Ah, It's Been Too Long... This is What Happens When I Teach

[lydamorehouse]

Sorry for the delay in posting. I realize, too, that it looks like I went off to work and NEVER CAME BACK.

I did survive,

Work was actually decent. The library I was at, New Brighton, does NOT allow the public inside the building. This is something I requested when taking assignments and I feel extremely grateful that my work attempts to accommodate me. I wish everyone had this kind of choice. or something akin to it. It didn't stop my boss from eating her lunch in her office, maskless, with the door open, but bosses be bosses, am I right? What are you going to do?

I'll be at White Bear Lake this Saturday (and also, later the same day at CONFabulous,) and then I'm going to try not to work for a long time. Wish me luck.

I have been generally absent here because my class at the Loft is in full swing. I have ended up with six students, which, it turns out, is plenty of work when you set your class up to basically be constantly rotating critique. Also as I was telling naomikritzer it's funny how easy it is to end up checking class several times a day and thus feeling like the I'm always at work.  I have set up my email to only send me notifications every four hours, so I don't HAVE to go look, but you know how it is when an assignment drops.  Then, I see that I have some critique work to do and.... suddenly I've spent the whole day in ONE class. I have no idea how instructors are doing this with several classes. It must be exhausting.  At least, for me, with in-person, I would do a lot outside of class but I was better about thinking "Okay, today is prep day," you know?  

When the pandemic started, I saw a lot of talk about how bosses were so worried about how much time employees would spend slacking off.  Yet, almost immediately, I watched Shawn put in so much overtime. She would think nothing of answering an email at 7 or 8 pm, a time of night that, in the Before Times, she very vehemently and rigorously defended as HER TIME.  

I'm sure there is less time where people devote exclusively to butt in chair, but I'd love to see some reporting on how much work gets done outside of regular hours. 

Of course, this might be more of a case of how Shawn and I are outliers. We have always had firm lines about work we are wiling to do at home. I think there are probably a lot more people out there who always did work emails at 8 pm.

Comments

[bibliofile]

> I realize, too, that it looks like I went off to work and NEVER CAME BACK.

Oh she never returned, no, she never returned, and her fate is still unlearned. She's forever wandering the aisles of New Brighton. She's the fan who never returned.

[lydamorehouse]

...and now I have Charlie and the MTA stuck in my head!

[mtbc]

My approach is to have my personal and work stuff on different computers; my personal laptop isn't even particularly set up for easy access to work e-mail or other resources.

[lydamorehouse]

That's smart. Shawn mostly does this, too? We even have an office for her to go in and out of. I don't know why she started checking her work email on her Kindle--I think Sabs has a point, which is that we all started making exceptions for the pandemic and now the exception is the rule.

[sabotabby]

I was really good about not answering work emails after 5—not even on principle, but because it's a slippery slope to accusations of impropriety, until the pandemic started and everyone just glommed on to the idea that they're feudal peasants with a 24/7 commitment to their employer.

I've had a bit of a break from that this year, but only because the newest version of the marking software we're using actually runs on Flash (???) and my home laptop is like, "hell no you are not putting that malware on me, fuck off." So I can only mark at work.

[lydamorehouse]

Hahahaha. I kind of love that they sabotaged themselves with the Flash stuff.

But, yeah, as I said above, I think you're very right about this whole 'well, I'm making an exception for the pandemic,' and now suddenly the exception is the rule.

[sabotabby]

I could have called it; in fact, I think I did call it at the time. When you give up rights, you don't get them back after the crisis has passed.

[j00j]

I'm definitely doing more evening and weekend work. Much of it is what I'd be doing anyway due to the nature of my current project, some is due to the pandemic. I'm in higher ed IT and uh, yeah.

I try to keep some lines about not doing evening or weekend work unless there's a good reason. I know it would be very easy to use work as a distraction from everything else. The evening and weekend emails are pretty common, though some of that's faculty who usually keep a more flexible (but usually unreasonably numerous hours) schedule.

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, I mean, some of this comes out of a good impulse that I have a hard time containing. I want to be there for my students. But, I need to remember that my students can wait a couple of hours or even a day.

[duskpeterson]

"It didn't stop my boss from eating her lunch in her office, maskless, with the door open, but bosses be bosses, am I right? What are you going to do?"

Raise the issue, in an abstract sort of way, of how to safely accommodate people who need to eat during work hours? Unless it's just the two of your there, I can't imagine that your boss is the only person facing this problem.

[lydamorehouse]

To be fair, it is almost only the two of us. Only one other employee in the entire building, but I take your point.

[duskpeterson]

I thought you had a point too! Your boss should have planned for this beforehand. But sometimes people are reckless without really meaning to be, so I try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[caffeine]

As someone who has primarily worked at home for the better part of 2 decades, it is very easy to get going and want to finish something up after 5pm, because, it is just another few minutes. Then I look up and it is 5:45 or 6:00. It is also really easy to be eating breakfast/drinking coffee and start reading your email well before the workday really begins.

I am fortunate that the company I work for is used to remote work (saves on expenses!) so there was not much change for those of us not near the St. Louis HQ. Our company also went the direction of big Tech firms - basically said, if you _want_ to be in the office, talk to your manager, we (management) will hand out office / seat assignments, only 10 people in the office on a given day, wear a mask, etc. Which is fine for most people there, because the HVAC has been wonky since Winter.

[lydamorehouse]

Case in point, Shawn is still at work. She's still in her home office and still working away. She started at 7 am. It is now 7 pm.

I mean, I think all the pandemic panic doesn't help? Like, it's easy to say to yourself, "But this is an unusual situation! It won't happen often!"