I Blame Capitalism

While it’s still fresh in my mind, I’d like to write about the department meeting. There’s a lot to unpack about what goes on in these things, and I think a lot of professors probably have similar feelings regarding the more unpleasant aspects of their own department meetings. Without trying to make any generalizations, however, I want to try to get to the heart of what I find so upsetting about my experience.

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What I find so distressing about department meetings, then, is that there’s always a strong undercurrent of “you’re not doing enough.” This is especially upsetting to me because I feel like I work all the time, even if what I’m doing – like preparing lectures for classes, giving productive feedback on assignments, and meeting with students to talk about their career goals, for example – can’t be quantified on a spreadsheet. And don’t even get me started on how many emails I have to write over the course of any given day.

So, when I already feel stretched way too thin, it’s just about the worst thing in the world to walk into a meeting where the underlying message is “you should be doing even more.” It’s like, haven’t I already sacrificed enough of my life for this job? I’m already pushing myself way beyond a healthy work/life balance, and I’ve been doing it nonstop for years, and it’s still not good enough?

Basically, a department meeting is a highly concentrated collection of external confirmations regarding many of the most common intrusive thoughts stemming from anxiety: You’re not good enough. Your best is not good enough. You will never be good enough. Your work is without value. You don’t deserve to be here. You don’t deserve the privileges you’ve been given. You haven’t accomplished anything, and you never will. Everyone knows this, and everyone hates you. Everyone is judging you. You’re just causing trouble for other people, and they resent you.

What I mean by “external confirmation” is that this is literally what is being said in these department meetings. It’s probably best to leave that discussion for another day, though, because OH MAN it’s not fun to talk about any of this.

Fun Times in Academialand

I actually do want to expand on "what I mean by 'external confirmation' is that this is literally what is being said in these department meetings," because I think a concrete example will help explain why I'm so upset. Since this is all a matter of public record according to university bylaws, I think it's probably okay to write about it in a small but public venue.

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For me, this silencing and enforced ideological blindness results in a feeling of being almost physically trapped. Combined with the repeated "younger faculty who have not proven their worth" microaggressions, I end up going into fight or flight mode, which results in intense panic attacks.

I really wish that more powerful and experienced people in academia were willing to talk about this sort of thing in a way that transcends useless corporate HR pablum and the hand-wringing "academia is broken now and forever" clickbait that people always seem to be sharing on social media. I wish I could do something myself, but I'm just as mired in the tenure-track swamp as anyone else. It's like, Sure, I'll fight neoliberal capitalism, right after I work on my article and my book chapter and respond to some emails and prepare a lecture and put together a handout and go teach two classes and sit in traffic and come home and then respond to more emails and update the course websites and maybe do some grading. Right after all that's finished, I'll get right on it.

Re: Fun Times in Academialand

I do want to say, just for the record, that I love my job.

My colleagues are good people, and it's nice to be paid a comfortable salary to read and write.

I don't particularly care the for the administrative aspects of teaching, but I have a lot of fun in class. This semester, for instance, I'm teaching an actual college course that counts for actual college credit about The Wind Waker, and it is fucking magical.

I could do without the panic attacks, but anxiety is what it is, and we're all doing the best we can.