In February, before I finally made time to see my primary care provider, I was working very intensely, being totally overwhelmed. I'd been in this state of overwhelm since late 2021 when we were out of the height of the pandemic and our temporary grace and acknowledgment that things are tough and that we are all overworked went away. So we went to business as usual, never mind we were all traumatized (I don't use this word lightly) by the pandemic. Outputs must be outputted, after all.
I was trying to make all the outputs for an external grant in time (this didn't work), trying to catch up on a million things. And every day new requests came in.
These include (but aren't limited to) the following. You may skip the following paragraph, there's nothing extraordinary there, it's just the cumulative weight:
Tenure file reviews, refereeing requests outside of Res Philosophica and other things I'm in the board of or editing, speaking and writing invites, endorsement requests, requests to evaluate full manuscript proposals or book proposals, to sit on external committees for PhDs and MAs, to help advocate or create visibility for some worthwhile goal (e.g., tthe wonderful first-gen philosophers website), to comment on someone else's paper or book, and podcasts and things of that nature. Then there were things I've already committed to, Res Phil editorship and Ergo associate editorship, SEP reviewing of articles in philosophy of religion, various projects of editing stuff etc with others. I had taken on chairing the C-APA next year, feeling obliged because I advocated for low-CO2 virtual conferencing. But it was too much. There were also various committees for the department and the college I was in. I was still mentoring grad students and doing work as placement director.
Though I had teaching relief for the grant that spring semester, all this extra service work made it feel like a terrible squeeze.
I turn down the vast majority of external requests, but it's hard to say no to practically everything. For most things, I say no, I suggest other people. But then you think: Oh, I've already read this book, so I can easily write a 3000-word commentary on it. The allure of "this will be easy, I'll say yes to it" is so big. But do it, and you end up spending much more time than anticipated. It's like the great summer illusion, as Eric Schwitzgebel calls it, but then for little tasks that all add up and become a huge swamp you're constantly sinking in.
So, in the end, I was getting to this state I've seen other senior folk fall into. They say yes to too many things, and then they drop the ball and they keep on disappointing people. It's very sad, but understandable that this happens.
Part of the problem is the huge inequality in our profession. If you say no to nine requests, and yes to one, it is still too much if you get dozens of requests weekly. Our perpetual overwork is a labor issue. Fewer and fewer faculty members are holding up the tremendous edifice of service work that keeps academia up. Adjuncts, VAPs etc. cannot do some of the lifting (e.g., tenure files) and understandably can't or won't take on much or any of the other lifting (e.g., refereeing). They can't sit in our committees. We wonder why we're so overworked, but if your department shrinks from e.g., ten full time tenure-line professors to five, while expected to do the same service load, plus the service to the profession, is it a wonder we cannot get it all done?
It was beginning to affect my psychological wellbeing. I have always tried to make time for hobbies and for family and still did that, but I felt a perpetual state of exhaustion. Indeed, I at first didn't go to my PCP because I thought, well, exhaustion is just what I should expect at this point in my career. Eventually, I could not sleep anymore. It took me more than an hour to fall asleep every night. I woke up in the middle of it, and I felt uneasy throughout the day. I have no way to say how much of it was due to stress or cancer.
Then, my personal world came crashing down with a cancer diagnosis early March. After initial scans it looked it might be terminal, I had difficulties processing this information. But it wasn't sure, because PET scans are ambiguous. So for some weeks I had to wait in total agony for biopsy results to see what my future looked like and whether we could measure it in months or years (turns out it's advanced, but treatable). In this great psychological distress, compounded by the increasing pain caused by the tumor, I had to drop everything, including even house work. In spite of that, the world kept on turning. Things did not go crashing down. People took things over. It was tremendously liberating to think: okay, if I am not there to do it, it's not a disaster. Things will continue.
Everyone regardless of tenure in academia is overworked. But if academia (refereeing crisis etc) requires the over-and-above efforts of a few people lucky enough to make it, maybe it should fall apart, at least as it stands now. It can't be right that most PhDs are eaten up and spat out by academia, never being able to get a tenure track job, then the few PhDs who get the best jobs are eaten up and spat out by overwork only they can do (e.g., tenure reviews require you are a full prof, I think. I did four tenure reviews in 2023, which requires reading and evaluating someone's output for the past six years).
Two of my colleagues died last year, on the job. I know of one who was looking forward to retirement (his sudden death meant he never could take it up), going hiking in the Rocky Mountains. Already then, I was thinking, do I want to die for my job? (Scary as it turns out, I hope not prophetic). My father used to be a bricklayer, doing hard manual labor all his working life, and having serious health issues as a result. He would frequently come home with bruises or other occupational wounds, his back was prematurely aged, etc. So, growing up in that context, I was thinking: okay, academia is a plush job. If you can get tenure, an even more plush job. I didn't realize just how insidious it is.
The motivations for why I say yes too often are complex. Part of it is academic survivor guilt (I feel I need to do my part for the profession, pay it forward etc). Part of it is being pleased at being recognized–the sort of external honors I thought I was largely immune to, but who really is? Academia thrives on that external recognition. Now, I'm thinking, how do I want to spend the rest of my life (however long it will be)? I decided: I don't want to go on in this perpetual state of exhaustion. Maybe I should leave academia, but what to do? Potential plan: write a book that makes enough money, buy a flock of goats, and make cheese in France, retiring to a cute walkable village/city in the French countryside. Potential problem: I don't know anything about goats or cheesemaking.
If I (realistically) stay in academia, how do I make sure (assuming all goes well, I recover) that I don't fall into this horrible trap of doing too much? It's not just me saying yes too much or not enough. It is a collective labor issue. Our individual decisions matter, but they should be seen against a formidable backdrop of the institutions of academia slowly crumbling, death by a million little cuts: retirements that don't get replaced, the extra pressure of AI-generated student work, etc etc.
Our sector is in deep trouble (see also this brilliant piece by my former colleague, Glen O'Hara). We expect people to just keep on stoically overworking as our numbers are shrinking and workloads are exploding.
Time for a change, which will have to happen collectively.
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