Comments on: Alienation and anomie about a job

By: Z

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 06:22:29 +0000

Good post and good points Angela. This is a very helpful thread and makes me feel much less crazy. I think I hit bottom on mid career slump this week – I had better have, because I cannot take it.

By: Angela Academic

Angela Academic — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 05:14:23 +0000

I just want to tell everyone how helpful this has been. It seems that I should be working on some serious boundary-setting and reinvesting chunks of my time in other things, even if I don’t know what those things are yet, and yes, even if this means pulling back from the super-professor I’ve been trying to be. It’s not going to be easy, but maybe a new, scaled-back approach will let me keep going and stay out of a bitterness spiral.

Thanks. And thanks, Historiann, for posting this!

By: Historiann

Historiann — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:25:33 +0000

Jane–“Associate trash–too old to start over, too young to retire!”

Wow, that’s pretty harsh. If you’ve already started a book, I think it makes sense to finish it and then re-evaluate. (At least, that’s what I keep telling myself!)

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:06:45 +0000

Also a late contribution. Also Associate trash – too old to start over, too young to retire. Although my personal desire is to bag it and start a non-profit foundation focused on health and education programs for young-uns ["Zero to Six"], my practical side tells me to just push through the writer’s block, finish the second book. Several in my Dept. have created a “Mid-Career Crisis Management Committee” – to share and provide feedback for academic work (we’re even a bit inter-disciplinary with some refugees from Foreign Languages). It’s inspiring, supportive, collegial, even fun – just knowing that we’re all in the same recession boat.

By: On Burn-Out « Reassigned Time 2.0

On Burn-Out « Reassigned Time 2.0 — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 04:26:26 +0000

[...] post ideas. I decided to start with talking about burn-out, my thoughts on which were inspired by this post over at Historiann’s as well as the comment thread over there, because it also allows me to respond to this post suggestion from kb: How about a post from the [...]

By: rustonite

rustonite — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:42:19 +0000

I’d point out that the book above is the one by Dominguez and Robin. There are about 17 books with that title, including one by Neil Cavuto- you don’t want the wrong one.

By: Perpetua

Perpetua — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:25:35 +0000

I’m late to the conversation, but just wanted to add that I often feel the same way as Angela. I’m in the unfortunate situation of just finishing my book while still being a couple of years from a) tenure and b) sabbatical (unless I can win an NEH – hahahaha!) even though I’ve been teaching for 6 years. I also live several hundred miles from my partner, and feel so stretched to the limit that dealing with internal academic (sexist, political) bull$hit is almost unbearable, in addition to all the other factors others mentioned (salary freezes! I haven’t had a cost of living in 3 years, like most of you. Compression! Spiraling insurance costs! The astronomical expenses of maintaining two households + FT child care! Hearing the media every day out overpaid & lazy I am!) Added to the fact that neither of us lives in the part(s) of the country where we really want to live. On the other hand, I actually sort of love my job, despite my frustrations. But the constant push-pull agony of “is it *worth* it?” is wearing. I’m often wondering how one constructs an alternate career at fortysomething after a decade in academia (seems to me a slightly different problem from leaving a PHD program, or leaving academia immediately post-PhD).

By: Historiann

Historiann — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 03:07:31 +0000

Western Dave: if it were easy for even the privileged classes to find fulfilling work, what would John Cheever have ever had to write about? Imagine what a dull (and of course unsuccessful) writer Cheever would have been–and we never would have heard of him. Just imagine: stories like “The Worm in the Apple: How Adventures in Organic Gardening Saved My Marriage,” or “Cash Bentley’s Guide for Sprinters After 40.”

Tenured Radical might be on to something! Blogs will at least assuage the anomie.

By: Western Dave

Western Dave — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:54:30 +0000

I also how much of this is caused by us buying into the idea that jobs are supposed to be supremely fulfilling, as opposed to something you do some of the time. One of the things that drives me crazy is all the technofuturists who keep talking about a future of fulfilling work if we can just teach our kids how to be creative, critical thinkers and all that. My response is, a) people have been telling us this for 50 plus years, I’m guessing it’s not coming soon so b) for the vast majority of us a job is just going to be a job and if you find it mildly interesting and somewhat fulfilling that’s great because being a garbage man sucks (although in Philadelphia the pay and benefits are comparable to an assistant Professor’s but it’s also long hours and outdoors and all-weather but with overtime you can make more!).

By: Tenured Radical

Tenured Radical — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:47:53 +0000

Start a really hot blog.