I just can't be fucking arsed any more.

[SmashedPumpkings]

It's a rainy Monday at the beginning of assessment and marking season, and I'm at a point in my life where flouncing off forever for an early retired filled with an absence of academic bullshit feels within reach.
No longer being fucking arsed with academic life seems like a perfectly natural reaction to this context.
But, still I need to be a little bit fucking arsed because I do actually need to do my job, if only with minimal effort and if only for a decade-ish.

My lack of arsed-ness is manifesting in several ways including, but not limited to:
> Not pursuing any new research avenues unless they are genuinely innovative, fascinating and/or disruptive. I have no fucks left to give for research which is safe and intending only incremental shifts.
> Not attending conferences or workshops unless there is a clear and direct benefit to me. I have no fucks left to give for hearing about other people's safe research which inevitably results in hardly-discernible incremental shifts.
> Only writing academic articles that excite me even if they are completely left-field from my core research area and not guaranteed 3/4*. I I have no fucks left to give for spending weeks agonising over writing articles that are dull but strategic.
> Putting only minimal effort into teaching such that I ensure the basics and foundations are sound while giving no attention to the singing and dancing add-ons because, shock horror, academia is not one long Tik Tok video. I have no fucks left to give for pedagogical practice which ignores the fundamentals of sound scholarship and assessment and, instead, focuses on shiny things in the name of some bullshit strategy.
> No longer answering stupid student questions. I have no fucks left to give for students who email with questions that have been answered both in person, in lecture materials and on Ultra sites.
> Completing my citizenship role to the absolute minimal standards and at a time which is convenient for me (barring meetings of course). I have no fucks left to give for roles which have minimal kudos attached, from which I get zero satisfaction and which I believe would be more effectively, and cheaply, done by a colleague on an administrator contract.

In short, I'm working to contract whereby I'm doing my job to an adequate quality but no more than that.
Though I'm still a decade away from leaving academia, I'm already beginning the process of winding down. In six or seven years I'll dispense completely with anything which is absolutely non-essential.

Thank you for giving me the time to vent this. For obvious reasons, I've name changed.

I wonder whether anyone else just can't be fucking arsed any more? And if so, how does your not arsed-ness manifest?

Yes I don't know anyone who has enough time allocated for admin, or for teaching in general -- you are required to do so much more than in previous years and there are constant extras, new policies to implement and report on, it's never-ending. e.g. we are in a recruitment crisis so you need to film a 5 minute video for marketing this week, we are changing all the assessment models so you need to revise all your modules, here's a chunk of funding you can have for next year but you need a 5 page proposal by next week, here's your mandatory 2-hour data protection training...

I don't mind the work itself but it just comes from all directions in a totally unorganised way and is not accounted for in the workload, so it comes out of research time, which gets smaller and smaller every year

Well it is true, as is the student ratio. It's not supposed to be this bad, but we literally have half the dept on long term sick. So there were 5 of us, 2 on long term sick. 2 f/t inc me left and a 0.5.

So no I'm not supposed to be teaching 4 days a week but there we go, the student ratio isn't meant to be this bad but there you go.

So today I'm marking all day (just having a break as my brain is fried), teaching 9-4 tomorrow and thurs, then fri marking.

Next week I am teaching all day Mon, all day tues and thursday. Weds is set aside for marking (20 assignments) and Fri is non stop 1-1 personal tutorial appts without a lunchbreak. Weds I have a couple of personal tutorials encroaching on my marking day and at some point I need to read emails.

The week after I am teaching all day Mon, all day Tues, Weds morning and all day Thursday. Friday is annual leave.

So Mon next week I shouldn't be teaching, I think possibly Thurs also wasn't originally my teaching day but I am picking up the teaching and marking load for the 2 people who are off sick. Which is why it's so bad. I can't exactly say no even though I'd love to. I keep telling SLT it's not sustainable and they have been telling me since Oct "it's in hand".

I really wish it wasn't true and I can see why you'd think it isn't. This is why next to no programme lead stuff is getting done. Something has to give for SLT to actually do something at some point. If I did all the course admin at weekends they'd happily let me but enough is enough. So I prioritise the teaching and the students. I was answering student emails over the weekend.

I'm pretty sure I'll be off on long term sick myself soon. And I have warned SLT numerous times.

Are you currently an academic? I am not aware of any university that employs physicians to support students. There are overstretched GP and NHS services with very long waiting lists but not a university medical team working with students. Universities do have counsellors and disability services but these are also overwhelmed meaning long delays and insufficient support to really help students. The upshot is a significant and growing number of students with complex problems who are struggling. This is very well documented, see e.g. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8593/ Of course academics do, and should, signpost students to those services but this doesn't solve the problems, at least in the short term, and there is often then an ongoing issue of how those problems affect academic support, particularly for students who are struggling to meet the expectations of the course.

As PP have explained, many of the issues around mental health and welfare are intertwined with academic support and disability adjustments e.g. to assessment. If a student is disclosing problems as part of a request for academic adjustments but is unwilling, or can't, access the support services then this puts academics in an extremely difficult position, expecially when it then raises the university's legal obligations? Have you read the Abrahart decision? Here is quite a useful discussion https://wonkhe.com/blogs/the-university-of-bristol-loses-its-appeal-over-the-abrahart-case/ and also see the judgment itself https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/The-University-of-Bristol-v-Dr-Robert-Abrahart.pdf

It's quite clear from that that academics can't simply rely on encouraging the student to seek medical evidence and a disability support plan once issues of sufficient seriousness are disclosed. But this puts individual academics in an extremly difficult position given that the disclosure to them can create constructive knowledge of the disability despite the fact that the academic doesn't have the expertise and training to recognise the disability in the first place.

This really isn't about not wanting to direct and occasional crying student to support services.

@dreamingbohemian

That's terrible I'm so sorry for your student.

Of course you wouldn't cover your ears and send someone away. You need to fulfil safeguarding duties and be a human being. But it's about the extent of the engagement, and the details you go into.

It sounds like you are lovely, which is why the student went to you what if you weren't. What if you had said something which made the student feel so much worse. I know of some academics with dodgy peoples skills - its not something we are known for. And its not fair on young women who are perceived to have those skills.

I'm not blaming anyone for listening to students like this, but stressing how inappropriate it is to become so involved in students' personal lives and saying universities shouldn't be encouraging it. I don't understand parents encouraging it either - if my daughter was experiencing sexual violence and domestic abuse, I wouldn't want her talking about it with a male history Prof. I would want her to come to me, and to professionals.

I also hold these opinions on other frontline services - the police, healthcare, schools. I don't know why mental health care is seen as something that everyone can have a dabble in - beyond being nice, and signposting.

That time is allocated. For every module you lead, you have hours in your work balance model for the admin of doing so. For every student who is your personal tutor, you have hours built in to mentor and write references for. Your attitude sucks

@DoorPath our workload balance model was severely wrong for about a decade, and the unions got involved, so no, it wasn't accounted for. Now the marking workload and module workload is more accurate, but other things are not. I don't know why you think my attitude sucks, I think having a workload model that accounts for everything we do is sensible, and I do all the things required of my job anyway as I like the students and care that they go on to do good things. I also write references after they have left and during my supposedly 'student free' study leave because I have an ongoing responsibility to them, whether it's in my workload model or not.

If you don't want to do pastoral care, don't take a job with students. It's important to put up boundaries, and I do, but it's an inevitable part of the job.

I would agree with this. I think that some level of pastoral care is a necessary part of any teaching job.

Whether or not universities should be providing some sort of training to help staff deal with difficult situations is a separate issue, but anyone saying that they just don't want to do it shouldn't be in a teaching job in the first place.

We have a very good system, I think, for supporting students, we do pass them on to the relevant wellbeing person (an academic) who then helps them navigate the service they need, arranges extensions and so on. We also do not negotiate extensions as that's done centrally.

For years, we used to have that difficult problem of being a personal tutor and not having the services in place, but we have had improvements all round and I feel much more confident our students are well supported now, and that I have a pathway to use if they are distressed. It was awful before, one of my first personal tutees went missing and ended up in psychiatric hospital and I was totally unequipped to help them, now I would not be required to make decisions about their fitness to study.

@ItsallIeverwanted

That sounds good. The last place I was at also had centralised system for mitigating circumstances and extensions. Attendance was monitored electronically and repeated non attendance meant student services would get in touch and try and engage.

There are ways that universities can provide support and pastoral care without (mostly female) academics acting as untrained counsellors to those whose work they mark.

@gyrt I don't think it would be the same place, as we don't have electronic monitoring cracked, but if students miss assignments or miss too many seminars they are contacted centrally as well, advising them to seek help from their personal tutor or other services, and they can self-refer for disability and wellbeing support.

We are getting there, but it's hard work and many of the old systems did leave academics very exposed, the new system we have is much better and not reliant on academics being great at personal communication, which many are not!

I just don't get the attitude on here of bemoaning the parts of the job that you don't like, as if you should only ever be asked to do teaching and research. This is a job! You are being (well) paid to be here and to do the work!

It's not about bits of the job which I just don't like. It's about the bits of the job that are pointless wastes of time and money, and which disproportionately fall on women.

I think you must not be an academic because you seem to be missing the point?

My contract says I should be doing 40% teaching, 40% research and 20% admin. I'm fine with that!

But in practice we are being overloaded with so much pointless and extra stuff that teaching and admin are crowding out research, it's more like 15-20% -- and yet we are still expected to hit the same research targets in terms of major grant funding and publications, our jobs depend on that.

What tends to happen is that women and junior scholars still faithfully do their admin and teaching and their research profiles suffer, while men and senior scholars ignore all sorts of tasks and get huge grants and promotions etc.

I would not go as far as the OP and some others on this thread, and I do think overall academics complain too much : ) but the situation is not fair on us, and we are not obscenely well paid. I earn the median salary for London.

@dreamingbohemian "I do think overall academics complain too much"

Complain? Don't you mean "engage in robust critical, reflexive discourse which speaks truth to power" 🤓😅

Goodness. I feel for you all.

When I was young, ( I am late 50s) I had a highly romanticised idea of academia and viewed it as the pinnacle of any kind of career aspiration. It didn't help that I was obsessed about everything to do with the 19thc.

I think the most profound mistake was made in opening up HE, and the concurrent commodification of education, grade inflation and so on.

There are so many patently unsuitable young people who are being tramlined into academic courses and paying a fortune for it when we surely need people with technical and practical skills - those taught by the old polys.

Then the mental health issues of fear of failure, thé Covid effect, intrusive parents, and pernicious social media. It's no wonder a large part of the budget is being spent on supporting these kids.

And it seems you all are often at the frontline. It's just completely and utterly mad.

Side note: I do wonder what will happen when the balloon of unpaid student grants starts to hit....

Am sure this is well trodden ground but just wanted to express it.

Nice : ) I do mean complain though!
There's valid critique, but there's so much negativity about everything sometimes.
That's why I do overall agree with you to just ignore the unnecessary bits and get on with it instead of whining about everything all the time like some of my colleagues.

Why not? It's an anonymous forum. It would be odd if we all burst into song here about how great our day has been, after we do a reasonably good lecture. That's not the purpose of this area of the website, or this thread. This is meant to be a place to work out what is solvable and what is just the way things are.

Also - people in every occupation have aspects they don't like, and they do talk about them. Ideally in any role there is enough balance towards the good parts that it makes it worth continuing. Once the balance tilts too much away from the rewarding parts, it might be time to work out what to do, whether that is looking for another job, or applying pressure for organisational change.

Other sectors are the same. I don't think we are very different.

I do think that Abrahart is a classic case of hard cases make bad law.

I'm PS rather than academic, but I think the burden on academics (and yes, particularly female ones) is unfair.

Keep forwarding the previous email and add a new message each time. Do this every three days. Give them two weeks/4 or 5 messages. With the next one copy the whole thread to the Head of Department. Module and course leaders don't usually have managerial responsibility over lazy supervisors but heads of department do. I often advise students to do this and it works 😀

You can always get your own back and burst into tears in front of your students

My PhD supervisor did this to me once (to be fair, they had been through a very shitty time). I was in no way prepared for dealing with it and it definitely wasn't part of my job description!