD compilations.  I try not to watch more than one televised sporting event per week.

6. My spouse and I have a cleaning service, a lawn service, and a laundry service.  I pay almost all of my bills via the internet.

7. My spouse and I have season tickets to college football, women’s college basketball, and the college theater.  We eat most of our meals (including lunches) with each other.  That allows me to spend a lot of time at home on work-related activities.

8.  Most of my work-related e-documents are stored in the cloud (Dropbox and Apple iDisk), and are synced to my work and home computers, my iPhone, and my iPad.  My cloud storage is carefully organized into hierarchies of folders and subfolders to permit easy retrieval of e-docments.

9.  My email accounts (personal and work) have carefully-organized hierarchies of folders and subfolders.  As soon as an email thread is finished, it is moved to a folder.  Thus, I maintain a total of less than 50 messages in my email inboxes.  My work and home computers, iPhone, and iPad are synced to all of my email accounts.

10.  I buy all of my own computers, iDevices, other IT hardware, and software using my own personal funds or my grant funds.  I don’t rely on my unit’s IT staff for any support except networking.

11.  I don’t tweet, I browse YouTube less than once a week, I post to Facebook less than daily, I update my website only when I have something important to post, and I send less than 100 text messages a month.

I hope some of these ideas are useful.  Best of luck in juggling your responsibilities.

I appreciate the suggestions and the reality check. Some days are harder than others, and I do need to attend to the idea that there isn’t really going to be a “down time.”

Out of curiosity, how is it that you have two offices? Is it the result of some finangling, special knowledge of excess departmental office-spacial allocations, some privilege customarily afforded to admins…?