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Why I Collapsed on the Job

chronicle.com

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Re: Why I Collapsed on the Job

#21

The point the author seems to make by peppering the article with these mentions of gender seems to be that burnouts in education are gender related. These struggles are universal for all teachers, not just women. Saying 'xyz is hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in which men should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it truly hard. Saying no to people is hard for many pe…

>xyz is hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in which men should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it truly hard. It isn't a competition. Everyone's experiences are valid and correct. That women, on average, face the problems of (profession) plus the problems of being a woman in (profession). This doesn't mean that men don't have problems, that their problems are somehow…

If it's not a competition (a comparison so to say) why distinguish between men and women at all? The problems she identifies are not at all gender specific, not in my generation at least.

That said, to be fair, I don't think she made the article particularly slanted or gender focussed. I think she was just talking about her experience, and identifying her gender is probably a by-product of our time, a time when women are maturing into, and pushing for, equality.

Re: Why I Collapsed on the Job

#23

The point the author seems to make by peppering the article with these mentions of gender seems to be that burnouts in education are gender related. These struggles are universal for all teachers, not just women. Saying 'xyz is hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in which men should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it truly hard. Saying no to people is hard for many pe…

>xyz is hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in which men should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it truly hard. It isn't a competition. Everyone's experiences are valid and correct. That women, on average, face the problems of (profession) plus the problems of being a woman in (profession). This doesn't mean that men don't have problems, that their problems are somehow…

Huh? 75% of teachers are female. 80% of elementary teachers are female. 95% of kindergarten teachers are female.

If you are talking about investment banking or civil engineering, sure systematic discrimination is a thing. Teaching is not one of these. If you want to see discrimination, talk to to male K-2 teacher.

Re: Why I Collapsed on the Job

#24
post #16

TLDR: It's an anectode of "an associate professor of education-policy studies" at Penn State who suffered from burn-out. I have no idea what we are supposed to take away from her story. Don't work too hard and learn to say no, I guess. There is no clear narrative and the article reeks of self pity (she does not get tired of mentioning that she's a "twice an immigrant" and a woman). EDIT: what bothers me about the art…

Yeah. She writes as if this is unique to her profession, gender (?!) ... but it is not. This sounds like any other burnout stories from so many fields. Sure some fields are worse than others but academia is probably one of the better ones.

Let's not forget health workers. Doctors and nurses often work ridiculous hours with unimaginable stress, literally life and death decisions every day.

I often consider myself to be very lucky to write JS for a living. I earn a decent wage, work decent hours, have reasonably good employability and portability of work, and if I make a mistake I can only kill the browser.

Re: Why I Collapsed on the Job

#25
post #16

TLDR: It's an anectode of "an associate professor of education-policy studies" at Penn State who suffered from burn-out. I have no idea what we are supposed to take away from her story. Don't work too hard and learn to say no, I guess. There is no clear narrative and the article reeks of self pity (she does not get tired of mentioning that she's a "twice an immigrant" and a woman). EDIT: what bothers me about the art…

Yeah. She writes as if this is unique to her profession, gender (?!) ... but it is not. This sounds like any other burnout stories from so many fields. Sure some fields are worse than others but academia is probably one of the better ones.

> academia is probably one of the better ones.

(Academic here.)

In many ways, yes, and I love my profession. But a potential downside to academia is that all sorts of people will contact you and ask you to do things. Heck, I get regular requests to donate money to my employer!

You should say yes to some of these, but you need to say "no" often. People who find this difficult tend to have a rough time in academia.

Re: Why I Collapsed on the Job

#26
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is mostly filled with women. Otherwise women aren't inclined to throw away their life for their job. -- EDIT -- Sorry, was on mobile. What I wanted to say is. Normally, women aren't as fond as men to invest a big bunch of their life into their job. They have the skills, but realize they don't want to work 100h a week to get to the top, when 30h are more than enough to make enough money AND have freetime. Th…

I was surprised by these stats: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-perce... I don't really follow your conclusion though. Why is it education is so attractive to women? Why do you presume that other professions are considered by women to be 'throwing their lives away'?

I think women are disproportionately attracted to jobs where the mission is people focused and caring focused. Many women are doubly attracted to jobs where there is schedule flexibility.

Teaching is a sweet gig if you intend to have children or want to travel. It’s also an income enhancer in blue states, as teacher benefits are usually good and makes it easier for a spouse to take career risks.

Nursing is a similar deal. My sister in law is a nurse practitioner. She has unlimited job options to bounce around and can ask for and get whatever schedule meets her needs.

Re: Why I Collapsed on the Job

#27

The point the author seems to make by peppering the article with these mentions of gender seems to be that burnouts in education are gender related. These struggles are universal for all teachers, not just women. Saying 'xyz is hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in which men should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it truly hard. Saying no to people is hard for many pe…

>xyz is hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in which men should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it truly hard. It isn't a competition. Everyone's experiences are valid and correct. That women, on average, face the problems of (profession) plus the problems of being a woman in (profession). This doesn't mean that men don't have problems, that their problems are somehow…

> That women, on average, face the problems of (profession) plus the problems of being a woman in (profession).

I face a professional problem - I am just a normal straight hetero healthy white male, no kids yet. I can't join in all honesty any disprivileged group to prevent me being fired in next corporate firing round. I can guarantee you that no manager (meaning already politics-playing individual) these days wants to be firing a minority/homosexual/disabled person from their team. They rather fire a guy like me just to avoid any diversity radar, long-term impact on the team or objective performance be damned.

You think I am joking? I see people 'hedging' against being fired by being involved as much as they can (I don't care about this corporate job that much, but I don't expect elsewhere to be much different. And startup world has its own issues.)

I've experienced this over my whole career, but till now it had been only women - cherished in dev teams and hired over +-same or slightly better guys, given extra time to adjust/train, extra help with debugging etc. No problems with it, we're gentlemen after all. I never saw a female dev being fired, and I've been through maybe 15 firing rounds over my career, seeing women as equal performers with slightly different perspective on the tasks.

Re: Why I Collapsed on the Job

#28

The point the author seems to make by peppering the article with these mentions of gender seems to be that burnouts in education are gender related. These struggles are universal for all teachers, not just women. Saying 'xyz is hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in which men should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it truly hard. Saying no to people is hard for many pe…

The only mentions of gender in the article are the very arguments why it might be harder:

"tenure-track horror stories we hear (particularly from women)"

This is a reference to, among other things, sexual harassment. This is not exclusive to women, but they are the vast majority of victims. There was, for example, some upheaval in the astrophysics community, with dozens of stories of younger female researchers finding out at the conference hotel that their professors "had accidentally just reserved one room for the two of them, oops" and so on.

"women are reluctant to say no on the job"

is a reference to the fact that women often feel more of a need to prove that they are worthy for the job. This doesn't imply any wrongdoing by men, especially not by specific men. But you can easily find data showing that women tend to have far more doubts about their abilities and accomplishments, and therefore feel under more pressure to perform.

"Another gendered reality is that women work a double shift"

This is pretty self-explanatory...

Most importantly, I don't understand how such an article provokes the defensive reflexes it apparently does: I'm a white able-bodies heterosexual man, and I have absolutely no doubt that if I were an overworked grad student at the author's faculty, my complaints would get a fair hearing. In fact, 90% of her complaints are indeed independent of gender, and her speaking out will help all troubled by them.

For the rest: if women do feel under extra pressure to appear smart and diligent, which I find at least plausible, I think it can almost completely be solved by just listening and acknowledging their complaint. We do sometimes have gendered expectations: I've personally witnessed a professor who complained abut women's handwriting in lab reports ("I can't read this") while shrugging it off for men ("You've a doctor's handwriting chuckle").

The problem of childcare can also be solved without anyone losing much, and society has actually come a long way. Institutions can open day-care etc. And teams and their leaders can almost always accommodate the flexibility required, and in the process usually creates a more flexible work experience for anyone. Just don't make a big fuss out of it if someone comes late and stays long once in a while because they had to take their infant to the doctor.

Re: Why I Collapsed on the Job

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised by these stats: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-perce... I don't really follow your conclusion though. Why is it education is so attractive to women? Why do you presume that other professions are considered by women to be 'throwing their lives away'?

I think women are disproportionately attracted to jobs where the mission is people focused and caring focused. Many women are doubly attracted to jobs where there is schedule flexibility. Teaching is a sweet gig if you intend to have children or want to travel. It’s also an income enhancer in blue states, as teacher benefits are usually good and makes it easier for a spouse to take career risks. Nursing is a similar…

> Many women are doubly attracted to jobs where there is schedule flexibility.

Female dominated jobs have less flexibility on average then male dominated jobs. It is mostly that primary caregivers after they have children need more flexibility, but original choice of occupation does not reflect this later need.

> Teaching is a sweet gig if you intend to have children or want to travel.

No it is not. It does not allow remote work nor flexible hours. You have to be there at time for teaching students who came. I am programmer and have waaay more flexibility then teachers.

> Nursing is a similar deal. My sister in law is a nurse practitioner. She has unlimited job options to bounce around and can ask for and get whatever schedule meets her needs.

That would be unusal, nurses I know have to be on the job on time and at schedule.

Re: Why I Collapsed on the Job

#30
post #7

Employers, as well as state institutions need to look more at the health of their employees. Even in Germany we have the problem that people at universities work way too much. People need to be told to stop and take a step back. Hard borders are a necessity. No longer than 40 hours (better 35) per week for EVERYONE. Being it doctors, university professors, steal workers, teachers, cleaning personal. There are enough…

As an American teacher who routinely works 50-60, the idea of only working 35/wk feels like a dream.

Why do you need to work 50-60 hours a week? I know my teachers in HS in Ontario were only scheduled for 4 hours of instruction a day. Are American teachers scheduled for more instruction?

How much do grading, lesson planning, and extracurriculars contribute to that figure? 8 hours every working day seems kind of excessive; I graded well over a hundred assignments a week in college as a TA in 10 hours flat.

It certainly seemed to me to be a very cushy job at the time but I'd love to hear your perspective.

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