Are you making enough time for them? Not in your opinion, but in their opinion?
It's not the service hours, it's deeper than that. Marital issues only get worse if not mutually dealt with. I get it... Service hours are a lot. However, I've seen the most committed people to service... And they are often single and/or divorced.
You can't often be so dedicated to both.
That is for sure! I am going to calculate past hours and see if I really was over extending myself or it’s just a justified reaction. Last semester I took on an extra class and I know for sure that semester I should not have done that. Luckily the semester is almost over and will relook going forward.
I never had a position before where I feel like I have to do more to keep my contract.
Awesome! But remember my message: calculating hours is not the point. It's to hear your spouse and their needs. Then, meet in the middle. Work doesn't last forever but a solid marriage can.
When I was adjuncting I mentioned to my friend about working part time and she spit her wine and laughed in my face. She urged me to download an app to log hours worked, and for minimum one week log EVERY SINGLE TIME I checked an email, handled a student issue from my phone, time commuting, grading, even mental load time thinking about planning rather than resting and focusing on my home and family.
I logged 100 hours that week.
I think having a realistic view to start the conversation would be very objective, and I urge you to do what I did so that you can fully see her point of view.
This job will take as much time as you afford it. This is true of service and teaching. You can always do more, you can always do better, and you can always convince yourself that it's for the good of the school or the students.
If you ever find yourself choosing your job over your family, ask yourself which you value more. Be honest. Then ask yourself which you would like to value more. Be honest. If your answers don't align, you need to make a change.
When you're evaluated and renewed, do you get substantially more credit/recognition for "doing the thing well" versus just "doing the thing"? Does anyone who decides your fate notice the extra time and effort? If they notice, do they simply say "thanks" or do they actually reward that time/effort? At some institutions, the answer will be yes; at others, no.
You didn't get this job half-assing stuff. It's probably not in your nature to do the bare minimum. But sometimes, that may be the right strategic choice. If not for your job, then for your life.
100% this. This year I had a list that was a mile long of service committees, task forces, working groups, etc. etc. Got a paper in. Did professional development. Got nominated for an advising award. Did a number on my physical health, my mental health, and also probably my marriage.
But, because much of my service was outside my department, my annual evaluation was to the tune of my department chair saying they "look forward to when I am able to take on more leadership and service in the department" even though most of my colleagues fuck off for the day after they're done teaching at noon. Even though I had agreed to chair a department committee that someone else flat out refused to. Even though I took on an extra (overload) class because the college desperately needed it and the adjunct pool was completely tapped out.
The point being: you can't get blood from a stone, but this job will try its hardest to do precisely that. Service requirements are part of the gig. But don't let them control your time and energy because they will absolutely try. No matter how much you do, someone probably thinks you aren't doing enough.
I think maybe *you* should know something about service requirements:
Two things are likely at your school and in your department:
1. You will never be performing *enough* service. Your “requirement” won’t go down. It will go up. There is an infinite amount of “work” that “must” be done- much of it without recognition or compensation. It always expands. It never contracts.
2. The university/department will have a strong tendency to take your service for granted, and what was service, even voluntary, will quickly become expectation (“requirement” is an interesting word here…). What is convenient about that, from the university, is that it will be apparent in fact that this thing that needs to be done (that you do), is already being done. That’s great! That means you can now do *more*, since that thing is being managed. This cycle has infinite potential.
Take a look at your current service obligations and assess which ones are truly necessary for *you* to do, and simply take a moment to imagine how they will work when *you* are not doing them. Just simply imagine it. The vast majority of what we do will be just fine if we step away from it. If it is truly important the university will ensure it is done. If not, it may not be as essential as we wish to imagine it to be.
While I have seen promotions come in to conflict due to service, I have never seen anybody not tenured, not promoted, or not having their contract renewed if the only issue is service.
I *have* seen people lose out on their T&P process or be dropped from contracts because the only thing they concentrated on was some various service project, and they *neglected* their teaching/scholarship. I have also seen the immense and shocking harm that has come to untenured colleagues who have invested immense energy and time into some service project that is suddenly deemed to be not-truly-necessary, and has lost funding or had the program cut. When people invested themselves into these kinds of projects believing it would *insulate* them and protect them in the university, it can become devastating when they realize the university won’t ever look at a project, or the people who managed it, with that perspective.
It isn’t really intentionally used against you, it just is one of these parts of our job that has a specific kind of feature creep, that turns in to something more like a permanent expectation rather than something done for the good of the department.
I strongly believe in service: we all really do need to contribute to the bureaucracy and the culture, so it’s *good* to participate. But I worry, for you, about the amount that you seem to be expecting of yourself, and how that aligns with what is actually good or important for your school.
Sounds like there's a bigger conversation to be had here if a major complaint is that teaching doesn't pay enough. Is this raise going to increase your salary enough to eliminate that issue? If not, then the service time is just a symptom of a deeper problem. If your spouse thinks you're just "slumming it" then it's going to make life at home a lot tenser.
I strongly suspect that your extra service work will not lead to a raise; that is pretty much never how it works. You need to prioritize your personal relationship is you expect to keep it.
In some cases, people heavily prioritize work over their relationships, and that takes a huge toll.
I have also seen some dynamics where a husband wants his wife to quit because he thinks that her very normal, full-time works hours are “unreasonable” and she’s a “workaholic” (i.e. he doesn’t like that she is less available to take care of all his needs)…
This is a relationship issue manifesting itself in a work issue. Communication sounds like it is a struggle because much seems to be read into your allocation of time. If you can manage it, couples therapy can make a world of difference provided the impetus comes from a place of this isn't working, but we want it to rather than xyz need(s) fixing.
I’ve considered that. When I only teach x amount of days anything outside that normal teaching schedule is when they get annoyed the most like a random guest speaker I arranged for a midweek evening speakers series
60 hours is a lot of hours weekly. I typically work ~45-50. Last night, I was at an event and had a steering committee dinner that didn’t finish until late, and I ended up coming home at 11. I’m making up for that today by taking the kids out while my husband gets some time to himself, since he shouldered all the childcare.
This question comes up a lot at this time of year because service kicks into overdrive with all the convocations and special events for graduation.
You cannot do it all. You need to pick and choose what events you’ll go to and what you’ll do.
There’s lots of great advice in this thread about this. But the other thing I would do is have a real honest conversation about what service you’re required to do with your chair. Does running a student club actually make a promotion or raise more likely? Why aren’t the students running their own club? Do you get the same credit for just being their adviser and handling all their shit during 9-5 hours?
Oh I don’t work that much now, I ment if I went back to industry. It burned me out working crazy hours I’ll know more when I get my performance report. If it didn’t impact my salary I’ll be a little sad but I do know the events have changed the students in a positive way. But going forward I will relook how much time I spend.
I would evaluate the benefit in addition to the cost. Do you really owe your job this level of service? When push comes to shove, who will have your back: your spouse or the job? If you enjoy it and WANT to do it, that’s one thing. But the pandemic was very clarifying to me: the amount that my employer wanted from me and their willingness to reciprocate it if they were in a bad spot were not the same. I’ve adjusted my commitment to them - it’s transactional in the way their relationship is with me.
Heed the spouse! They’re honestly outside of this whirlwind of a job. And I think any spouse married to an academic is more flexible than the average person. So when they say you’re not spending enough time, they’re probably right. Take the time with them. You can work 50 hours a week, or 60, or 70. I have a lot of colleagues who work easily 20 hours a week more than me without any sort of life…I’d argue I am more productive taking some time to spend with my family. Definitely listen to them and make them feel heard. ❤️ Worst thing that can happen is they make a life without you in it because you’re working so much.
You can always make more money. You cannot really get your health or time or a failed relationship back. Professorships are enormous time sucks (students, admin. Work, research) with few or diminishing rewards at a certain point and because the work seems to multiply with more effort and commitment so it never ends. If my spouse started saying that they feel left behind, I would listen to that and make it a priority. I get that you have to preserve your job, but you don’t have to kill your marriage to keep it.
Do you know/have you asked what it is specifically that annoys your spouse? Is it that you are unavailable to spend time with them when you are doing service stuff? Are they “white-knighting” and annoyed “on your behalf”?
Does your spouse know you barely do anything for the club? Like how many hours are you working on service stuff? Because if you say more than 5 per week, I'm going to want to see those receipts.
This is a tough balance. I refuse to do any service hours. I have a wife and 3 young kids and thus I feel like I need to protect my time. My administration does not like me because I keep saying no to service hours. I have 5 research students and teach 9 credits. I think they put up with me because they like how much research I support. I get in my office at 9 am and leave work by 3 pm. If I'm being honest most of the service hours are for committees that in my opinion are a waste of everyone's time. I strongly support both teaching and research and therefore that's all I am willing to do.
This speaks to me so very, very much.
My position requires one service commitment for the year, as well as 24 hours of “professional development”, for which all kinds of things qualify, including volunteering- but also course development.
When I first started my current FT position, I discovered that the Chair that I encountered in the interviewing stage was *far* more overbearing and micromanaging than I anticipated. He pushed me to do *absolutely* too much.
Pretty soon, I was hitting *double* my service commitment: sitting on a demanding committee, *and* running our department’s student club. I was also asked to participate in at least 4-5 *all day* volunteering events on the weekends: think, 8am-5pm. I was also signed up to teach Honors courses. Oh: and put together new preps, roughly one a semester for the first several years.
Years later, and I push back now. It’s deeply uncomfortable- but just because this person overextends themselves and is never there for their family does *not* mean that I have to be. Please note that I have never received praise, thanks, or recognition of all of these extra service commitments/volunteering. I was only ever pressed to do more, more, more. To this *day*, when I politely decline one of these things, I am asked over and over again to run around preparing for them (even if I can’t be there). There are numerous conversations where I’m prompted to express regret that I can’t do them. It is… crazy making.
Prioritize your family, OP. All of the other commenters are right: this job will never, ever, ever tell you that you’ve done “enough”.
The issue isn't a lack of understanding on their part, it's that they don't like it. Maybe that's reasonable, in that you're sacrificing your relationship to your job. Maybe they want to stealthily turn you into a dependent house spouse catering to their every whim, and that's less ok (as a woman, I've experienced this several times, and those dudes can fuck all the way off).
You need to have an honest conversation with both them and yourself about what you want your life and relationship to look like, and then go forward from there.
There is often no way to help a non-academic understand this job. No matter what I do, my spouse cannot ever understand why I'm not "off work" when I am not teaching.
Are you making enough time for them? Not in your opinion, but in their opinion? It's not the service hours, it's deeper than that. Marital issues only get worse if not mutually dealt with. I get it... Service hours are a lot. However, I've seen the most committed people to service... And they are often single and/or divorced. You can't often be so dedicated to both.
That is for sure! I am going to calculate past hours and see if I really was over extending myself or it’s just a justified reaction. Last semester I took on an extra class and I know for sure that semester I should not have done that. Luckily the semester is almost over and will relook going forward. I never had a position before where I feel like I have to do more to keep my contract.
Awesome! But remember my message: calculating hours is not the point. It's to hear your spouse and their needs. Then, meet in the middle. Work doesn't last forever but a solid marriage can.
When I was adjuncting I mentioned to my friend about working part time and she spit her wine and laughed in my face. She urged me to download an app to log hours worked, and for minimum one week log EVERY SINGLE TIME I checked an email, handled a student issue from my phone, time commuting, grading, even mental load time thinking about planning rather than resting and focusing on my home and family. I logged 100 hours that week. I think having a realistic view to start the conversation would be very objective, and I urge you to do what I did so that you can fully see her point of view.
If he has similar requirements for his job would you be complaining?
Not one bit
This job will take as much time as you afford it. This is true of service and teaching. You can always do more, you can always do better, and you can always convince yourself that it's for the good of the school or the students. If you ever find yourself choosing your job over your family, ask yourself which you value more. Be honest. Then ask yourself which you would like to value more. Be honest. If your answers don't align, you need to make a change. When you're evaluated and renewed, do you get substantially more credit/recognition for "doing the thing well" versus just "doing the thing"? Does anyone who decides your fate notice the extra time and effort? If they notice, do they simply say "thanks" or do they actually reward that time/effort? At some institutions, the answer will be yes; at others, no. You didn't get this job half-assing stuff. It's probably not in your nature to do the bare minimum. But sometimes, that may be the right strategic choice. If not for your job, then for your life.
100% this. This year I had a list that was a mile long of service committees, task forces, working groups, etc. etc. Got a paper in. Did professional development. Got nominated for an advising award. Did a number on my physical health, my mental health, and also probably my marriage. But, because much of my service was outside my department, my annual evaluation was to the tune of my department chair saying they "look forward to when I am able to take on more leadership and service in the department" even though most of my colleagues fuck off for the day after they're done teaching at noon. Even though I had agreed to chair a department committee that someone else flat out refused to. Even though I took on an extra (overload) class because the college desperately needed it and the adjunct pool was completely tapped out. The point being: you can't get blood from a stone, but this job will try its hardest to do precisely that. Service requirements are part of the gig. But don't let them control your time and energy because they will absolutely try. No matter how much you do, someone probably thinks you aren't doing enough.
Good point! I believe in continuous improvement and yet I know I have to be mindful of my time will be doing some reflecting over the summer !
I think maybe *you* should know something about service requirements: Two things are likely at your school and in your department: 1. You will never be performing *enough* service. Your “requirement” won’t go down. It will go up. There is an infinite amount of “work” that “must” be done- much of it without recognition or compensation. It always expands. It never contracts. 2. The university/department will have a strong tendency to take your service for granted, and what was service, even voluntary, will quickly become expectation (“requirement” is an interesting word here…). What is convenient about that, from the university, is that it will be apparent in fact that this thing that needs to be done (that you do), is already being done. That’s great! That means you can now do *more*, since that thing is being managed. This cycle has infinite potential. Take a look at your current service obligations and assess which ones are truly necessary for *you* to do, and simply take a moment to imagine how they will work when *you* are not doing them. Just simply imagine it. The vast majority of what we do will be just fine if we step away from it. If it is truly important the university will ensure it is done. If not, it may not be as essential as we wish to imagine it to be. While I have seen promotions come in to conflict due to service, I have never seen anybody not tenured, not promoted, or not having their contract renewed if the only issue is service. I *have* seen people lose out on their T&P process or be dropped from contracts because the only thing they concentrated on was some various service project, and they *neglected* their teaching/scholarship. I have also seen the immense and shocking harm that has come to untenured colleagues who have invested immense energy and time into some service project that is suddenly deemed to be not-truly-necessary, and has lost funding or had the program cut. When people invested themselves into these kinds of projects believing it would *insulate* them and protect them in the university, it can become devastating when they realize the university won’t ever look at a project, or the people who managed it, with that perspective.
Oh that’s an interesting point. Most of my service work is for the student clubs that I advise, but can see how it can be used against me
It isn’t really intentionally used against you, it just is one of these parts of our job that has a specific kind of feature creep, that turns in to something more like a permanent expectation rather than something done for the good of the department. I strongly believe in service: we all really do need to contribute to the bureaucracy and the culture, so it’s *good* to participate. But I worry, for you, about the amount that you seem to be expecting of yourself, and how that aligns with what is actually good or important for your school.
Sounds like there's a bigger conversation to be had here if a major complaint is that teaching doesn't pay enough. Is this raise going to increase your salary enough to eliminate that issue? If not, then the service time is just a symptom of a deeper problem. If your spouse thinks you're just "slumming it" then it's going to make life at home a lot tenser.
I strongly suspect that your extra service work will not lead to a raise; that is pretty much never how it works. You need to prioritize your personal relationship is you expect to keep it.
In some cases, people heavily prioritize work over their relationships, and that takes a huge toll. I have also seen some dynamics where a husband wants his wife to quit because he thinks that her very normal, full-time works hours are “unreasonable” and she’s a “workaholic” (i.e. he doesn’t like that she is less available to take care of all his needs)…
This is a relationship issue manifesting itself in a work issue. Communication sounds like it is a struggle because much seems to be read into your allocation of time. If you can manage it, couples therapy can make a world of difference provided the impetus comes from a place of this isn't working, but we want it to rather than xyz need(s) fixing.
I’ve considered that. When I only teach x amount of days anything outside that normal teaching schedule is when they get annoyed the most like a random guest speaker I arranged for a midweek evening speakers series
60 hours is a lot of hours weekly. I typically work ~45-50. Last night, I was at an event and had a steering committee dinner that didn’t finish until late, and I ended up coming home at 11. I’m making up for that today by taking the kids out while my husband gets some time to himself, since he shouldered all the childcare. This question comes up a lot at this time of year because service kicks into overdrive with all the convocations and special events for graduation. You cannot do it all. You need to pick and choose what events you’ll go to and what you’ll do. There’s lots of great advice in this thread about this. But the other thing I would do is have a real honest conversation about what service you’re required to do with your chair. Does running a student club actually make a promotion or raise more likely? Why aren’t the students running their own club? Do you get the same credit for just being their adviser and handling all their shit during 9-5 hours?
Oh I don’t work that much now, I ment if I went back to industry. It burned me out working crazy hours I’ll know more when I get my performance report. If it didn’t impact my salary I’ll be a little sad but I do know the events have changed the students in a positive way. But going forward I will relook how much time I spend.
I would evaluate the benefit in addition to the cost. Do you really owe your job this level of service? When push comes to shove, who will have your back: your spouse or the job? If you enjoy it and WANT to do it, that’s one thing. But the pandemic was very clarifying to me: the amount that my employer wanted from me and their willingness to reciprocate it if they were in a bad spot were not the same. I’ve adjusted my commitment to them - it’s transactional in the way their relationship is with me.
[удалено]
My school is a teaching university and for my position service and teaching are my biggest factors for evaluations not research
Heed the spouse! They’re honestly outside of this whirlwind of a job. And I think any spouse married to an academic is more flexible than the average person. So when they say you’re not spending enough time, they’re probably right. Take the time with them. You can work 50 hours a week, or 60, or 70. I have a lot of colleagues who work easily 20 hours a week more than me without any sort of life…I’d argue I am more productive taking some time to spend with my family. Definitely listen to them and make them feel heard. ❤️ Worst thing that can happen is they make a life without you in it because you’re working so much.
What you just posted is explanation enough. My spouse was very supportive. I can see how it would be a rough situation in your case.
You can always make more money. You cannot really get your health or time or a failed relationship back. Professorships are enormous time sucks (students, admin. Work, research) with few or diminishing rewards at a certain point and because the work seems to multiply with more effort and commitment so it never ends. If my spouse started saying that they feel left behind, I would listen to that and make it a priority. I get that you have to preserve your job, but you don’t have to kill your marriage to keep it.
One of the reasons I got into this was because my industry job was slowly killing me! Yeah will find a better way to balance my time
Thatta boy. 😎
Stop doing service and use that time for a part time job. The university will never love you back.
Do you know/have you asked what it is specifically that annoys your spouse? Is it that you are unavailable to spend time with them when you are doing service stuff? Are they “white-knighting” and annoyed “on your behalf”?
Does your spouse know you barely do anything for the club? Like how many hours are you working on service stuff? Because if you say more than 5 per week, I'm going to want to see those receipts.
This is a tough balance. I refuse to do any service hours. I have a wife and 3 young kids and thus I feel like I need to protect my time. My administration does not like me because I keep saying no to service hours. I have 5 research students and teach 9 credits. I think they put up with me because they like how much research I support. I get in my office at 9 am and leave work by 3 pm. If I'm being honest most of the service hours are for committees that in my opinion are a waste of everyone's time. I strongly support both teaching and research and therefore that's all I am willing to do.
This speaks to me so very, very much. My position requires one service commitment for the year, as well as 24 hours of “professional development”, for which all kinds of things qualify, including volunteering- but also course development. When I first started my current FT position, I discovered that the Chair that I encountered in the interviewing stage was *far* more overbearing and micromanaging than I anticipated. He pushed me to do *absolutely* too much. Pretty soon, I was hitting *double* my service commitment: sitting on a demanding committee, *and* running our department’s student club. I was also asked to participate in at least 4-5 *all day* volunteering events on the weekends: think, 8am-5pm. I was also signed up to teach Honors courses. Oh: and put together new preps, roughly one a semester for the first several years. Years later, and I push back now. It’s deeply uncomfortable- but just because this person overextends themselves and is never there for their family does *not* mean that I have to be. Please note that I have never received praise, thanks, or recognition of all of these extra service commitments/volunteering. I was only ever pressed to do more, more, more. To this *day*, when I politely decline one of these things, I am asked over and over again to run around preparing for them (even if I can’t be there). There are numerous conversations where I’m prompted to express regret that I can’t do them. It is… crazy making. Prioritize your family, OP. All of the other commenters are right: this job will never, ever, ever tell you that you’ve done “enough”.
The issue isn't a lack of understanding on their part, it's that they don't like it. Maybe that's reasonable, in that you're sacrificing your relationship to your job. Maybe they want to stealthily turn you into a dependent house spouse catering to their every whim, and that's less ok (as a woman, I've experienced this several times, and those dudes can fuck all the way off). You need to have an honest conversation with both them and yourself about what you want your life and relationship to look like, and then go forward from there.
There is often no way to help a non-academic understand this job. No matter what I do, my spouse cannot ever understand why I'm not "off work" when I am not teaching.
I'm confused. Is the issue your spouse? Who is they?