It’s not my fault, but it is definitely my problem if I’m in a position to help people and decide not to. Make no mistake, I raise holy hell while I’m doing it, but the lack of workers doesn’t lessen the amount of work that needs to get done. Maybe it’s just naivete, but I’m idealistic enough to believe that helping students is the most important thing I can do, so I only say yes to things that are directly helping students, faculty, and staff (admin and their busy work can fuck right off with their bloated salaries and support staff)
One thing I’ve learned is that sometimes you need to let the problems happen. You can raise hell and keep talking about how more hands are needed, but unless issues actually start coming up and affecting people, then no one is going to care/listen.
I had a job in the past that was vastly understaffed. I kept getting more and more, and working longer hours. I brought this up with management many times but nothing was happening. “Not in the budget to hire more” is what I kept getting.
When it got to be too much, I decided I would only work 40 hours, and whatever happens, happens. Our lives are too short to be wasted away at work.
So tasks started to take longer, and whenever something needed doing, it was added to the queue and prioritized appropriately. Sometimes that meant I couldn’t get to it in weeks. At first, I came under fire. “Why haven’t you done this yet??” But each time I explained my situation. “There’s not enough hands and I am doing the best I can with the resources given to me”. And guess what? Most people empathized and understood my predicament. So now I have an army of colleagues who understand the issue here, and now the issue gets more visibility with management as more people rally to my side.
A few months of this, and they decide to hire two more positions to help with the overload of work.
It’s a risky move for sure. They could just fire you and dig themselves into a deeper hole. But then if they do that, is that really the type of environment you’d want to work in anyway?
People are surprisingly understanding when you explain yourself. You don’t need to fix everything and everyone’s problems. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to let the problems happen and observe how others deal with it.
This is very true. The manager is also overworked and busy, and they hear a lot of complaints from their team. People are very different, some complain all the time for nothing, but others stay silent while their back is on fire. It takes a long time to get to know somebody, so you can confidently tell the difference. But if issues start showing up, they know there is a real problem, and they can allocate resources to fix it.
The biggest part of the issue in state-run higher-ed is the glacial pace at which hiring happens vs. how fast the works shows up. My organization is legitimately trying to hire appropriately (I believe), but we can’t allocate resources until the students show up, and then it’s an 18 month turn around between filing a faculty hiring request and the person starting work due to the standard academic hiring cycle and state-mandated EEO requirements (and that’s assuming that admin approve the hiring request the first time you ask for it, which they do as often as they can). On the other hand, it only takes 2 weeks for people to resign and move on, so we’re losing people as fast as we can hire them. We could to try to hire faster, but it’s a tiny school with a tiny HR (so we’re capped at hiring about 4-5 faculty positions per year) and a small number of faculty (so it’s hard getting enough people to volunteer when you need to fill a hiring committee).
Honestly, I really like the organization and think admin are making good choices, but we legally can’t turn students away, so when more people enroll, there’s more work with the same number of workers for at least a year. It’s honestly a good problem to have, and they do a decent job at compensating me for my extra work, but I’d rather have more help and less OT as soon as we can manage it.
All that said, working in private industry or in an organization that doesn’t have as many restrictions, I would absolutely be saying “no” a lot more. As it is, when I say no, it’s my colleagues and the students that feel the repercussions, not admin, and I have a hard time being OK with that.
The phrase ‘act your wage’ springs to mind. I realised you probably care deeply about the students, but it sounds like you need to care a little bit more deeply about yourself and stop letting them exploit you. Understaffing is management’s problem, not yours.
The university is exploiting your idealism to get you to work without being paid enough. You aren’t “in a position to help people”, you are doing a job for an organization with revenues. They could allocate more revenue to accomplish this work without forcing you to work until 1 AM, but they have made the choice that the work is not worth paying for.
That being said, most good people will go the extra mile if they think it can make a difference, but I see too many who take full responsibility on themselves and “cover” for financially-motivated organizational decisions, which in turn encourages the people who make those decisions to cut even more.
Not your problem that your college hasn’t decided to fund enough positions to get things done within the workday.
It’s not my fault, but it is definitely my problem if I’m in a position to help people and decide not to. Make no mistake, I raise holy hell while I’m doing it, but the lack of workers doesn’t lessen the amount of work that needs to get done. Maybe it’s just naivete, but I’m idealistic enough to believe that helping students is the most important thing I can do, so I only say yes to things that are directly helping students, faculty, and staff (admin and their busy work can fuck right off with their bloated salaries and support staff)
Never do more than what is in your contract.
It is not like the company is going to pay you more than what is written in there. So why should you compensate when they clearly wouldn’t?
It is not your job to get everything done. But it is their job to make sure there are enough people for the work available.
One thing I’ve learned is that sometimes you need to let the problems happen. You can raise hell and keep talking about how more hands are needed, but unless issues actually start coming up and affecting people, then no one is going to care/listen.
I had a job in the past that was vastly understaffed. I kept getting more and more, and working longer hours. I brought this up with management many times but nothing was happening. “Not in the budget to hire more” is what I kept getting.
When it got to be too much, I decided I would only work 40 hours, and whatever happens, happens. Our lives are too short to be wasted away at work.
So tasks started to take longer, and whenever something needed doing, it was added to the queue and prioritized appropriately. Sometimes that meant I couldn’t get to it in weeks. At first, I came under fire. “Why haven’t you done this yet??” But each time I explained my situation. “There’s not enough hands and I am doing the best I can with the resources given to me”. And guess what? Most people empathized and understood my predicament. So now I have an army of colleagues who understand the issue here, and now the issue gets more visibility with management as more people rally to my side.
A few months of this, and they decide to hire two more positions to help with the overload of work.
It’s a risky move for sure. They could just fire you and dig themselves into a deeper hole. But then if they do that, is that really the type of environment you’d want to work in anyway?
People are surprisingly understanding when you explain yourself. You don’t need to fix everything and everyone’s problems. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to let the problems happen and observe how others deal with it.
This is very true. The manager is also overworked and busy, and they hear a lot of complaints from their team. People are very different, some complain all the time for nothing, but others stay silent while their back is on fire. It takes a long time to get to know somebody, so you can confidently tell the difference. But if issues start showing up, they know there is a real problem, and they can allocate resources to fix it.
Badass. Great job!!! Self advocacy can be so powerful with a little luck
The biggest part of the issue in state-run higher-ed is the glacial pace at which hiring happens vs. how fast the works shows up. My organization is legitimately trying to hire appropriately (I believe), but we can’t allocate resources until the students show up, and then it’s an 18 month turn around between filing a faculty hiring request and the person starting work due to the standard academic hiring cycle and state-mandated EEO requirements (and that’s assuming that admin approve the hiring request the first time you ask for it, which they do as often as they can). On the other hand, it only takes 2 weeks for people to resign and move on, so we’re losing people as fast as we can hire them. We could to try to hire faster, but it’s a tiny school with a tiny HR (so we’re capped at hiring about 4-5 faculty positions per year) and a small number of faculty (so it’s hard getting enough people to volunteer when you need to fill a hiring committee).
Honestly, I really like the organization and think admin are making good choices, but we legally can’t turn students away, so when more people enroll, there’s more work with the same number of workers for at least a year. It’s honestly a good problem to have, and they do a decent job at compensating me for my extra work, but I’d rather have more help and less OT as soon as we can manage it.
All that said, working in private industry or in an organization that doesn’t have as many restrictions, I would absolutely be saying “no” a lot more. As it is, when I say no, it’s my colleagues and the students that feel the repercussions, not admin, and I have a hard time being OK with that.
The phrase ‘act your wage’ springs to mind. I realised you probably care deeply about the students, but it sounds like you need to care a little bit more deeply about yourself and stop letting them exploit you. Understaffing is management’s problem, not yours.
The university is exploiting your idealism to get you to work without being paid enough. You aren’t “in a position to help people”, you are doing a job for an organization with revenues. They could allocate more revenue to accomplish this work without forcing you to work until 1 AM, but they have made the choice that the work is not worth paying for.
That being said, most good people will go the extra mile if they think it can make a difference, but I see too many who take full responsibility on themselves and “cover” for financially-motivated organizational decisions, which in turn encourages the people who make those decisions to cut even more.