I'm an academic and I've dedicated 5 years of my life to getting here and DH wants me to leave my job....

[Choices123]

Just that really DH hates my job and wants me to leave. I have spent the last 3 years doing a PhD, which I completed early last year with no issues and was extremely lucky to walk straight into a permanent senior lectureship (like gold dust in my sector!). However the strain on universities now and what they expect from their staff is immense (or maybe it is just my institution?!). To do my job well (which is the only I way I want to work) I have to put in 50+ hours a week, often more, and continuously dart from stressful situation to stressful situation. I've seen a number of colleagues go off on long term stress and mental health problems, which sadly then increases the strain on the rest of the team. The thing is I love my job, I absolutely love it, I just don't like the amount of it I am supposed to do on a weekly basis.
Dh, quite rightly I feel, hates it, he feels it is impeding too much on our family time, quality of life and more than anything my emotional state - which impacts on me as a parent etc. He is extremely supportive at home and takes on 80% of the household stuff and children school runs etc. I've tried lowering my work load, seeking support from management etc and all to no avail. I'm expected to teach a ridiculous number of hours (with all the prep, assessment and marking that comes with that), oversee students well-being, provide students with one to one support, carry out high level research, generate income, publish high level academic articles, oh and of course write a book or two on the way.... Just not sure where to turn - stick it out and hope it gets easier, or go back to the career I had where I was on equal money, and closed my inbox down at 5pm each day, but I was unhappy!

@whisky sorry I'll have a look, just popped out at me

whisky apologies, cross post with your last. I understand what you're saying. Just to follow on from my last post, had the original statement said 'aim for teaching that is 'solid, competent, organised and well-executed'', I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. As I said, I completely apologise if that was what they were aiming to say. But it didn't quite come across that way, hence my replies.

That's a fair point Room. For context, I'll mention that I often feel Phd students that their thesis doesn't have to be amazing, it just has to be good enough (a common adage in our line of work). The point is not too encourage slacking but to try to avoid them making themselves ill with stress, and it's because they are the polar opposite of slackers (i.e. perfectionists) that it needs saying at all.

*tell, not feel. I never feel my PhD students 😂

Room
I think aim for teaching that is 'solid, competent, organised and well-executed is sound and precisely what people mean when they say 'good enough'. The problem is, academics are constantly surrounded by (a) managers who are telling us we need to 'innovate' our teaching, flip the classroom/make everything more interactive/some other new initiative which may be lovely in theory but is extraordinarily time consuming; and (b) students who complain that we aren't exciting/engaging/insert other adjective enough. Often the two sets of demands are completely at odds. So, the learning development team would tell me that I should cut Powerpoint to a minimum (for reasons I won't bore you with) but students would howl in protest because they find Powerpoint slides reassuring.

But you must also realise the negative connotations of that statement publicly.

I think that's fair, room - it's quite widely used/given advice, the 'remember good enough is good enough', so I think we all assumed it was understood that no one was suggesting that it meant 'only do enough to stop yourself getting in trouble', but I can see why you read it that way.

Not read tft yet. The teaching part gets easier. It’s only going to be all new material the first year surely.

Not read tft yet. The teaching part gets easier. It’s only going to be all new material the first year surely.

room - Yes, I completely agree. I think we assume that everyone knows how hard academics are trying, when actually they don't actually and an infelicitous choice of phrase like that can be harmful!!

. I'm about to start my first lecturing post and am a bit scared now after reading this thread!

Fascinating thread.

This in particular:

I've had a flood of emails this morning from students asking me about the essay, is this approach the right approach, what if I argue this, what reading should I do for that topic, can I look over their plan.

Wow. I graduated almost 20 years ago from an RG, and this is so far from my experience it's like a different planet! The idea of asking any of my professors to look over a plan is so amazing to me I'm speechless. I was lucky to see my tutor for 10 minutes every YEAR! (Did me no harm whatsoever, tbh.)

OP - hope this has been useful. I agree with others that you MUST ringfence times when you are simply not available, only answer/check email at certain times for a defined period, and drop your perfectionism (or channel it where it matters). Good luck.

NoSquirrels - as someone who has taught on and off for some time, I would say you're right about it being a big change from 15 years ago. It's not just about consumer expectations/indebtedness because in my anecdotal experience, the switch happened before fees went up as astronomically. I suspect something has gone very, very wrong in schools and with parenting more widely - I never used to get parents ringing me up about their kids not being able to take the exam resit because they are supposed to be on holiday in Tuscany either, or questioning their son's marks and trying to argue for them to be increased. Students didn't used to dress in exactly the same clothes as their mothers, and have exactly the same ideas either.

Aim for sanity for this year and next. Aim for stardom later.

Good luck. Don’t give the job you love, just don’t.

the whole thing is setup incorrectly and inefficiently - why very research active faculty are being asked to carry heaving teaching and admin burdens, including labour intensive grant applications that in many cases could be done more efficiently by people that are teaching/admin specialists and at a lower cost per hour is beyond me.

As it stands, choices, I see it from the other side with a DP who regularly works 7 days a week and is pretty much always tired and grumpy at home, with me, with the kids etc. I know you love your jobs, but there have to be limits. Academics are one of the few groups of people I know that never have bank holidays off, and DP only takes 2 weeks in the Summer (talks about working then as well) and a few days at Christmas.

Schools are so terrified of not meeting the needs of students that they (the students and parents) are now calling all the shots. Ours was a high performing school with a wealthy, highly educated demographic. So I don't know how representative it was.

We have had students sitting exams listening to music (because their psychologist said it helps them with their anxiety), students choosing where to sit in external exams because they feel anxious, students complaining about the sound of children in a playground on the other side of the school. We had students who could only cope with external exams on their own in a room, students who couldn't cope with a small room, a large room or a room with not many windows.

The SENCO who introduced coloured paper for those with dyslexia or other non specific 'difficulties'. In a single class I had one student had everything on green, another on yellow, someone else on blue, and the darling child (of 17) who changed their mind every few weeks regarding which colour paper helped them. I checked the research - there is very little evidence that coloured paper makes any difference. The students weren't expected to carry their transparent overlays because they kept getting lost.

Just before I left we had several gender fluid/trans young people (all close friends) who wanted they, their, them pronouns and non binary bathrooms. 30% of the Sixth form got extra time in external exams as we had an in house accredited assessor.

We also had students who had non specific mental health problems that that meant they were late to school most days and/or left the classroom regularly to go to the school nurse to 'de-stress'. Staff were expected to see these students in their non contact time, or before school or at lunchtime to go over the material they had missed.

It was murderous and I often wondered what happened when they went to university or got a job.

Interesting discussions.
Concerning the "good enough", I think it's actually worse than that. A "good" strategy for early career academics at research-intensive institutions is actually to deliberately sabotage their teaching and antagonise students to get poor feedback in their early years when they are at third or half load. By so doing, they minimise the amount of extra teaching that their directors of educations will subsequently give them.
A bit of a risky strategy, and they have to be able to pull off the research side, but that's the only way I can explain the horrendous student feedback I saw on courses delivered by otherwise very competent charismatic and ambitious ECAs.
In fact, at (hopefully not all) RG institutions, you get rewarded for doing sub-par teaching. They (RGIs) keep students happy (NSS scores, what else) by inflating marks and liberally handing out firsts and 2:1s).

TURN OFF THE EMAIL PINGS. KILL THEM WITH FIRE.

[ahem] I really hate those bloody things... they are distracting and stressful. Managing your emails better - such as allocating a set time for email management, using folders, flags and any other prioritisation tools you have on your system - is likely to be an immense help to you. I also used to have set times when I turned my desk phone off - so I could really concentrate on what I needed to do. Helped my stress levels hugely when I did it.

Sorry, I shall now RTFT - I just saw email pinging and saw red

why very research active faculty are being asked to carry heaving teaching and admin burdens, including labour intensive grant applications that in many cases could be done more efficiently by people that are teaching/admin specialists and at a lower cost per hour is beyond me

See, this is what worries me. If we move towards a two tier system where some people do research and others do teaching, it will (1) end research led teaching, (2) work against early career people who generally have to do more teaching before they make their mark with research, and (3) work against people with caring responsibilities (generally women) who are less able to spend every waking hour working to ensure they get research done alongside their teaching.

I do know people who prefer teaching to research and it's quite right that those people are rewarded. But I worry about research routes being increasingly less accessible for certain groups. I don't know what the solution to this is.

I would stick with it. The young children will become older. I have teenagers now and it is absolutely dead easy in every way compared with having small children. one day yours will be teenagers and your life will be utterly different and you will have a good career you never compromised on.

That's all very well but that's only about her wants and needs. What about the three other people who deserve some consideration here, two of whom are small and helpless and reliant on their parents for their happiness and wellbeing?

You stop being able to put yourself first the day you conceive.

If you are working 50 hours, not 70, and her H is PT, that’s only what many, many fathers do with a PT or SAHM.

Do YOU feel your working hours and pressures are affecting your parenting, relationships and mental health?

Boundaries around working time could help.

Cutting back on everything else in life - and sleep - to work doesn’t sound healthy or sustainable without damage to other areas of your life.

I can understand why people in this position cut corners at work and try to meet what they perceive as their employer’s top priorities to keep their job, and “get by” on the rest. This is what I do, in another field.

“You stop being able to put yourself first the day you conceive.“

OP has a husband who is doing more of the parenting and domestic work: that arrangement is very common the other way round. OP doing well at work will also benefit the family financially etc.

but that's the only way I can explain the horrendous student feedback I saw on courses delivered by otherwise very competent charismatic and ambitious ECAs.

Ah, student feedback.

It can be interesting. And sometimes very removed from reality. :)

I've had a flood of emails this morning from students asking me about the essay, is this approach the right approach, what if I argue this, what reading should I do for that topic, can I look over their plan.

Set up a group tutorial, where students can get together, discuss their approaches, give each other feedback and they all get your feedback too.

I'm lucky in that I don't have undergraduate students, only post-graduate, so lower numbers.

Group work for assignments is also good in that the students have someone else to bounce off ideas, and there are less assignments to look at. :)

I feel for you, I too have a really stressful job that despite everything I love. It's also in the public sector and seems to get more stressful (on every metric) each month.

DH is very supportive (not just verbally but actively) and my children are older. I still wonder if I am short changing them all.

I have no answers. I just wanted to say I understand how you can have a career that saps so much from you but that you still love.