Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Cry Me a River
Cry Me a River
I can't get to my Chronicle subscription right now, but Easily Distracted makes some interesting points about single academic life. I will point out, however, that I tired of people who have to leave meetings because of children but I can't point out with the same serious face that I need to go home and let the dog out or there will be a mess to clean up. It probably deals much more with the interplay of the personalities and being willing to not be run over . . . something I'm still learning how to manage. Women still have a harder time worrying about everyone around like them or, on the other side of the coin, being hard to get along with if they do stand up for themselves. I've started learning to distinguish between worthwhile meetings, sometimes necessary command performances, and meetings that just derail me from what needs to be done. My big lesson was a few years back when I was at a meeting in which reports were given by representatives of 3 other committees I was ALREADY ON! Plus, they were albe to leave the minute their presentation was over. I was too well-conditioned that following the rules would get me ahead but then there comes a point to not let other people dominate your time. Just like I have to keep working on not letting email dominate my time and develop a hierarchy that students get answered first, then administrators, then colleagues who don't always have enough to keep themselves busy so they're busy bugging other people trying to get them to do something.This was definitely a tangent today. But Easily Distracted does correctly point out that no one promised us a rose garden. What about the folks who work just as many hours as some of us do (what is a 40 hour week anyway when you actually do work 7 days most weeks) but are tied to a small cubicle with co-workers constantly on top of them. At least we usually have offices of our own or can disappear to the library and have students or colleagues meet us there. We really do have it well. I am in a small town, too, but only about an hour from where I grew up. I doubt I would like it if I wasn't from here but I have lived in other small town environments as well as big cities and I'm not sure any of them is more welcoming and/or offer more activities than others. We all make choices and our PhD didn't promise us anything but opportunity to do more studying and teaching of history. . .
I can't get to my Chronicle subscription right now, but Easily Distracted makes some interesting points about single academic life. I will point out, however, that I tired of people who have to leave meetings because of children but I can't point out with the same serious face that I need to go home and let the dog out or there will be a mess to clean up. It probably deals much more with the interplay of the personalities and being willing to not be run over . . . something I'm still learning how to manage. Women still have a harder time worrying about everyone around like them or, on the other side of the coin, being hard to get along with if they do stand up for themselves. I've started learning to distinguish between worthwhile meetings, sometimes necessary command performances, and meetings that just derail me from what needs to be done. My big lesson was a few years back when I was at a meeting in which reports were given by representatives of 3 other committees I was ALREADY ON! Plus, they were albe to leave the minute their presentation was over. I was too well-conditioned that following the rules would get me ahead but then there comes a point to not let other people dominate your time. Just like I have to keep working on not letting email dominate my time and develop a hierarchy that students get answered first, then administrators, then colleagues who don't always have enough to keep themselves busy so they're busy bugging other people trying to get them to do something.This was definitely a tangent today. But Easily Distracted does correctly point out that no one promised us a rose garden. What about the folks who work just as many hours as some of us do (what is a 40 hour week anyway when you actually do work 7 days most weeks) but are tied to a small cubicle with co-workers constantly on top of them. At least we usually have offices of our own or can disappear to the library and have students or colleagues meet us there. We really do have it well. I am in a small town, too, but only about an hour from where I grew up. I doubt I would like it if I wasn't from here but I have lived in other small town environments as well as big cities and I'm not sure any of them is more welcoming and/or offer more activities than others. We all make choices and our PhD didn't promise us anything but opportunity to do more studying and teaching of history. . .
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