FIRST PERSON

A Change of Status

After 35 years of meetings and memos, an administrator mulls leaving the management track

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By MARIE PELANGY

I've been working for 35 years, and I'm tired.

I get up tired every morning, and go to work tired every day. Fortunately, my comatose affliction doesn't last. By 8:30 a.m., my energy has miraculously returned and I'm ready for an intense day as director of an administrative department at a liberal-arts college.

By the time I arrive home at the end of the day, my energy is flagging but I still have more work to do. My husband says that I enter our house every night, drop my bulging carryall, and mumble, "Can't talk (read, write, go, cook, clean). Gotta work." I barely have a life. It's just as well; I don't have the energy for one.

I recently doubled my staff of two to help carry out my department's host of time-sensitive responsibilities. Having more employees is a relief, although mostly a psychological one at this point, since I'm still in the train-and-explain stage with the new people. It will be some time before they are knowledgeable enough about the work to be a blessing rather than a burden.

But already my group is getting additional assignments as a result of my department's increased headcount, as my boss calls the individuals who report to me. And the deadlines for those unexpected projects are, as usual, now. Just about every task is labeled a priority — including things I've had to let slide, like staff meetings, because my staff and I are too tied up meeting deadlines to meet with one another.

I'm responsible for a lot of projects of my own. But that's the work I do at night because I spend my days deconstructing ambiguous administrative instructions that emanate from various warrens of the college. I then clarify, confirm, and communicate the unnecessarily convoluted directives to others, who lower their heads, raise their eyebrows, and ask if I'm joking.

My administrative tasks include things like deciphering the fine print and arcane language in computer specifications so that I can order new software for my office. Then there's all the time I spend on the institution's complex performance-review process. It takes everyone involved a couple hours just to understand the review guidelines, which change each year. Then we have to spend a day and a half completing the review forms and sitting through (and recovering from) the seldom-ennobling evaluation itself. I sometimes wonder if anyone has ever calculated the impact of such exercises on overall productivity.

Obsessing all the time about the details of my job seems to be the only way to keep the whole precarious setup from flying apart. When I should be sleeping or thinking about other aspects of my life, I'm worrying about project timetables to be drafted, negotiated, corroborated, and circulated for comments; e-mail messages and phone calls to be made and returned; reports to be written; publications to be edited; presentations to be created, practiced, and delivered; and the rows and columns of figures that have to be interpreted so that budgets can be reconciled.

My administrative peers and I have to attend hours and hours of meetings each month, sharing information that's nice to have, but not critical to our jobs. More important, the meetings prevent us from doing the work we have been assigned, owe to others in the college and the marketplace, and will be evaluated on in the summer.

I've considered applying for a few jobs that were comparable in description and compensation to the one I have now. But director-level positions are often unashamedly advertised as involving conflicting priorities and multiple projects with simultaneous deadlines. I'm sure there are candidates who would find that prospect appealing, but not me. I already have that job.

Unfortunately, I can't afford to retire. My husband and I don't own a house outright. He and I are vigorous but late savers. So I have to keep working, keep saving.

But, the fact is — dare I say it? — I don't want to be a director anymore.

I've been toying with the idea of stepping off the management track and rejoining the rank and file at my college, as a humble writer, editor, or project manager. A lesser status wouldn't solve all my issues here, but it would relieve me of many hours of meetings a month, not to mention the inevitable preparations, assignments, and debriefings that accompany them.

People decide all the time to scale back their work obligations for things like raising children or overseeing the care of an aging parent. My motives are different: I want my life — and my mind — back so I can focus my attention on creative writing. 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.

But can you really approach your supervisor to request a less-challenging position in order to … write? Or would that sound too inconsequential for my boss to entertain seriously?

Perhaps I could use the same approach that we see in the newspapers when someone leaves a position of importance rather suddenly: I could say I want to move into a less-demanding position so I can "pursue other opportunities." If asked what those are, I could mumble something about striving to achieve that elusive "work/life balance."

Considering such a change of status regularly drives me to financial freakouts, particularly in this time of high gasoline and food prices and low returns on investments as well as forecasts for the next year that are shockingly dire.

If my boss declines my request, am I ready to walk away from my job, without an income or health insurance (at an age when I need that insurance most)? I know I could do consulting — I've already received some offers — but in my line of work, that can mean working many lucrative but all-consuming hours to get a project out the door on time, not to mention having to invest time in marketing my services. Would I essentially be trading one kind of overwork for another?

If I did leave without having another full-time job lined up, my husband and I would have to tighten our belts — no more takeout dinners for us. But after I finished my writing each day, I might actually have enough energy left over to get some home-cooked meals on the table.

Marie Pelangy is the pseudonym of a director of an administrative department at a liberal-arts college in the East.