Any other academics feeling totally worn down?

[peppapighastakenovermylife]

Sorry being a bit miserable here. Grateful to have a job etc.

The cuts have started with us - threats of redundancies, departments closing, courses reducing. Management seem to be taking this as a fantastic opportunity to make everyone work harder. They haven't actually said it but there is the expectation that doing our actual jobs is nowhere near enough. People on teaching only contracts seem at risk because they havent done enough research .

There is only so hard we can all work and I am exhausted at the constant working evenings and at weekends. My marking pile is the height of a toddler, we have meetings coming out of our ears at how we are going to work harder and with the best will in the world we can't conjure up papers and grants out of nowhere. Somewhere in the back of all of this the students are unhappy at the amount of face to face hours and feedback they get.

And despite the 60 hour weeks and rarely having a day away from the place let alone an actual holiday we are all worried for our jobs.

Anyone else feel totally miserable about it all?

lawks pepppig - sounds awful. can't offer proper empathy - I'm not an academic. I think you're among those that have given me advice re getting into academia mid-career - so I thought I should at least offer sympathy. (and maybe run away from the whole idea...)

The only constructive things i can say are to keep your eye on the long-term. cuts etc will pass. and try to carve out decent time for yourself/family. not easy on a 60-hour week - but what i mean is try to make the best of what time you do have - and properly switch off from work. makes you more productive imo.

I do feel for you. I've endured a similar situation at the newspaper where I work. The past 18 months have been really nasty; so many redundancies, of which I am the latest. I am walking with a big payout after 25 years' service, but I feel so sorry for my remaining colleagues, who are miserable and likely to be worked to death by the horrible management.
Is it possible for you to transfer your skills into a different job and workplace?
And I know this sounds radical, but have you and your colleagues thought about a mass resignation? If you all handed in your notices at once, there would be uproar and, perhaps, change.

Yes, I feel exactly the same. Exhausted and ill, and not sure how I will get through the next few (?) years. Sympathies.

Thanks Hatwoman - I think you should run away screaming lol.

Groovergirl - I think unfortunately they would be happy if a load of us all resigned at once. It is what they want. Unfortunatly they have decided our school is not a priority so are really targeting us

Wideawakemum and Inveterate - Things are so bad here it is likely I will lose my job soon (soon being winding down over 2 years or so). I am miserable about it but also getting angry as have worked so hard - way over and above my contract - yet will watch others keep their jobs who do far less.

I am also 6 months pregnant at the moment and trying to keep things calm for the baby but am just running myself into the ground.

Sorry I sound completely miserable don't I. On the wider scale I am grateful for everything I have just worn down by this I think.

So sorry to hear that peppa. Sounds really grim. It is very hard not to get worn down, especially if your job is at risk. Hang on in there.

Thanks Inverterate - just wanted a moan really

Hi Peppapig, I can completely sympathise. We are not going through job cuts (and I think I'd be fairly secure from that as I have tenure), but the overwork, the running just to stand still, the pile of marking, the students demanding extra feedback (because how am I supposed to get detailed feedback on around 1000 assignments with only 4 weeks to mark the lot?), exams are coming up meaning more marking, postgrads need supervising and somewhere in amongst this I'm supposed to be submitting grants, writing papers and spending time in the lab myself!

I'm completely exhausted tbh. Obviously I can't offer any advice, but perfectly happy to join in the whinging .

unseenacademicmum - the feedback! It's crushing. I see the students point. They do the work and we give them less than an A4 side in response to it - and we are seen as one of the 'best'. However, multiply that by however many hundred....I worked out that I had 120 hours worth of marking for a 2 week period the other day - that's before I get on with everything else

Our university has taken a plan for the budget cuts (wont say what its called as it might identify me) but basically it is targeting departments and schools so good staff from those areas go whilst others who are doing little in non targeted areas get to keep their jobs

I have basically been told my job is at risk despite the fact they recognise I am doing an excellent job, asset to them for the future etc etc. Seems so unfair after all the effort we put in

Anyway thanks for joining in my whinge

oh, congratulations with the pregnancy btw.

Thank you - I just wish maternity leave meant proper maternity leave and not trying to write grants and papers whilst breastfeeding.

I am going to give myself a slap now and stop moaning

I can completely sympathise with that. I was sat with my laptop in hospital 2 days after having a c-section with ds2 writing a response to reviewers comments on a grant application (on the plus side, ironically it was an application to do with certain problems in pregnancy, so the midwives on the ward were quite interested).

I was also taking ds2 to postgrad supervision meetings from being about 7 weeks old .

At the time I didn't think it was too bad, but in hindsight probably should have shut myself away from work much more. It's difficult though when people are telling you that "this is really important and must be done yesterday...". I'm learning to become deaf to that now though.

OK, back to the marking that I'm desperately trying to avoid doing (hence being on here) .

Ooh a fellow marking procrastinator

All sounds very familiar. The place I was working for at the time of DD's birth rang me to do marking when she was 4 days old. Apparently it was part of my contract to mark the summer repeats . They were kind enough to send it out in the post to me . I did it x 1000.

We should get together - I have just written a couple of papers on certain problems in pregnancy . I tend to research what I am doing baby related at the time

It's madness how we just accept this as normal isn't it. REF are saying you need one less publication if you have been on mat leave but in reality the uni won't see it that way - they will just see output

Yep, the university don't care about maternity leave or not when considering output, only about the number of publications and the number of £££'s that you have managed to collect in research income. We are supposed to produce at least 4 (peer-reviewed) publications per year.

However, the teaching takes up so much time and prevents research getting done, which I wouldn't mind if there was some recognition of that, but .... I won't finish that particular rant for fear that if I am recognised it might not go down to well.

Quite.

Unfortunately, it's no better in industry. Long gone are the days when I used to leave on time and have a proper lunch break.

Also, there are very few unions these days so the little people just have to like it or lump it.

Working for yourself seems like a better option (despite the risks).

Speckledeggy, I used to work in industry before returning to academia a few years ago. I remember working like a manic there too.

What is the secret of these super-efficient people who get everything done, have free time and still manage to look fantastically well-groomed? I think that's obviously just not in my nature!

I do sympathesise but I want to remind you all of the good thing about an academic career. We do have flexibility generally and though this time of year is grim we need to rememebr the better times of year. I just marked 86 1st year essays and 86 exam papers, 4 honours projects, and 150 practical reports in a week (on top of everything else-supervising Phd students, grant admin, reading drafts of papers, reviewing grants, seeing stressed MSC students, going away to a meeting) and nearly popped but I am thinking ahead-the students go away next week and then it is a pretty good job (I am lucky I only teach 1 semester).

However I was told by my H of D the other day that the fact I was part time was completely irrelevant in terms of how I would be judged for promotion which shocked me rather. They said it was uality not uanitity so time shoujldn't make a difference. I couldn't belive this and argued that time and uality are intrinsically linked but he kept saying 'why do you care-you don't need to 'use' the fact you are part time as you are clearly good' as if expecting to be judged pro rata rather than in line with full time peers was only for moaning feminist pains in the arse.....I thanked him for letting me know his opinion and said it was useful for me to know how the face of establishement academia thinks.

He did have the grace to come and see me later and say he had been thinking about our converstation and maybe I was right to some extent. Still..... Grrrrrrrr.....

sorry, the marking I referred to was actually over nearly 3 weeks so I exagerated but still

Oooh, a one-up-man-ship competition re marking. In the last 4 weeks I have marked:

356 undergrad lab reports for one class
70 undergrad lab reports for another class
94 exam scripts for one exam
16 exam scripts for another
4 undergrad project reports

correcting 1 PhD thesis.

This is more or less equalled in the first semester. Apparently I should be grateful that the teaching load is more in other institutions.

'scuse the bad typing - I should be marking, but am actually drinking white wine .

At my university it's not too bad, but how about this for upsetting: I went abroad to my mother's funeral and came back to find that my colleagues had helpfully postponed the hand-in deadline on my module's assignment so I could do the marking when I returned. Am I being unreasonable in having expected someone to say: "you should have time off for your bereavement, let me take this of your hands*"? Instead, four days after the funeral I was sitting and marking the wretched things. I could have postponed the marking, but then it was DC's half term holiday... I reckon this sort of behaviour is a consequence of us being treated as units of economic utility, rather than living, breathing human beings with lives outside of the university.

Another academic here! I'm so glad to be on maternity leave right now - my Uni is currently considering redundancies and there's lots of talk about how we need to produce better research, get more grants and teach more students if we're to keep our jobs. I made the mistake of going into work for a couple of hours when DD2 was 8 weeks old and being on the end of a 'friendly chat' about how I needed to publish. That sent me into a real tizzy and I started working on my research at every opportunity. I suspect it was that stress that pushed me over the edge into awful postnatal depression (and as a consequence, I'm just home after spending 6 weeks in a Mother and Baby Unit receiving treatment. ) I'm just about to start sending DD2 to a childminder two afternoons a week to try to get on and do some work. My HV thinks I'm absolutely bonkers....

Oh, dontrunwithscissors, I'm so sorry to hear that you haven't been well. I remember you from the CAWK thread.

Academic managers don't have a clue. Fancy going on at you about publications when you'd just given birth. Don't they know you are not supposed to work when on mat leave.

Please take care of yourself. I know a lot of people at our place are really struggling with stress, and it's so hard with a young baby. I hope the two afternoons a week at the CMs will give you some time to enjoy your lovely DDs when you are not working.

I know I went on and on about it on the other thread, but I found Boice's Professors as Writers an absolute godsend when I was struggling to find time to write. It has really helped me get stuff done in short parcels of time.

justagirlfromedgeware - sorry to hear about your mum. Your colleagues sound like a bunch of prats. I hate that about academia encourages such selfishness. A colleague of mine had a horrible time when her mum died and still feels very angry about it years later. Poor you.

dontrunwithscissors that is awful. I am so sorry you are feeling bad. I have had PND (but not that bad) twice now. You need to be looking after yourself not worrying about research - this isnt fair at all .

I am just about to go off on mat leave in a few weeks (well actually the start of mat leave is my due date as I cant afford to take time 'off' before then) and I am already working out how long I will allow myself before I start writing again (will probably be weeks, if not days).

I have just been told that if I want to keep my job I have to pull big funding in as well as improve my REF score. I am on a teaching only contract

I am inches away from walking away from all of this but half of me thinks that is just what they want isnt it.

That book is great inveterate, I have read it. Does help. Unfortunately I appear to be stuck in a position where I write loads yet it isnt enough (think a paper per month on a teaching only contract). It's crap.

justagirlfromedgeware that is awful and I am so sorry for your loss. If it is any help I would have been straight in contact asking if you wanted me to mark your work for you - or in fact in that situation just doing it. Come work with me (or maybe not given my previous posts )

Nicewarmslippers - I agree, the summer used to be what kept me going. This summer though is awful - the pressure is immense and despite the students having gone ages ago(last lecture 3 weeks ago now) I am still working every hour god sends.

And my competitive marking entry

In four weeks...

30 dissertations
160 level one essays
160 level one reports
80 level one exams
40 level two exams
Three masters dissertations
Second marking of 40 ish essays

Who wins, who wins

A paper a month??!! That is crazy. What's the point, when you can only submit 4 items for REF? Do you have to publish tons to get funding in your field?