Crying in My Office (Mid-Career Malaise part II)

NB: this post is meant as a forum to discuss something that doesn't get talked about often: the depression or anger that often accompanies the year or so post-tenure. As I noted in my previous post, I write this well aware that many out there would be incredibly grateful to be in this position. Yet, like Betty Friedan's discontented suburban housewives, we do need to talk about this. So here goes:


So, here's how it is.

You work through grad school. You beat the odds and get a Tenure-Track job. Then you bust ass for six years. You teach. You develop classes. Maybe you write a book. And then: you have tenure.

Whoo-hoo! Set for life!!!

So why do so many of us spend a year or two post-tenure chronically pissed off, depressed, or both?

The commenters on my previous post (especially Curt) kind of said a lot of what I wanted to say, but it's worth bringing up a few points, and then just opening up the discussion.

The first, and most important thing to say is this: You are not alone.

It might seem like that. The reason is that we haven't been talking about it. Because frankly, it's embarrassing, right? "Oh, boo-hoo; I have a career and tenure and job security and a book and everything. My life is soooo saaaad..." I mean, who wants to be that person, right? So we bite our tongues and figure that there's just something wrong with us, some inability to be happy.

I'm basically here to advance the thesis that you're totally normal. Here's the thing: you spent half a dozen years in grad school, and another half a dozen more on the tenure track. That's most of your adult life, all pursuing one thing. You had a purpose. You knew where you were heading. There was a Big Goal.

And now you've achieved that goal. And here's the thing: Nothing is different. Well, you may have a slight bump in your paycheck. And you've certainly got more committee work. But other than that, after a few people stopping by to say "congrats!", it just all stays the same. Or maybe a little harder. And for some, this might be the first time in five to ten years when you've looked up and taken stock of your life and wondered where all the parts of your life that are Not-Work went. Remember when I had a hobby that I loved? Remember when I went out on dates or with friends? We invested so much of that for so long in The Job. And now we realize that some days would be better or worse than others, but The Job was never going to be anything more than The Job.

I know that I never thought any of this consciously, but I do recall spending a lot of time in tears, or planning to leave my job -- not to go job-hunting; just to put in my notice and pack it in. I was more impatient with students. I was easily upset by colleagues. I couldn't bear to think about my next book project. In short, I was a wreck. And yet, nothing was really wrong. Nothing. I couldn't name a single reason why I should be miserable and wanting to pack it all in when I was arguably at my most successful by any external measures. But there it was.

God, that's a grim note to end a post on. I promise that the next post will be more hopeful. After all: I'm still in my job (which is still pretty much the same as it was then -- including the exact same salary, sad to say), but I'm actually pretty content. But I did go through a very dark period, and I've seen a lot of other mid-career people go through the same thing, so what I'd like to do now is open up the comments for people to just share their own experience -- that stuff you were embarrassed to admit because intellectually you knew just how fortunate you actually were. Were you depressed post-tenure? Angry? Did you contemplate a career change? Did you check out for a while? Did you double down on the work?  Feel free to post anonymously if you want. And if you're not in this situation (and especially if you're rolling your eyes at a bunch of privileged folk talking about their high-class problems), I'm going to ask you to remember that YMMV.

And next post (Friday, I think), we'll talk about Things That Helped.

We Can't Complain, but Sometimes We Still Do (Mid-Career Malaise, part I)

After the eight-billionth conversation with friends about this, and the forty-billionth statement that "I should blog about that -- I think I will," I'm going to (hopefully) kick off a series of blog posts that are probably going to cause a bit of ridicule in some corners. But what the hell: I'm going to talk about post-tenure depression. Mid-career malaise. That approximately one to two years (and sometimes longer) after you get tenure when, all of a sudden, you're angry at everyone and everything sucks and you don't. know. why.

Because you've got it all, right? What do you have to be angry or upset about? You probably don't even have a right to complain.

But this is a Genuine Thing. I've seen it happen over and over again: to myself, to my colleagues, to almost every academic I've talked to. And the fact that nobody's talking about it makes it worse.

So: over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to try to take this on. I hope this will be helpful. I hope not to piss off too many untenured, unemployed, or underemployed academics by doing what amounts to validating bitching about a privileged position. I probably will offend several people anyway. And to them I say: I'm sorry. You have every right to be offended. But even though the problem here is nowhere near as grave as yours, it is still a problem, and we need to talk about it.

Stay tuned...

The Law of Committees

Hey! Who wants to serve on this committee?

Hands go up.

Great! We have a committee! See you next semester when we convene.

Months go by.

Staff coordinator to random committee member: "Say, do you guys have a chair? Because I need to know who to coordinate with."

Random committee member starts to wonder the same thing.

Random committee member: "Say, um... So the first deadlines appear to be coming up. Who's the chair of this committee?"

Crashing silence. Another week passes.

RCM: "So... we really need a chair, right?"

Other committee members do the internet equivalent of becoming very interested in their shoes; RCM begins to get a sinking feeling.

One week later: "Okay, fine. If no one else is volunteering, I'll do it."

Committee all of a sudden rediscovers their e-mail to cheer RCM's volunteerism.

...

I'll give you one guess as to who is playing the role of RCM in this little play.

New! And Improved?

After over two years of construction/retrofitting, we have new! classroom! buildings! Actually, the buildings are old, but they were completely gutted. They look much nicer, and are reportedly much safer. But there are issues...

Because Grit City is located in a (mostly) warm clime, these buildings are constructed with doors leading directly to the outside, rather than to an interior hallway. To protect expensive equipment inside, the doors are equipped with key-card locks. Once doors close, they can only be opened from the inside; one needs a key card to get in from the outside. Propping them open is impractical because they open onto public outdoor spaces. And, we have been assured, this "causes aesthetic damage to the doors."

The problems with late-arriving students are likely something you're all imagining, and you wouldn't be wrong. But then there's this:

"A report circulated this week that a faculty member was unable to exit a classroom due to a malfunctioning door lock.  The problem was unrelated to the lock; rather, the door in question was found to swell when in direct sunlight such that it wedged against the door frame.  Construction Management was notified of the condition and resolved it with the contractor... In the unlikely event that this problem recurs, turn the door handle and apply sufficient force to open the door."

I believe that I'll start bringing a portable battering ram to class.

It may cause some aesthetic damage.

Notorious Encounters the Scientific Method

Step 1: Make an observation & ask a question:

With one exception, I haven't taken science classes since I was 15. Yet I love science books. I wonder if I could do an actual college-level science class. Is the fact that I'm a historian really due to innate skill in one area versus another? Or just some random result of taking one fork in the road instead of the other? If I'd applied myself in another direction, could I have been successful in this other field?

Step 2: Formulate a testable hypothesis:

Hypothesis: The same combination of intelligence and dedication can make one equally successful in two diverse academic fields.

Step 3: Develop and perform an experiment to test the hypothesis:

3.a: Enroll in my friend's "Biology for science majors" course.
3.b: Do work
3.c: take quizzes and exams

Step 4: Record and analyze results to see if they support (not "prove" -- I learned that last week!) the hypothesis:

On the first 13-question chapter quiz, on the chemical basis of life, I answered 8 of 13 questions correctly. Two of those correct answers were lucky guesses.


Results: the results of this experiment do not seem to support the hypothesis. Possible reasons:

• The experiment design is flawed: there is a sample size of 1.
• The experiment design is flawed: there is no control group.
• The experiment design is flawed: conditions did not account for other independent variables such as the subject's completion (or not) of the readings, or her understanding of precisely which chapters the quiz was to cover, or the fact that she did not take the course prerequiste (intro to chemistry).
• The hypothesis is false: as a historian, I am right where I'm supposed to be.

The Interview

No, not that kind of interview.  Yesterday, I was interviewed by a sixth-grader about what professional historians do.

It was one of those things that kind of gets dumped in your lap. In my case, it fell to me because I was the only one in the office when the call came into my chair. Sure, I thought: why not?

It turns out that the young woman in question was delightful. She had fallen in love with ancient history, and when she was given the opportunity to do a report on a profession for extra credit, she thought of finding a historian. Her mother helped her by making the initial call, but after that, the young woman took charge.

So, what did I tell her? Well, I told her that my job mainly had three parts: teaching, reading, and writing. I told her that you needed to learn lots of languages to work in ancient or medieval history. That most of my research was done in archives, which are like libraries with lots of old, scribbly documents. That my favorite part of the job was that I got to learn new stuff all the time, and that my least favorite part was grading papers. She told me she liked history, but some teachers "only want to study boring stuff like names and dates." I told her that I felt exactly the same way.

When she asked me what my advice was for someone who might want to be a writer (she had written 42 pages of a story about a girl who turns into a wolf and protects other wolves), I told her "write every day" and "read a lot of what other people write." When she asked me if her mom was right that she should learn to type, I told her that my mom had made me do the same thing, and that it was a skill I used in my job every day. And I told her not to be afraid of coming out with the wrong answer, because if you're right all the time, then you're probably not learning anything.

And then today, she sent me a very nice thank-you note.

Who knows? There might be hope for humanity after all.

I've done it to myself again

Remember when I took that Don Quixote course? In Spanish?  At the time, I predicted that it would both improve me and really complicate my life. I was right on both counts: I'm here to tell you that DQ is probably the best novel ever written... and that taking a course while teaching full time and trying to write your own book is going to make things very silly.
 
Well, apparently I'm still a sucker for that whole "lifelong learning" thing. Even when it has nothing to do with the things I'm supposed to be working on. Or maybe especially when it has nothing to do with the things I'm supposed to be working on.

I'm not 100% sure who that finger is for. Probably for the voice in my head that, once again, convinced me that this was a good idea.