Back to work cry

[Ifeellikeateenageragain]

Opened up my emails and just burst into tears after reading 10 of them.

Anyone else feeling this returning to HE work at the moment?

Yep, I'm in Professional services and spouse is an academic. We both feel this way. We both overworked ourselves for too long and there's nothing left in the tank. 💐

That's the feel I'm getting from everyone - nothing left to give 😞

I'm away with family this week. I'm dreading having to start back on a paper on Monday and all the induction sessions I have to be smiley at. I feel like I need a holiday, or just one day off by myself, after trying to balance childcare and writing all summer but that's never going to happen.

Yes everyone is exhausted. I used to quite like it as we prepared for the new academic year - the place took on new energy and colleagues seemed more animated and enthusiastic about a new batch of students, after a summer working on their research.

Now there is no quiet time, no time to focus on anything specific, just a mad juggle of one demand after another, long long days and far too much working evenings and weekends. Just not sustainable.

Going back to a severely reduced dept (down by 45 percent) after redundancies' and severances, workload doubled, problems of recruitment still not over yet, I have never felt more grim. Happy to still have a job for the money, but Christ this is not why I wanted to do this job. Gruelling.

Resits still unmarked and professional services hopelessly behind on everything partly due to this... every September gets harder

Easier this year than last year for us, although I'm dreading taking on a new module that I haven't prepared nearly as much as intended over the summer. Last year was horrendous due to an enormous number of resitting students.

The summer definitely used to feel like more of a break, we start teaching in a fortnight and I'm still tying up odds and ends from the exam board.

Me 🙋‍♀️

Still trying to finish off a piece of writing.

Resits have been a mess - so many extensions and things coming in late.

Timetable still hasn’t been sorted so I’ve no idea of my pattern, aside from which days I’ll be in (but even that is uncertain). Apparently all the requested changes that were submitted in July just… weren’t acted on?!

Glad I'm not alone. I've never felt this negative in all my teaching years. I feel exhausted and it all starts again on Monday. I honestly think this is my last teaching year. Due an Ofsted re-visit following our grading drop in February so management are putting on the pressure despite the drop in grading being due to poor leadership. Hardly any teaching staff left, I've got six courses to manage with no admin. Gone from a department of 17 down to 5. I can't see how I'm going to get through this year, I'm waking up in the night in a complete panic. No pay rise either as we are in debt.

Timetable still hasn’t been sorted so I’ve no idea of my pattern, aside from which days I’ll be in (but even that is uncertain). Apparently all the requested changes that were submitted in July just… weren’t acted on?!

I think this is another aspect of the pressure we're under. Professional Services at my place has collapsed. Seemingly, no one is willing to work full-time any more in an admin role, so there are loads of roles that don't have proper coverage now - what used to be a 1.0FTE is now a 0.6 (at best) leaving academics (HoDs and programme leads, particularly) to pick up basic clerical tasks or clean up the mess when things aren't done. It makes me really bitter every time I hear that X on the departmental admin team has reduced their hours, because what that inevitably means is that more work is coming to those of us already working tens of hours over our contract every week. And then we are gaslight by managers telling us how flexible and inclusive they are as an employer, FFS.

@GCAcademic Totally agree. We had an email recently ‘updating’ us on the departmental PS team. While we appear to be lucky enough to have a full-enough complement (though I don’t know if anyone isn’t 1.0) the turnover is simply massive and things get missed, new people don’t know the basics, etc. Almost the entire team joined within the last year or so and thus the only institutional memory is the academics, piling more pressure on.

I saved annual leave for September and there is no chance of me being nice to anyone until Sep 13th. It was an already brutal year and twenty weeks of dealing with fucking MAB have done for me. Admissions figures not looking good either.

Also I am thinking obsessively about retirement . . .

I’m dreading the new term, too. PS have been busy with the MAB, so a lot of prep for the new term has not been done.

Somehow, cutting back on PS was seen as a cost saving exercise without acknowledging all the important work they do. I have the most amazing course administrator who keeps me bloody same but she's under pressure from the lack of PS support in other parts of the institution.

I typed a long reply yesterday, then deleted as it had descended in to a rant.

But in short I've honestly never known a more chaotic start to the year. So many things have been fucked up causing extra work and stress on the few still hanging on by their skin of their teeth, due to tiredness, burn out, staff not knowing what they are doing (not their fault), not having the staff, MAB, students who are knackered and stressed etc etc etc...

Interesting to hear its not just at my uni. I'm in PS and never known anything like the current staff turnover. We're in an absolute mess as there's been a huge restructure alongside gaps everywhere and I dread to think of term starting in the next few weeks. We've got no staff, managers haven't got a clue what they are doing and students will be so frustrated.

We're all just fed up of being constantly overworked due to relentlessly squeezed budgets. Meanwhile they find ££ for ridiculous projects and updating buildings. I'm in a specialist area working directly with students otherwise I'd have left HE years ago despite a fundamental love for what I do. So sad the way things are going.

Good luck all!

I'm a PL and I feel quite deskilled of my academic knowledge/ skills because hardly any of my time is spent on what could be described as academic work. I'm doing e-mails, spreadsheets, chasing unnamed people at various generic mailboxes. There is more blame than ever. I wonder how many staff are leaving the sector? It is not as if this is just a low point that people have lots of plans to make better... management don't even talk about the admin problems. Or if they do, just turn it back on PLs!