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[fiona]

Another unhappy academic tells her story.

Will she be dumped on and blamed the way Max Clio was?

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/07/2008073001c.htm

I hope not.

The Fiona

[conjugate]

I sympathize.  It's often mid-level administrators who get the worst positions, and it sounds like that's where she's at right now.

[takapa]

I stayed out of the other thread - wow, have to say I didn't see that warpath coming.  Maybe she will okay since she didn't mention the Eagles....

[zharkov]

That writer seems to be working under the illusion that one needs to complete all assignments, complete them on time, and attend every meeting.

That is true for college students, but not for professionals.  Speculating, the writer needs to push back on the boss.

[22026266]

Imagine havine the same tired, unbalanced, etc. life when you have a job like mine requiring NOTHING to do... all day every day.  I stay for the same reasons as unhappy and, man, am even less happy than she.

[kedves]

Imagine havine the same tired, unbalanced, etc. life when you have a job like mine requiring NOTHING to do... all day every day.  I stay for the same reasons as unhappy and, man, am even less happy than she.

Hey, that used to be me several years ago!  Then I got out of academic administration and into the low-paid but stimulating job of teaching and research.  I often question my financial judgment, but I'm never bored.  I might be a special case, though, ill-suited to most jobs.  I've known many people in academic administration who feel a lull, to put it kindly, in their professional life.  The work can be repetitious and, if you have mastered it, unchallenging.   But I have known former co-workers who successfully countered that in less dramatic ways than I did, by re-organizing their jobs, emphasizing a different part of their life, taking advantage of the free tuition to take a drawing or other just-for-myself course, and of course, looking at other jobs--even in the same salary grade.  (I know an editor who wrote two novels entirely at work, too, but of course I'm not advising anything like that.)  Sometimes just knowing what your options are can change your perspective--not all the time, I know.  Good luck to you.  I do know how you feel.

This administrator's situation sounds different from yours and mine, though--stress from too much to do and treating it all as priority.  Hopefully, her new staff members will soon be able to do more and her office's priorities can be better established.

[bms2000]

I read this and wonder why people do this to themselves. It seems that she could survive financially with a less stressful job plus "no more takeout dinners" and other belt tightening measures. This is part of why I am reluctant to go for a tt job. Aside from my general cluelessness on tt, I have seen the tenured faculty working themselves to death. I have seen the newly tenured folks who are there every night until 11 pm, being exhausted, never seeing their families. My husband has been reluctant to pursue higher management for the same reason - he likes flex time and the quality of life it gives us. Sure, we could be in a bigger house, buy new and not used clothes and cars, and eat out 4 times a week instead of 4 times a month. But the cost of pursuing that would be so high in terms of the quality of our family life, that it seems like a better idea to just make do with less, and not be exhausted and unhappy.

[brad1]

As someone who was pretty critical of the Max Clio piece, I have to say that I found this column much more compelling-- probably because the writing was significantly better.  I find it quite easy to sympathize with a person whose job is getting more and more demanding, but who has few (if any) options to improve her situation, and who includes details regarding administrative incompetence ("every task is labeled a priority") and the toll such abuse is taking on other aspects of her life ("Can't talk [read, write, go, cook, clean]. Gotta work."  I know that Max claimed that his job was getting harder because his students are getting stupider, but that's a claim I find a bit more difficult to believe without some additional evidence.

Frankly, I think Marie Palengy's column is a spectacular success precisely because she presents her situation in such a way that the engaged reader probably can't help but identify (I'd be willing to bet that we've all had jobs where we felt overworked and underappreciated-- some posters may still have them).  I hope she's able to improve her situation somehow; at the very least, I hope writing this column has provided some type of cathartic effect.

[kedves]

I read this and wonder why people do this to themselves. It seems that she could survive financially with a less stressful job plus "no more takeout dinners" and other belt tightening measures. This is part of why I am reluctant to go for a tt job. Aside from my general cluelessness on tt, I have seen the tenured faculty working themselves to death. I have seen the newly tenured folks who are there every night until 11 pm, being exhausted, never seeing their families...

I understand what you're saying, but I think she is not a faculty member.  She says she is the director of an administrative office.  I took that to mean admissions, financial aid, assessment, advising, budget, or something like that (it doesn't seem to be university development).  Maybe I am reading it wrong.  I thought her job pressures were more similar to running any administrative office with a lot of deadlines and new staff, than to something specific to university work.  Being overworked can be exhilarating if you get things accomplished and it is for a finite period of time, although there are costs to the other parts of your life, as she illustrates.

[pandora]

I found this piece quite poignant.  I think this was the segment that got to me:

I've published a respectable number of essays and articles, but my current works in progress have been in progress so long that they're almost unrecognizable to me. I've put off sustained writing for what seems like a lifetime, and I can't afford, as I near retirement age, to do that much longer. It feels as if it's now or never.


Somehow, that conveys the sense that Pelangy has had to sacrifice a significant piece of her identity as a writer and intellectual in order to fulfill her administrative duties -- and that the clock is running out for her to be able to resurrect that part of herself.  It helps also that she has quite a lot of humility about the situation that she's in, and although she gives us a very clear picture of why her job is so draining, you can barely find a complaint in the whole thing.  I hope she decides at least to ask for the new position; she seems like someone whose departure might mean quite a gaping hole in the administrative structure -- perhaps this would alert higher-ups to the need to diminish the administrative burden she's carrying.

[london1]

As a mid-level administrator in an academic unit (not a faculty member) I can certainly relate and sympathize.  We often have many competing responsibilities with competing deadlines from various parts within the academic unit (whether it be college, program or department) and eveyone's work, project, problem, etc. is "the most important priority."  I am fortunate to work for a wonderful dean and this has made all the difference for me.

Despite the challenges and problems that arise, I do enjoy my administrative work.  There is a lot of variety in my work (everything from working with department chairs on course scheduling and advising to arranging conferences, lectures and other events).

I think "the pang for the career that got away" is common for for non-faculty administrators who work in academic units.  We work closely with academics and many of us started out pursuing faculty careers that for one reason or another did not materialize.  I feel this pang some days, but for the most part I am very happy as an administrator.

[absara]

I hope I don't get flamed for this comment but it does seem as if it's easier to empathize with the challenges of university administrators than it is with faculty.  This is not to say that I don't totally understand what Marie Palengy has to say but why is it that when a faculty member makes similar gripes it must be put in the context of the wonderful job and perks of academia; that we choose to do it for love and not the money etc etc.  I think all jobs come with challenges we may not necessarily like so why must distinctions be made even among different jobs in academia??

[fiona]

I hope I don't get flamed for this comment but it does seem as if it's easier to empathize with the challenges of university administrators than it is with faculty.  This is not to say that I don't totally understand what Marie Palengy has to say but why is it that when a faculty member makes similar gripes it must be put in the context of the wonderful job and perks of academia; that we choose to do it for love and not the money etc etc.  I think all jobs come with challenges we may not necessarily like so why must distinctions be made even among different jobs in academia??

This is exactly what I hoped someone would notice, when I started this thread.

Cheers to you, absara, and I suspect you're probably a regular poster who didn't dare use your regular name.

In any case, thumbs up and a tentacle wave and COWBELL rill to you. There's a double standard of some kind in which administrative work is somehow considered "serious" and faculty work as a "calling of love." I wonder, too, if posters felt freer to dump on a man (Max Clio) than on a woman (Marie), since everyone knows women are overworked and self-sacrificing.

The Fiona

[moonshine]

Oh, I don’t know.  I like Pelangy’s essay better because 1) she could specifically identify the source of her frustration (overwork and too little help) and 2) she didn’t blame other people, but rather the system in which we’re all caught – other people weren’t the enemy, just insensitive to her position and 3) she is trying to figure out how to fix her life so that she enjoys it more.  Clio 1) didn’t like his job itself and 2) blamed other people for his lack of enjoyment (stupid students – as if, even if that is true, it is somehow their fault) and 3) he is not doing much to improve his situation – or his students’!  We all get down on our lives at times, for some good and some bad reasons, but these are two beautifully drawn examples of opposite responses to the blues.
 
I guess it is simply that Pelangy owns her own life, and is on her way to making decisions that she thinks will give her greater satisfaction from that life.  It’s easy to sympathize with her, just as it is easier to sympathize with a student who has some bad breaks, but takes responsibility.

But the sympathy I feel for her makes me wish she was pushing back against an unfair (or so it sounds) set of expectations.  She is taking a binary approach in imagining that there are only two solutions: put up with it or get out.  There is always a third option, negotiating a reasonable work-life balance, but it takes a great deal of self-esteem to pursue that path, and can be quite risky – not everyone will always like you if you stand up for yourself.

[jonesey]

I love the fact that folks are dumping on Max in two different threads now.  Classic.