Nice new corner! Come and chat!

[NeverEverAnythingEver]

We have our new board! Calling all cademics/aspiring academics/fed-up academics - come and chat!

StepAway that sounds awful, my sympathies I have a friend in a similar post and I know how much it stresses her.

Are you looking to move or do you think you'll have to stick it out?

That does sound awful Step. I moved away from somewhere that was threatening to have open plan offices and am so glad I did.
We are very strict on finishing time for our seminars and I walk out rudely if we aren't.

I would dearly love to move but I'm geographically very limited. I only took the job in the first place (leaving a much better job) because I cannot commute for health reasons. It was affecting my health to the point that it was really get any job locally or not work at all.

There are very few alternative options locally so I've ended up at the university with horrendous staff turnover (wonder why that might be). What's worse is that being in this job has both eroded my confidence as an academic and made it almost impossible to publish anything. So, that makes getting a job elsewhere (and the other local options have very high expectations) tricky.

I'm trying to prioritise research but it's proving very difficult and is very negatively affecting my health. I have a disability that makes things more difficult anyway, so I really can't come home and just work all evening after a day of frustrating and pointless tasks punctuated by regular interruptions. It feels like a no win situation sometimes, but I just have to make the best of it. I regularly say to myself, 'at least they pay me'.

StepAway

Oh, step, that sounds horrid :( We've been given only a bare fraction of such tasks (e.g., cross-referencing student numbers and names), and I've pushed back quite hard, showing how many hours I spent, etc. As they actually value things like staff having time for research, I get listened to. (Or value me as a teacher? Not sure, but as one of the few who doesn't actually complain about having to do any teaching, I think the teaching team takes my perspective as a valid one from research-active staff.)

While we're asking about time off for things, what are your Uni's procedures around Easter? For us, Fri and Mon are standard teaching days, and this year they've scheduled a big research even on Easter Friday. I'm not going to make it, because we have a traditional Easter activity that we leave for on Fri AM. Feeling weird, but also like, seriously, it's Easter! They might pretend it's just another workday, but it's not. I'm also feeling sort of okay, as I know senior staff who couldn't do stuff on Easter Monday in past years because of family things, so it's not unprecedented.

And, ugh, I didn't mention since my new cold two weeks ago, I've developed a sinus infection and an ear infection. After DH basically got very angry at me yesterday for being ill all the time, and saying that I "must do something about it", I made an appointment with the GP, which I was given that day as my cough (that I've had since Jan) had changed overnight. So I went in, and GP says: my lungs are clear; he can see the traces of the sinus, ear, and throat infections in residual inflammation; the residual inflammation is the reason my cough changed - it's now a reflex cough instead of 'clearing throat' cough; and the only explanation he has for the fact that I'm running a fever is that I've developed yet another bug whose symptoms haven't broken through yet. Great. Now I'm just waiting to see what infection I have next. This has passed comedy of errors into some kind of warped tragedy. I'm desperately struggling, and I can't believe my career may be threatened by a series of simple colds. And it's not doing my relationship any favours, either.

*research event

We seem not to be teaching on Easter Friday - at least, classes which are normally scheduled for Fridays moved to Thursday that week. It's not enormously clear to me that this is happening across the board, however, because adjunct teachers at least were not told anything about it - just had their timetables changed. It's also the last week of term for us, so I am not sure what's happening with coursework deadlines - fortunately all my modules had deadlines on Weds/Thurs this time around so have not been effected.

Really sorry to hear you're still not feeling well murmuration - do you at least have a decent break from teaching coming up, to recover a little?

Our term ends the week before this year but in the past we had classes on Maundy Thursday but all regular Friday classes were cancelled and then term ended. I think CW was due Thursday.

We have however had classes on the May bank holidays before, though I personally managed to get away with only one exam invigilation once (we also have Saturday exams so no legs to stand on complaining about that one, and it was pre-DCs so I couldn't plead childcare issues).

I have no tips, as I am clearly terrible at negotiating!

On the plus side, my university schedules it's teaching weeks so there are two weeks of Easter break every year (which include Easter weekend) so this never comes up. Everything else might be shit, but you can reliably have Easter Monday and good Friday off. (I'm determined to focus on any hint of bright side).

Exciting NK! My negotiation experience is limited to this position 10 years ago, so not very much! But my instinct would be to be honest with them. Say what it would take to get you to move, so they know where they stand. I'm not sure about things like salary -the advice I had gotten was to go a bit high so you could negotiate down, but my Uni didn't try (although I now realise because I should have asked for much more - their initial offer was ridiculously low, as it was I asked for 30% more already! I may have been more dubious of the place had I realised quite how much they low-balled me, but I now have to conclude it was HR not my colleagues, although it did limit my earning potential until I got promoted to SL).

Our school holiday and 'spring break' from Uni are completely disjoint here, too. Apparently there used to be usually a 1 week overlap and then they redid the academic schedule and there is actually something like a week of teaching between our break and schools'.

Somebody must have said something to the teaching office, as they had scheduled a meet-the-staff for upcoming final year students on Easter Monday - and it just got switched to Tue. I guess the students are there but a lot of staff probably fed back they wouldn't be.

I think my university tends to see it as the students want an Easter break and they certainly don't want to be in on Easter Monday, so we get a break. It certainly isn't about our convenience as staff. It never is.

NK re negotiations, I'd try to decide which is more important to me: study leave (is it for a full year or a shorter period?) or salary (exactly how much more than current salary do I want as a minimum?). I'd mention both criteria straight off the bat, refuse to budge on whichever one I prioritised, and be prepared to give a little on the other one. Ideally, both sides would then feel they're walking away with a good deal.

The title thing could be linked to salary but it's not that important tbh - it's the grade point on the salary scale that matters, so I'd cite the grade point in negotiations.

Something like "I'm very interested in the job but if I stay in my current post, I get study leave of X months in spring 2017 and a salary at grade point Y. What can you offer to exceed that to make it worth the disruption of moving?"

Of course, you really do have to be prepared to walk away if they're being stingy...

Can you tell I enjoy negotiations now?

I made a big job move (geographically and up to Professor) about 11 years ago, and was offered about a 12% uplift on my salary which was top of SL. Plus maximum relocation costs. Could you negotiate including the relocation costs - HMRC allows around £8,000 I think?

NK, perhaps instead of thinking of it as being greedy, consider that you're doing neither you nor them any favours if you don't provide an honest assessment of what it would take for you to actually accept the job.

NK it's not greed, just realism! Why should you be worse off financially for taking this job?

£6k per year is probably around 3-4 spine points at the level above SL, less if the new institution has the London weighting and your current one doesn't. It's not that big an ask, and you can explain if you like during negotiations. Either way, work out your minimum grade point on the new institution's salary scales (round up if you have to).

Try to get them to offer you a particular salary first. Sometimes they give the salary as part of the initial job offer, but sometimes not. If they ask you to specify what salary you'd like, throw the question back and ask th what salary they think would be a fair offer. The only reason to try to get you to specify a salary first is the hope you'll capitulate and undersell yourself (which women tend to do more than men).

If the salary offer is not what you want, tell them. For example: "I'm very interested in the job but if I stay at my current post I get salary at grade point X with minimal travel costs and study leave for Y months in spring 2017. I've calculated that travel alone would cost me approx £6k per year if I had to commute to [new university], which translates to grade point Z on your salary scales. What can you offer to exceed the above to make it worth the disruption of a move?"

Stick to your guns for salary but keep asking for the study leave as well unless you get a big fat no from the start. (And if they say no to study leave, ask for something else to bolster research time, like a reduced teaching load for the first 1-2 years to allow you to re-establish your research programme in a new location, etc.)

Good luck

Remember there is London weighting, which would mean an extra couple of k for each salary point. But it seems like you need at least 10k per year extra to break even (less if you can buy the season ticket through salary sacrifice, i.e. pre tax) so you should level with them on that.

Personally I would need to be paid 12k or so more gross in London to match my current salary, taking into account costs of the 50 min train journey plus tube plus parking at station. I think London institutions know they have to pay these kinds of uplifts to get people from elsewhere in the UK. And at all UK institutions you have to start at the right level: it's much harder to get big salary increases from within.

geekaMaxima and Disquit give good advice. It's not greed. If they want you, you shouldn't be expected to take what is effectively a cut in salary.

Thing is, it won't be not-difficult elsewhere. But the difficult things will be different. Nowhere in the UK is academia not difficult. If I could work elsewhere, I probably would.

Maybe that's part of the conversation to have with the place seeking to employ you, as well as the negotiation over salary. Identify the bits of what you do which could or are difficult because of institutional constraints. Then ask canny questions about them at the new place.

NK - given that you were in this position last year and things haven't improved enough for you not to be considering taking another job now then I think you may already have your answer! The challenge of working while being a mum, particularly in a job like ours is always full of tough choices. I bet if you were the man there wouldn't be these dilemmas!! But given that your partner is around to do so many pick ups & drop offs then I'd make the most of it and go for the new job. And given that we generally don't have to be in our office 5 days a week then a commute is less of a burden for us anyways. I say go for it! Good luck with it all x

Hello! What's everyone up to? We are entering exam season. Which is fine. But I hate marking exams...