Dear Reader,
US folks: I’m glad there is so much to celebrate this week!
Congratulations, thank you (from this Canadian), and may this bring meaningful positive change in due course.
Here’s to holding powerful people accountable and not letting them get away with endless bullshit (to say the very very least about it all, eh).
Which, come to think of it, brings me to today’s email.
I wrote this for LinkedIn last week, and it struck a chord with a lot of people.
In fact, it broke containment, reaching tens of thousands of people beyond my own network.
Here’s a thing I commonly witness among professors, postdocs, and other PhDs: You let your employer off the hook because you find your work deeply meaningful.
And, hey, I love that for you and I’m probably going to agree that what you do is in fact important! Thank you for doing it!
But that doesn’t mean it’s in any way okay that the heat is busted in your classroom, that you’re still waiting for an ergonomic chair you were promised upon hire, that your lab doesn’t have access to needed software, that you’re grading papers on Sunday morning because you can’t fit it into a 40- (or 50+) hour work week.
Now, I live in reality with you, so I get that accepting less than you deserve is a workplace survival strategy.
You teach an extra course because your department is understaffed.
You spend your own money on needed supplies.
You do unpaid work because otherwise something important simply won’t get done.
You care about your students, value your colleagues, and believe in the importance of your work.
Plus, well, you need this (the income, insurance, other benefits) and can’t afford to jeopardize it.
I get it.
But just because you’ve found a way to make an unreasonable situation work doesn’t mean the situation is reasonable.
And just because you’re willing to take on responsibilities that should belong to your employer doesn’t mean those responsibilities are actually yours.
Academic culture has a way of turning institutional failures into individual obligations.
There’s not enough funding? Be resourceful!
Not enough staff? Step up!
Too much work? Well, that’s academia!
And if you really care about your students, your research, your discipline, surely you’ll find a way to make it all work. *screams*
What’s especially insidious is how easily we can take pride in our ability to endure conditions that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
We turn overwork into dedication. We turn inadequate resources into opportunities to demonstrate our creativity. We turn unreasonable expectations into evidence of our commitment.
And meanwhile, the institution gets to carry on as before, even ramping up the unreasonable asks (demands, threats).
I’m not suggesting you simply refuse to do the work, quit your job, or start demanding things you have no realistic chance of getting.
But I want folks to be clear-eyed about what’s happening.
You can love your work and still expect your employer to provide the resources necessary to do it.
You can be proud of your contributions without celebrating the sacrifices you were forced to make.
You can decide that putting up with something is your best option right now without deciding that it’s acceptable.
And you can acknowledge that something is bullshit even when you’re not in a position to do anything about it.
Don’t let your employer off the hook just because you’ve figured out how to cope.
Cheers,
Jen
P.S. Want to explore working with me? Visit my Services page to learn about options, or reply to this email and let me know what you want my help with!
Jennifer Polk, PhD
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