by StevieB » 13 Jan 2021, 20:48
In a word - awful!
I have typed a fuller response (read rant!) and deleted it several times as I am too easy to identify if people wanted to take the trouble to join the dots, so all I will say is that I work in a University and between the constant demands from students for no detriment teaching and assessment, through to knee jerk and unrealistic demands from (some, not all) senior management who have zero idea of practical logistics of their 'suggestions', and the complete omnishambles that has been the government and DfE response to the pandemic; I am currently working at least an 80 hour week and have been since March last year, worked all through Christmas, work pretty much every weekend and am just about ready to collapse. The requirement to be constantly available to over 100 staff I manage, and over 1,000 students in my School, means that I effectively eat, sleep, work, repeat.
Some may call me stupid, some may advise me to stop before I have a heart attack (my PA for example!) but every one of the students in my School is getting the best possible education I can provide as Head of School and every one of my staff is getting all the support I can give them. I have had staff in tears, students in tears, complaints, thanks, gratitude, anger and self-entitlement you wouldn't believe, sometimes all in the same day. I also manage some of the most dedicated, self-less and flat out honourable staff it has ever been my pleasure to work with. I enjoy my job very much, but it has now become my life as a consequence of the pandemic and I cannot see that changing before at least the summer when I might get some form of work-life balance back. Any time I saved in commuting is now spent working instead. I do 80 hours of work for a 35 hour salary and so do many of my colleagues. Or at least those who are not on short term hourly paid contracts anyway.
Apologies, seen to have gone in a bit too deep there, but hopefully it explains my lack of posting anything resembling woodwork in the last year!