Feel out of place in academia because I'm not passionate or ambitious

[BellaHadidHere]

I'm an SL at an RG university. I got prompted because we have a yearly round of promotion rather than self-nomination and the powers that be decided I should be promoted. Obviously, I wasn't going to turn down a £8,000 pay rise

I'm good at my job and I enjoy most of it.

But, I'm not looking to move up the career ladder any more. I'm happy to plod along where I am. I get excellent teaching scores and I'm okay at research (REF-able but I don't have thousands of 4* publications).

I'm also not "passionate" about the job. I like it but it's just a "job" to me. I don't work evenings or weekends regularly (will do if I'm under some pressure for a deadline) and I don't stress about work. If a great opportunity came up at similar levels of pay I'd think very seriously about it. I'm not "wedded" to academia and I don't see my identity as an "academic"- it's my job but not my whole identity, if that makes sense. As soon as I can, I'll retire from work and I won't look back. I don't want to be emeritus- I can't think of anything worse.

Sometimes I completely feel like the odd one out. I've never met anyone else in academia who feels this way (or at least no-one who's openly admitted it!). There must be people like me out there? Are there? Are you one of them?

Everyone can't have 4 ratings though across all their papers, can they?*

Yes, this is of course the ridiculous thing. I am aware of departments introducing performance management for predicted grade averages below 3 - in subjects where outside Oxbridge pretty much no department had an average above 3 last time. (And this is of course leaving aside the huge issues of bias in rating papers internally.)

What is going to happen pretty soon is that the sector is going to suffer from very high stress levels.

I think we are already in that part of the cycle. I agree that over the next part of the cycle it will become clear to universities that high achievers are leaving, more people are taking sick leave, and that performance management doesn't work effectively. As you say, you can't fire everybody - and so some of your worst performers can play on that, pushing back against performance management measures.

I think it's probably still fine to be the 35-40 hour a week person.

As PP wrote, the hours worked a red herring. I had the impression from OP that she was not particularly performing well in research (perhaps due to 35 hour week), but if you are performing well in research and teaching then the number of hours you work is irrelevant. Personally I could do no research for half the year (hence quite short working hours) and still put out "enough" research to get by.

Funnily enough at our institution just last week we had a visitor who's been heavily involved in the last couple of REFs/RAE who gave us some helpful info. In our discipline apparently only two people produced 4x 4* papers.

OP, you sound v sensible to me. Having just returning to full-time duties after mat leave I'm working (less?!) hard to emulate you!

OP, I agree it's 'taboo' to have attitudes like yours. I'm somewhat similar, although I am ambitious - I really do want to be a Prof. But health issues have meant I simply cannot work more than a 40-hr week, so I'm banking on being able to get to Prof on those terms. And, honestly, if being Prof didn't actually change your title (like it doesn't in the US), I'd probably be happy staying a SL. Although if I got more money, maybe I could work part-time...hmm. I would be going PT if I could, but family finances restrict that. So really my ambition is less about the job and more about nifty things (like a title) and money.

But yeah, you can't really say that in person, can you? I do enjoy my job - I love teaching, and I find research fun. I think I enjoy it more than I'd like much other jobs, but it's definitely a 'job-level' enjoyment. Not an over-consuming passion that it seems some people have.

Although, I'm recalling my job interview where I am now, and the then-Head of School was explaining promotion and progression and retirement, and talked about emeritus as well, but then said something along the lines of "I think I'd be happy to stop working after all those years". It gave me a nice impression of the place, striking me that work-life balance was something that they did care about if the Head was willing to say that to an applicant.

I am so glad this thread is here. I am a rather ambivalent academic too. Except I swing between feeling quite ambitious and then being demoralised and depressed that I'm not good enough. I really struggle with producing high quality papers - and find the whole thing of presenting work to academic peers and having it torn apart really quite traumatic (this has just happened this week)! Is that just me? I guess what I am saying is that my ambivalence is located quite heavily in a lack of confidence which I don't think is misplaced.

My response is to do a lot of impact work (I have a pretty good reputation here) which offers more validation for me (and also, money). And that is starting to be recognised by my institution - they definitely want my impact case study for the REF. I have always wanted my research to make a difference. Sometimes I think about going into more of a policy role, but there is loads about academia I value and enjoy, including the autonomy and independence.

I suppose no job is perfect - but I totally recognise not wanting to make it everything. I have made a clear decision that I will work hard for five days during the week, but I do not on the whole work weekends, or many evenings, unless I have especially pressing deadlines.

I really struggle with producing high quality papers - and find the whole thing of presenting work to academic peers and having it torn apart really quite traumatic (this has just happened this week)! Is that just me?

I used to. I actually didn't really publish for a good couple of years because of my fear of internal peer review (all our papers have to be reviewed internally before we can submit them). I wasn't as bothered about external review because it's anonymous but I hated critique from colleagues.

Then a couple of things happened. Firstly, I found myself co-authoring a lot more. Sharing the criticism (i.e it wasn't just a criticism of my work but ours) was incredibly helpful and also actually seeing and being convinced that this does happen to everyone.

Secondly, I stopped caring about work (hence the attitude I talk about in this thread). What that meant was that I was able to go "meh" to scathing peer reviews. Ultimately my work isn't who I am so a reviewer telling me my work's shit is absolutely no reflection on me as a person. Worst case scenario is that I get a string of awful reviews, I don't publish for years and I get performance managed out over the course of a few years. Doesn't sound all that bad....

I think we need more people who treat it as a job rather than a pedestal. Might help redress the balance many of us lack. I’m hanging on in academia until I figure out what to do with my life (or get made redundant, which is looking not unlikely at present).

I don't take it too seriously but the threads in mumsnet academia make me think I should, or that I'm missing something. I've been working v hard recently to finish a book but it's me pushing me. I don't feel much external pressure and when I read about performance management (which I've never heard of) I think I must be missing something. Like it's happening around me and I just haven't noticed. I'm SL at a RG uni and either my dpt is exceptionally pleasant or I'm too wrapped up in personal life (keeping up with our kids) that I don't notice the shit at work. I'm not overachieving and feel nervous about that I guess.

Glad this thread's been resurrected. The new year has given me new impetus to continue keeping work in perspective. I refused, for example, to make any new year resolutions pertaining to my work.

Yoga I think talk of things like performance review can become quite over-blown both IRL and on MN. This makes these things seem ubiquitous, terrifying and perhaps inevitable. I completely agree with your assessment that it makes me feel like I should care/be worried about these things because everyone else is.

Most people will know of someone who was put on performance review, or who was shifted to a teaching-only contract, or who was ushered out of the university etc. When I go to training sessions, for example, I find it doesn't take long for stories of pressure, management and how bad life is in other departments to start being told.

However, I think like most things in life those with the most "extreme" experiences are the most keen to tell their stories or to get advice and so become the most visible.

I found similar just before I started my PhD; PhD forums were full of people with awful tales about terrible supervisors, inadequate support, plagiarism, harassment etc. The forums weren't populated by people (like me) who's experiences could be summed up as "fine, sometimes really quite enjoyable". So I went into my PhD believing the myth that a PhD is, or should be awful and terrible and isolating and demoralising. I found it wasn't, it was fine.

I find the same thing now in an academic job. The most visible and vocal people are those with extreme stories to tell which creates the image that things like performance management are everywhere and if you're not engaged in that, you're doing something wrong.

Over the last four years, there's only been one person in my department (of about 50 academics) who's been on performance management and that was because his behaviour was extremely problematic (think threatening students, shouting at all...).
So, one person on performance review out of fifty people, in a four year period which included a disastrous REF outcome? Those are pretty good odds to me...

There are significant variations between UK universities, in terms of how much performance management has been introduced.

In universities that are or have been making academics redundant (Manchester, Southampton, Surrey....) performance management is a real issue, as it fear of being made redundant, for many people.

But there are other RG universities that have not (yet) introduced significant performance management. If you are working in such a university, it is not surprising that you do not take it seriously.

I also find it interesting that it is two SLs who don't feel there is performance management. I'm not sure I would have noticed it so much either at that career stage - although there has been an escalation in measuring performance in the last decade or so. This is obvious at university level (REF, TEF, KEF....) but has also happened at individual academic level.

And would it have been believable ten years ago that universities such as Manchester would make a hundred odd academics redundant - as I understand it, those being targeted for redundancy/severance at Manchester, Southampton etc were not performing particularly badly.

Performance management can sneak up on you. My RG university has just introduced it in one department when no-one was looking, put a good number of staff on review or given them the option to leave, and is now rolling this out, as well as upping the benchmarks all the time. We have been relatively untouched til now, or at least, there were stringent benchmarks at L level, but not in the above levels (beyond promotion criteria).

I am not changing how I work or working more, but I am keeping a close eye on this process as it has been stealthily brought in, and what is the norm in a few institutions is likely to spread in the sector. That said, every institution can't demand high grant income plus all 4* papers, as they would have no-one left!

I totally appreciate that about PM sneaking up on you and being under-taken with gusto in some universities. It hasn't happened at mine yet.

My attitude towards PM is tangled up with my attitude towards my work in general. For many academics, the threat of PM is the anxiety associated with losing their job.

This is, I think, in no small part because of the anxiety about losing their academic job, rather than just losing their job more general. The threat of losing your (not you personally!) academic job is bound up with losing your identity, prestige and passion. But my job isn't my identity, I don't get my prestige from it and I'm not passionate about it.

So if I was performance managed out of my job, it'd be to me the same as losing my job in a chicken factory. It's a PITA that I have to find another one but ultimately it's only a job (not my life, my passion etc.).

I've said about that being PMed out of academia might be a nice excuse to try something new.

You could be right that academics ultimately dislike PM because of the fear of losing their jobs/identity, but until you've experienced it first-hand it's hard to describe how horrid it can be.
Unfortunately, with JJ in the D of E, there will be no let-up on PM. If a H of Department says they won't use it, they will find themselves out of a job.
IME the only way to escape the spectre of PM is to be self-employed, where as the manager you get to choose whether you want to PM yourself of not. It started in the big accountancy companies but PM has infested every industry now.

I prefer my autonomous interesting job to one working in a chicken factory, for sure, I don't know if this makes me identify so strongly with it I can't envisage myself without it now. I think it's more I know the options out there for my quals and experience, and I don't fancy them much as at least in my job you can think/say what you like about your topics (not always what you think/say about students/structure of uni though:))

PM makes you feel like you are working in a chicken factory because you just become a processor of grants/students/marking and so on and aren't valued as an individually interesting/academic individual. It's also used to get rid of people and make everyone compete which also makes you feel devalued. It's horrible.