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?

Peppa, I resigned from an academic job for all the reasons you describe. That is all I can say, and it isn't helpful - but you may be a better person than I was.

I sympathise - me too - I worked in retail and manufacturing before I returned to academia but I have never ever had to work such long hours. DH still works in manufacturing and works half the hours for three times the pay.

My laptop rarely leaves my lap these days - nearly every night (and often through the night to meet marking deadlines - before Christmas I did two all-nighters on the trot to find the hours I needed) and most weekends in the last year or two. Its relentless. But if I don't, I won't rack up the publications and grants because I never get the chance to do those during the "working" day. In fact, our dean told us in a recent meeting that it was expected we do that "in our own time".

I do love the flexibility but I don't spend much time with my four children - DH does almost all of it. His quality of life is so much better than mine. I fantasise about contracting a serious debilitating illness as it seems like the only way out. Can't carry on like this.

But I do so love research, writing and watching my students develop and grow in confidence.

Do you think that is the best option unseen? I have a few applications in front of me at the moment but they are not ideal. One I think I stand a chance of getting but is only a year long. The others are stretching it a bit in terms of relevance (although justifiable). I am actually thinking of applying to do them part time and stretch it out over 2 - 4 years. The flexibility (and reduced childcare costs) would almost balance that out.

I think the problem is that I am trying to fit into a system which favours those who are more established. I am only in my twenties but very few people in academia my age seem to have 3 children - so they can switch unis/ go without pay / travel etc.

Justagirl - not preachy at all. I do love this job its just relentless! I have been looking for first grants / early career stuff but seems nothing out there. I will keep plugging away though!

Nick it seems to have turned into this

www.motherhoodinitiative.org/

totallywipedout I am really sorry to hear that. Can I ask what you do now?

Oh dear, this is all a bit depressing. Massive sympathies for everybody struggling under a horrible workload. I'm a postdoc, in my first year of a two year contract, frantically trying to publish from my Phd and then next year I will (hopefully) be publishing from my new research. I realise that I am in a bit of a honeymoon period at the moment as I have no teaching responsibilities, just research and writing, which is great. But I'm feeling rather pessimistic about my chances of getting a job at the end of it, and judging from comments here perhaps that wouldn't be ideal with two children in any case. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope so. Is it generally the case that most academics are struggling under a totally unrealistic workload or are there any glimmers of light out there?

Peppa - I am in my late 30's with two young children, and I'm not established at all as I came to this career quite late and took a bit of time out following my Phd and birth of first baby as didn't have a job to go to. So similar situation, different age group. I wish I had done it all in my twenties. I can't switch uni's easily/travel/etc., it makes it incredibly hard to get established doesn't it.

Good luck to everyone anyway.

Peppapig, I think there are definate plus sides to taking on a postdoc rather than a pure teaching position. I did a few years as a postdoc (albeit in industry) before coming back to academia and it definately allowed me to build up some kind of reputation in my field which helped as there are a lot of people with very sharp elbows around to jostle for position with!

The downside of a postdoc is of course the temporary nature of them (at best, 3 years). There are also a number of research fellowships around via the research councils or charities which can be used to buy yourself out of teaching commitments in your current position. I know a number of people who have done this so that they can start a lectureship with no teaching commitments and a certain amount of money in the pot to pay for technical assistance etc. That could also be something to consider.

think this thread should be compulsory reading for all 'managers'...anyway, this morning's papers here brought this bundle of joy and hope

Much sympathy. The RAE-REF continuum is what I find to be utterly demoralising. Nothing else seems to matter except chasing those publications.

Thats what I am worried about - if I step out of this position now then there will be nothing at all to come back to in three years time. However I may well not have my job in three years time.

If I wasnt 30 weeks pregnant I may be able to think clearer!

You've not got long till you are on maternity leave. Don't make any big decisions before then and after the baby is born you will have a few months off work to help you come to any decision.

I would say however, don't worry about what will happen in 3 years time as this is such an unknown anyway and job security although nice is not always everything- developing a reputation in your field and having a good network is because then even if you do lose your job, someone else will offer you another based on reputation/knowing the right people.

Thanks peppa - I don't know if the 'mothers in the academe' study has been canned... I might e-mail them and ask (with a link to this thread )

Thanks Unseen - that is really good advice and I think has swayed me. There is no need for me to make any decision anyway for the moment as am off soon til the spring. I think the post doc makes sense though - I will certainly do more career 'worthy' stuff in a couple of years on that than teaching. I have pulled out a few possible applications already this afternoon.

Just need to get through the next ten weeks now

Joining the thread late - I'm an academic and keep forgetting that there's really good support on mumsnet!

I'm struggling with different issues (although I do have marking, teaching, etc etc). I'm 10 years post doctorate, and whilst my friends from the same year are senior lecturers now, I'm still on yet another temporary contract. I publish, a lot, well-received; but I've been screwed for that. I've also just got funding for a project (good size too). So they all say make sure you publish - do that, and you get bought into depts for short-term contracts, cover their backs for the RAE, then get dropped (whilst pg in my case). I'm now in a weird dept for my subject area, and it's not a good fit - I'm under pressure to teach things I know almost nothing about, and I'm taking an OU degree in my spare (spare?! pah!) time to cover my own back.
I seem to be doing everything right, but can't get a job in the department where I want to be/should be. (They have appointed people with fewer quals than me in the past.) Plus now they have new people - one could say proteges of certain people) coming up who I'm competing with. Technically, I'm miles ahead; but I'm not 'in' with the right dept, and could be rejected yet again for being 'too far from the subject area'. Mind you, if I quit and worked in Tescos/ran a bookshop/lived off my savings (!!) until the right job came up, I would still not get it for being out of academia!!

I was offered the perfect job in the right subject area in December, but couldn't take it because of the location: I can't really move because my childcare setup is great here, and I do have a DH who needs a look-in occasionally!

I also want to have another baby, but now, what do I do? Try now, get pg, delay the permanent post which I should be able to apply for (albeit in the wrong dept) in a year's time?
Leave it until I have my permanent post?
Either way, do it and miss out on the jobs in the right dept (although nobody knows when or even if that will happen)?

Argh... I sometimes get really down. But often I'm too busy and just get on with stuff.

I'm getting a female mentor next week - it's a scheme on in our institution. That will be interesting...

Er, sorry about the length there. And Peppa all the best with the pregnancy. Apply for jobs now, and it will make them sweat a bit - nothing like the legal minefield of rejecting a pregnant woman, y'know.

Lol Dewin that was a lot of information but summed it all up brilliantly. I am wondering from your name if you are fairly local to me. And if you now know me because I keep fantasising out loud about running a bookshop in a well known welsh seaside resort (No not Barry )!

Hm, now, I think you might be the other end of things - or rather the middle? I'm in north Wales. I think I can guess where you might be - a seaside resort with more books than people?? (And if I'm right, it was where I was offered a job, and where I was previous to now.)

dewin and peppa - your cloak and dagger comments are the first funny thing on this thread - even I can work out which universities you're talking about...dewin there are some people who commute from there to any one of the 3 universities in Dublin - €20 each way on the boat, 1.5 hours, free wifi...a whole other job market??

Ah I know where you are Dewin but I have not idea if you know where I am

More books that people? No idea...down the sea side end anyway!

Actually Dewin I think you think I work where I used to work albeit very very briefly

Peppa, apologies for having taken so long to come back to this. You asked what I do now. I am basically a SAHM, but do bits of translating when the children are at school. I don't earn much from it, but my quality of life is unspeakably, immeasurably better. I used to fantasise about being in a fatal car crash, and would worry that I'd only be rendered paralysed and thus able to carry on working in my department. Not a good state of affairs. I am normally a revoltingly Pollyanna-ish person, so it must have been quite seriously awful for me to be thinking along those lines.

'Tis a shame, as I did like the students very much indeed, and I liked the idea of academia (but not the sausage-factory, diktat-driven, 100-hour-a-week, highly pressured reality of it).

I wouldn't return to it if they offered me 100K per year to do so.

PS drivingmisscrazy, I agree that all university managers should read this!

apart from anything else, I don't think they have any idea how dedicated most staff are (and I was in management/admin for a while) because they are always preoccupied with 'dead wood', and unproductive staff, rather than doing simple things that would enable all the people on this thread, for example, to really fulfil their potential, contribute hugely (creatively, positively) rather than being downtrodden, massively stressed and therefore at best ambivalent about their profession. No other professional group would accept treatment like this - I've always wondered why collectively good, dedicated academics have such an inferiority complex. Mostly we've trained for longer than any other professional; mostly we are experts on something on the international stage; mostly we have an extraordinary range of skills; mostly we care about students and teaching; and mostly we continually upskill, change and adapt throughout our careers. I am so sick of being told that I am a lazy, useless, tax-revenue-eating-succubus, when I have busted my arse for 20 years to make things better (I started teaching undergraduates at 22!!). It's one thing being told these things by people who don't have any experience of tertiary education, but absolutely disgraceful to be told it continually by people who should know better.

God, what a rant! sorry - but I am tired and weary, out of enthusiasm and in need of some positive reinforcement -despite 2 promotions and all the rest, I have absolutely no confidence left and just feel that I have nothing whatsoever to say (which doesn't really help with the old research output) - other than moaning a lot, obviously

"why collectively good, dedicated academics have such an inferiority complex"

One problem is that (at least in my field), the whole field is dominated by a few very arrogant types who are unafraid of telling the whole world exactly why they are greater than the lesser mortals. Academia heavily favours these types as in general those who thrive are those who have enough self-confidence to let any criticism roll off them. Unfortunately this is more of a male trait than a female one.

The other thing is that those declaring themselves as the world's biggest expert in are often not, but waltz into fields which they see as lucrative, funding-wise, destroy said field with lack of knowledge and poorly designed studies and then waltz back out when said field collapses and onto next fad.

Can you tell I am getting incredibly disillusioned and demotivated? I used to love my research with a passion. Now much of the time I just can't be bothered and I hate feeling like that.

unseen - yes that's it exactly. And here, said moany arrogant gits spend quantities of time splurging all over the national press about how the rest of us have destroyed academia!! (sorry, bitter recent experience of being on the wrong end of all this).

The point about swanning into faddish areas is spot on, and I share your feeling of demotivation too, sadly. And with so many other pressures it's hard to set up and sustain informal support networks (in my area, discussion/reading/writing groups etc)