Half-Life of a tuna fish in the university.
My em(/sym)pathies university academics..because I don’t envy your busyness.
It’s mind-boggling to me, how university academics manage it all. They are teachers to students; staff to the university; researchers to the academic community; a student; a colleague; a friend, and family member. Then, if they’ve a second to spare, they are themselves.
I took a tiny taste of their life this morning. Only just a micro-lick of it, and I’m running off to the fields already.
I am only 3 buckets of things. A postgrad student, a staff member and myself (a friend and a family member), and my digital administrative assistant i.e. my outlook calendar is already struggling to cope.
Come 1pm, it predicts that I’ll be tuna fish for an hour, with one eye, ear and half a brain on a research meeting, and the other eye, ear and half a brain on an intro class for a subject.
I’ll tell you this much- I am not looking forward to it. I dread the guilt that comes with being half-present and apologising for half-fleshed work.
Now, ask an university academic. Double-booking yourself would be a “rookie error” and/or “no big deal”. They’ve either mastered and overcome it or they just deal with it.
Double-booking is part and parcel of the life they chose i.e. to be fish-eyed (metaphorically), coffee-drinking, knowledge-sharing, overworked and grossly-underpaid jugglers.
Two things.
Being part of a generation that was born prioritising “me and my mental health” over anything else, the lifestyle of an academic at the moment is not very attractive at all. And,
For a responsibility so big as sharing wisdom and shaping new knowledge with minds yearning for it, while doing multiple other things and being at multiple places at once (in other words, playing God), the reward they ask is so little.
Just give them the raise and the paid leave please.