Do I Accept a New Job: A Pro and Con List

So...as you'll recall I gave up my admin job in August, after doing it for three years.  It was an unpaid position, though I did get a course release to do it.  And much of what my job entailed I'd already been doing as an assistant prof.  It caused a lot of stress, largely (exclusively?) because of one colleague.  And the colleague who'd been my ally just retired.

All this is preamble to say that right now I'm very happy with my job.  And my department chair asked me if I'd step into a MAJOR administrative position next year.  Some things I'm considering:

• The fact that she's asking me, under fairly contentious circumstances I will not go into because it's just too fucking odd, means she's given this a great deal of thought and doesn't have many (any?) other options.
• Still, not my problem to save the department.
• I have no doubt about my capability of doing this job.  It would be a stretch, and force me to pick up some new skills, but that's not a bad thing.
• I would be able to keep doing the things that I'm currently doing and enjoy.
• But.  The stress.  
• The endless emails and putting out fires, what one recent holder of this position described as 'whack-a-mole' game.
• It would entail more hours.  Also an additional course release.  And actual would-make-a-difference-in-my-life raise.
• But the raise would also come at a time I don't need it (no more daycare payments!!!!!!!) and, probably because I'm comfortable enough with my current salary, money is not a major motivating factor.  Still, nice.
• The stress.
• The interpersonal nightmare would probably not entirely go away but would in fact take a different form.  The people who are nuts in my program are still nuts.
• The biggest questions: is this how I want to spend the next three years of my life?  would being back in the classroom full-time, or doing this job, be more pleasurable?  which, if either, would allow me to work on my writing in the way I'd like to continue?

Feel free to discuss.

UPDATE:  I sent my chair an email declining.  Said I'd be open to it NEXT time she needs someone (that's three years out).  Excited about classes I might teach next year...

When Do You Replace Items?

Not looking for advice here--just curious.  At what point do you decide to replace a worn-out item?

I find myself replacing a lot these days (perhaps because we've now lived in our house 11 years?).  And there's a part of me that thinks I already bought that, why do I have to do it AGAIN?  This list includes:

• having our house repainted (exterior was unquestionable necessity; interior could have gone longer, but was looking grungy)
• living room chair (to be fair, the pre-existing chair was from grad school)
• microwave (stopped working completely)
• entryway rugs (lost their ability to come clean)
• cat scratching post (carpet bits flying everywhere)
• smoke detectors (basic safety issue; two were past their expiration date)

There's more, but you get the point.  And mostly I use things, I think, until they are really used.  I take shoes to be re-heeled; I've had backpacks repaired; I repurpose and upcycle quite a bit.  But still, needing to buy something again makes me a bit annoyed.

In Which I Spend Too Much Time Contemplating the Color Chart

I am becoming intimately acquainted with the gentlemen at Sherwin Williams.

1. I bought two gallons of a color called "Destiny" (featured in an earlier post) which ended up being PURPLE, like the sort of purple you'd paint a little girl's bedroom.  Nice color.  But not in that spot. 

2. The painter told me I could take it back, they could monkey with it.  I did.  They did.  Ended up a slightly less purple purple.

3. Repeat. They "killed" (their word) the purple by adding yellow and deep gold.  Tried to make it lighter by adding as much white as would fit in the container.  Lovely at the store.  It looked like a slightly more brown purple when I put it on the wall.  I now have two gallons of this unreturnable ick (maybe they can make it black and LG can have her wish).

4. I spent a huge amount of time staring at all the versions of gray on the chart.  Came up with "nuance," which, it turns out, is virtually identical to the background color on my first book cover.  And nuance--right?  

5. It bought a sample size.  Put it in random places around the room.  It looks exactly perfect on my bookshelf.  Seriously.  On the wall with the purple?  All I can see is PURPLE, even though there's absolutely no red in the color formula.  WTF.

I need to stare at the walls for a while.  And then maybe buy me some "Silverpointe"

What I'm Not Doing

Per my time tracking post, I largely don't dislike how I'm spending my time.  I work on meaningful things.  I spend time with my kids.  I have some 'leisure' time.

The things I'd potentially like to spend less time on are chauffeuring children and email.  The former isn't really changeable and I've already started listening to books on CD as a way of making it more enjoyable and 'useful.'  The latter is a work in progress.  Some concrete actions: (1) I've blocked my work email before 11:00 am and after 4:30 pm.  That doesn't mean I don't check it, but I have to go out of my way to get on a different device or open a different browser; (2) If I see an email thread going I don't respond until I've read the most recent thing...waiting until the end of the day to do this helps; (3) I try to limit email sessions to 20 minutes twice per day (hahahaha.  no seriously.  I'm trying.)  The problem is that "email" stands in for doing things that are actually related to my job, like communicating with other humans about collaborative enterprises.  What I need to get better at: (1) keeping responses short and (2) separating initiating emails from responding emails.  My problems first.  Your problems later.  And even more so (3) reminding myself that some things ARE JUST NOT MY JOB like random requests from strangers.  No. Really.

What I'd like to do more of, which is to say, stuff that needs to be scheduled:  making art; going to the museum; reading, beyond what I'm teaching; yoga.

What I feel I should do more of, or the stuff that causes guilt, anxiety, and bad feelings: various household tasks, esp. yard work; the less central parts of my job; submitting my work.  I am profoundly feeling what Dr. Crazy used to call the "wheel of neglect."  This week was a student week.  Next week is an editing week.  Etc.

I'm thinking of all this as I was asked to serve in another administrative capacity by my chair.  I told her I'd think about it.  Gulp.

In Which I Fail Again at Tracking my Time

Inspired by SHU and Laura Vanderkam, I tried time tracking this week.  I say tried because although I wrote down what I did and could tell you the basic architecture of my days and weeks, I didn't really learn anything from the experience.  In order for me to learn something about habits which could use rethinking, I'd need to break my time into about 5 minute increments....and that in itself would probably leave me stressed out and unproductive.*  The other thing I will actually start tracking is how many words per day I send in emails and number of requests sent by others.  I'm pretty good about limiting time on email, but there are no doubt ways I could improve in this particular area.

What I do need to do (a la my Duck Break post) is take strategic breaks in the middle of big work blocks.  I also need to replenish office snacks (done!) because a 100-calorie nut pack is not enough to keep me going from 11:30-4:00 while I'm on campus**, which should have been self-apparent ,but wasn't.  I also need to plan to be out of the house on Wednesday, when the painter returns to do the living room, because I really can't focus when she's around (she's doing three rooms, across three weeks...)***

What else?  Tiny Boy's new weekend babysitter comes by later on a trial run (she's the daughter of a colleague in another department) so I'm excited about that.  In October I have two conferences (Toronto friend, I would love to see you!) and a book deadline and I think something else that I'm forgetting or blocking out.  It will get done.  It will get done.  It will get done.

Now we're off to the Whole Foods...





*Actually, I take it back, I did learn something, which is that I talk to my new chair in lieu of swapping emails, which is nice, and led to a meeting on her front stoop with Tiny Boy in tow, which was unusual and in this case took longer than the email but also communicated nuance in important ways and you know, no paper trail.  (Yes, the drama continues, though I am no longer at the center of it, thank goodness.)

** Nor is buying a candy bar from the vending machine.

** *My dining room is now this color and it is making me ridiculously happy:

 

When it's done, living room should be this, and hopefully more grayish than purple:

Duck Break

Tiny and I ended up at the river feeding ducks the other day.  It was delightful.

And it occurred to me that I cross that river EVERY TIME I WALK TO MY OFFICE and yet I've never stopped to feed the ducks.  So on Tuesday I deliberately brought the end of the loaf of GF bread I keep in the freezer and fed it to the ducks when I got out of class.  This, instead of hurrying back to my office across the river for office hours and then staring into space for five minutes or more.

While I don't think duck-feeding needs to be a bi- or tri-weekly occurrence, it was also a good reminder that my walk can be restorative.  There are plenty of lovely places to sit, if I choose to.  I could take a detour and go to the museum and check out a cabinet of curiosities.  Maybe I'll do that today.

The emails are piling up, people.  Another post on work habits again soon...

Yes and No: Advice to Junior Faculty

I'm on a list that sends out weekly notices from the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity.  This week's message had to do with the importance of saying no, particularly as it relates to underrepresented faculty.  While I appreciate the general message, I have to say, I also bristled at it, given my own institutional context  (in which most of the heavy lifting is done by associate professors, many women, who do not get promoted to full).  

This was one piece of advice, about serving "strategically":   "The percentage will be different according to your institutional type and culture, but once you know approximately how much time you can spend on service each week, then say "yes" only to the things that fit your broader agenda or make substantive sense for your participation."

Here's the thing.  It's not about saying 'yes' to things that serve YOUR agenda, if you are junior faculty, but things that will enhance your ability to get tenure.  That is, saying no to serving on the major departmental committee but yes to an off-campus service obligation might be important to YOUR values, but it doesn't do the same "work" for the institution and unless your colleagues who will ultimately serve on your RPT committee understand (a) what it is, (b) why it's important to your academic career, and (c) can use it to make a case for your promotion, it's not helpful.  That's not to say that such forms of service lack value, it's just to say that all service obligations are not created equal, even if they take up the same amount of time.

My department is already very protective of junior faculty's time.  The expectation is that you serve on one major committee each year.  It's also tacitly understood, though not explicitly required, that you do collegial things like showing up to program meetings and major talks.  This is not onerous. I'm now almost five years post tenure; I do a lot of service, much more than I did pre-tenure.  And yes, I do strategically say no.  But here's the thing...I'm also very aware of if I do say no who will end up doing the work.  Because the work doesn't go away, it just gets shifted elsewhere.  The best advice I can give to junior faculty on this point?  Don't say no to the person most likely to be your RPT chair unless you have a damn good reason; and saying no repeatedly to her?  Maybe not in your best interest...

Discuss!

A Day in the Life

I've begun (again) a time-tracking exercise of sorts, mostly because I'm curious of how I think I spend my time is actually how I spend my time.  Here's what today looked like:

6:15 wake up, try to fall back to sleep; listen to LG puttering around
7:00 alarm goes off (I need to set in for LG); get dressed in 'workout' clothes; get things together
7:30 leave the house; drop off LG; drop off Tiny Boy, including dressing him at daycare and reading books
8:30 home; coffee and breakfast while writing proposal (administrative nonsense)
9:30 work on book project/index (due Oct 1!!!!)
10:30 painter shows up/clean kitchen so she can work
11:00 email triage
11:30 walk, shower, dress for class, quick lunch
12:15 drive to campus; class
2:45 back to my office; email triage, stare into space
3:00 class prep for Thurs, interrupted by my dept chair stopping by, but this saved me an email to her
4:15 stop at computer store on the way to parking garage; pick up Tiny Boy
5:00 home; check in with LG; water plants, call mom, cook dinner
5:45-7:30 kid time, including dinner, family lunch-making, ice cream trip, dance party with Tiny Boy
7:30 protracted bedtime rituals and nonsense
8:20 sit in rocking chair and play candy crush/write this
8:45 sleeping Tiny Boy!

From here on out will involve some time with LG, tucking her in at 9:30, tucking myself in with Lunesta, a book (for class) and half an episode of Scandal, hopefully asleep by 10:30*.  Really, today held no surprises.  But predictably, the requests for me to do things are piling up (travel request form, call for undergraduate research proposals, multiple meetings) and despite quitting (ha!) I still find that I am asked about a lot of details related to former admin job because, no surprise, there's literally no one else to do it.  Still, my stress level is way down.  We'll see how long this lasts.



* usually Lunesta knocks me out in half an hour; if I don't take my full dose (as I tried the other night) I was awake until 3:00 am.  ugh.