I have a permanent post but I think that the amount of precarity in the profession is awful. Constant short term contracts, excessively long probation periods, and lack of security take their toll and I am not sure how some people do it. I also dislike the way that hourly paid staff are just treated as disposable and brought in so that someone else can do less teaching.
I dislike the competitive nature of the profession. I have lovely colleagues and am lucky in that sense. But in all my life, the nastiest behaviour that I have ever seen on a professional level has come from academics, hands down. I was shocked to learn that there are people out there who want you destroyed if you disagree with them. And that often those who label themselves as inclusive or fighting for the marginalised are the worst bullies.
People will use you to advance their own careers. I guess this happens in other professions too but it’s quite prevalent in academia. To get ahead, you have to exploit others to some extent, whether that is phd students who have no hope of a job, precarious postdocs, colleagues on teaching-only contracts, or people you persuade to write for your edited collection that boosts your own profile but does little for theirs. I turn the edited collection invites down as a rule now. Especially ones where it’s clear from the outset that they aren’t REF-able but the overall project allows the academic in charge to claim impact-points.
The stifling of debate, especially regarding gender and sex rights. I have realised that critical thought and rational argument count for very little. A factually inaccurate and poorly written article that is almost libellous in nature, written by a ‘woke’ prof and collaborators is currently doing the rounds on Twitter. Many academics are heaping praise on it. In it, the authors smear some junior scholars who have dared to have a different opinion on women’s rights (an opinion based on facts). They are accused of incompetence throughout. It’s disgusting behaviour but it’s applauded because the senior prof engaging in the smearing claims to be fighting for minority rights (for anyone interested, it’s an article by Sharon Cowan et al in Scottish Affairs and it attacks a previous article by Murray, Hunter-Blackburn and Mackenzie in the same journal).
It’s all about who you know, not what you know. Who your friends are, who you name-drop, where you work etc. Mediocre work gets funded and praised and any critique is labelled as hate-speech and can destroy your entire career. It’s awful.
So, anyway, I hope that puts you off! I don’t know what else I can do as a job so I am staying in there for now but it does get harder and harder all the time. I like my students, the flexibility, and the intellectual challenge but my god there are some rotten things about academia.