Academics Chat Thread

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I believe the old Chat thread has fallen off the front page of this section, and I thought it might be time to reinstate it. I know it's only sporadically useful, but sometimes it's nice, right?

I am a lowly postdoctoral English Lit type. Finished my PhD in 2014, teaching associate for a couple of years, and now part-time while DD is a baby. I'm currently working frantically to get my book manuscript to the publisher by my deadline (October), and also trying to regain enthusiasm for the job market.

Who else is lurking around here?

Ugh. Hope I get some point for "collegiality". Taking over some things for Director of Teaching due to family emergency, which should have been smooth but two crises already this morning! Both sorted. Feels kind of nice, actually, to be acting with DoT power and just fix stuff instead of having to ask someone for permission. (not that I ever actually want to be DoT... I hope...)

My previous grant crisis is still ongoing but I'm starting to habituate to it several months on. I assume something will be sorted, sometime. (perhaps why I was so please to handle things that could be fixed in a matter of hours...)

Oh god no, don't be DoT! Not that I have ever done it.

Byzantine rules surrounding car parking mean that I've had to pay for a full price parking permit this year when I'd rather have a car share permit and I'm only driving due to a change in family circumstances, previously I could get the bus. Do they want people to car share or not, I ask you!!?!

Hello!

Happy New Academic Year!

(OK, maybe "happy" is pushing it ...)

Apart from all kinds of reorganisations at all levels from senior management to the extent of nobody knowing who is doing what where for whom when, life at the department is going swimmingly.

But car park permit was at least not a problem. I am grateful for small mercies.

Well, I now know my teaching timetable at least. In the past, this has not always been a given until Freshers Week.

No word yet on my promotion application.... I am slowly losing the will to care.

I am still marking, this time Master's dissertations. I did have an interesting moment yesterday when a colleague sent me his reports - we both made comments on the student's language, viz:

Him: The student has misspelt my name! This is intensely disrespectful and calls into question their attention to detail.
Me: The student should reconsider the use and frequency of the word 'seminal' in a piece on abortion.

In other news, a colleague has unexpectedly resigned, leaving us with two weeks to fill ten teaching hours.

Life as usual, pretty much.

Everybody misspells my name....

My bar is set so low that I would forgive them as long as they don't go "are you sure" when I correct them.

It's nice when you think you have LOADS to do on an article revision but actually there is only a bit of rejigging (mainly to be less rude to the reviewer).
When I submitted the previous version the editor complained that I hadn't "highlighted" the edits. I did point out where they were, in my response to the reviewers. I didn't actually think she meant "put yellow highlighter on the edits" but apparently this editor is somewhat literal.
I would say I'm having a good day, but other than that, I'm not.

We always yellow highlight edits! It’s the norm for papers I review too.

We don't do that, but it would be really useful.

I had never, ever heard of it. We usually either state page and paragraph or add a Word comment saying "Edit 1" or whatever.

It gets really messy when reorganising a whole section also.

Anyway I'm at a writing day (stick a bunch of you in a room with laptops and turn off email) and I got here first, which I'm totally negating by reading Twitter and Mumsnet.

I'm also very precariously present at work and only not readiong or answering my email is helping. Many things going on in my personal life and any demand pushes me over the edge. I am OK on these sequestered days but I may need to sign myself off for a few days - or even get the GP to sign me off for longer - if this continues.

How funny, one of the many things I assumed were universal and are actually field specific.

I hope you’re ok Worst

Really sorry to hear about the pressures you're under Worst. Can you delegate any tasks to a colleague or to admin staff?

Oh, so sorry to hear about things not going well :( I was pretty near the edge at the start of the summer, just curling up and crying in the evening - also stuff going on with my parents, which is improving, but then all the difficult grant stuff. Apparently I've been talked about in the upper admin! But at least not by name, just by situation (person who told me was surprised it was me...). But both terribly embarassed to have caused so much trouble, and also upset with those that made it happen! And those people are probably still upset with me. But I'm hoping to be coming out the other side of it, maybe.

I was actually wondering how you get signed off, wondering if I'd need it. I have no clue what one does! Do you just go to the GP and say you can't handle things anymore? Who tells work?

Another one struggling atm, the work home balance thing is just not working. The thought of another term (we have new prog changes too) is just too much. Very sorry to hear you are struggling too @worstofbothworlds and @murmuration . Yes, I think that is how it works re getting signed off but I have never done it. I have considered it but then just felt guilty for colleagues. This is my silliness btw.

Can you delegate any tasks to a colleague or to admin staff?
Well, yes, but one of the main issues is that I've been given large tasks and no information and told to get on with it and not to moan about my workload.
I've said repeatedly I can't do them and that I don't have enough help or information. If it had been properly managed months ago it would have been fine. I don't have delegation power.

If I'm not there someone else will have to do them. The ironic thing is that I'm happily getting on with other things at work.

You can self certify for a limited period or get signed off. I had a period of depression previously where I got signed off but this feels different.

I'm beyond caring about other people - they are the HoD's problem. If their management style included giving people the right tools to do the job this wouldn't have happened.
There have been several other colleagues who've gone off sick for weeks/months and one who was off for ages and then had a break in their employment which I suspect may have been similar. Just make people's jobs doable, okay?

"Just make people's jobs doable, okay?"

I'll settle for not actively impeding people going about doing their jobs...

All of us here actually wanting to work. How can it be so impossible?

Haha. work, not work.

This was an impossible task with a "ask X, they'll know" and then X claims to know nothing.
Though I've had quite a bit of obstruction of things I know how to do as well. Someone told me a partnership I have with an external body had ended. News to me and the body that had invited me to several more meetings.

Actually scrap "claims to know nothing". "Refuses to answer question" is more like it.

I've had: "Ask A", so you ask A, who says "Ask B", so you do, and B says "Ask C", and so you do, and ... You get the drift. You either run out of letters of the alphabet, or the will to live, or most probably, both ...

Anyway. It's the weekend. I'm cooking for friends. The sun is shining. I'm not checking work email. The beauty of being useless is that nobody is going to die when I'm not there. So I'm off being happy.