Workplace Issues, Health, and Being a Professional Good Girl (language nsfw)

I’m not sure why I decided to post this here. Perhaps it’s because I used to post more personal things, once upon a time. Perhaps it’s because I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person in the wide world of academe that this has happened to. Institutional politics can be weird, and many academics tend towards over-thinking, introversion, impostor syndrome, and a lot of other things that can be a bit neurotic. So just in case this seems familiar to anybody, you’re not alone.

Or, possibly, I’m about to reveal the levels of my own neuroses and my readers will decide that I am so fucked up that they can’t trust me with their conference panels (speaking of which, if you’re on the Zoo panel, the paperwork is in), papers, or pets. But hey, I’m a risk-taker, as long as heights are not involved. So here goes.

I think I may know why I am unhealthy. I am honestly worried that my job is making me ill. Not directly, you understand. But I am starting to see stress as a possible major factor. Or, if I want to be generous to my institution, my inability to handle this particular kind of stress is a factor. I think I am suited to academia. I don’t think I am suited to particular sorts of dysfunction, and those sorts of dysfunction surround me every damned day. It is a vicious cycle that goes something like this:

Huge Piles Of Shit come down on me.

I think, or more likely react, because the thoughts aren’t all that conscious, by working all the harder, and taking on more work.

Why? Because if I were doing my job properly, Huge Piles Of Shit would not come down on me. My employers would protect me and make it stop, if I deserved it.

But, my conscious mind says, they are telling me that this is a pile of shit. And they are sorry. And while they cannot completely protect me, they value me, and in fact do things that normally indicate that they value me, like funding travel, etc. And also? we may not talk about the Huge Pile Of Shit. It is there, but we must pretend it is invisible, because others are not supposed to know it’s there.

But the Huge Pile Of Shit is there, and it does not go away.

And in fact, people who are not doing more — people who are demonstrably not even fulfilling the requirements of the position — are receiving things that look and feel to me like rewards.

In reality, they aren’t, probably. It’s more that there is no evidence that they are being held responsible for not fixing the things that are wrong. But when my classes are all filled to capacity or more, and a colleague’s classes are all undersubscribed to the extent that a course is cancelled, so that they end up with a virtual course release that they use for writing, or going to the gym more often… Well, in a world where time is at a premium, it feels a lot like I’m being punished.

I know that this is not true. Having full classes is good. Being on committees is part of the job. I’m pretty sure that my load is no worse than any of you who are teaching at a SLAC — and in fact, not worse than colleagues in other departments at my SLAC.

But by a weird chain of events, my department is separated from the rest of my campus by a seven-minute walk. So my daily world is one where I have to walk the line between two realities. So, for example, I am currently expected to do all the work that is normally done by a particular sort of administrator. In fact, most people think I am that administrator. The SLAC website says I am that administrator. But I cannot officially act or speak as that administrator at present.

I could probably refuse to do the work (and in fact, some of it I have let slide to what is probably inexcusable levels, which makes me feel like a Bad Person Who Deserves the Huge Pile Of Shit) — but doing that also means Not Doing My Job.

I am not a person who does not do her job, although I am sometimes a person who barely gets the job done — sometimes because I rebel against what feels like work I shouldn’t have to do by procrastinating and self-sabotaging. But I try, and things do get done.

Still, the feeling that I am not handling my work, which at the moment is true, because I have been ill, and because I cannot keep my mind away from how the Huge Pile Of Shit is affecting me, is stressing me out.

And the stress makes me not sleep, not eat properly, and not exercise. So I feel worse. Because these are bad things, and will lead to me actually, really, truly, deserving the Huge Pile Of Shit.

And I take on more things, to prove that I don’t deserve the Huge Pile Of Shit.

And you know?

It’s fucked up.

It’s even more fucked up that I can see this on clear days when the shit-proof goggles are working.

Most of the time, though, when the pile is so heavy that you can barely breathe, the Huge Pile Of Shit feels like the norm. If it’s the norm, the problem must be me.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

For my childhood.

For my marriage.

For this particular job, at this particular time — despite the fact that in other academic company here, and at conferences, and even with most of my SLAC colleagues, there is evidence that the Huge Pile Of Shit is abnormal, and there is evidence that I probably don’t deserve it.

And so I wonder if, perhaps, whatever the actual test results say, my job is really what’s making me ill.*

*Argh. As I typed that last line, the thought that went through my mind was, “or your inability to deal with your job is making you ill.” Probably a good thing I’m going to my therapist today. At least SLAC ‘s insurance pays for a lot of therapy.