work-life balance
kkrisberg | December 3, 2015In 2011, a group of researchers embarked on a national study to measure burnout among physicians. They found that 45 percent of U.S. doctors met the criteria for burnout, which manifests as emotional exhaustion, a loss of meaning in one’s work, feelings of ineffectiveness, and a tendency to see people as objects rather than fellow humans. Less than a handful of years later, the problem has gotten significantly worse.
In a study published this month in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers report that more than half of U.S. doctors were struggling with professional burnout in 2014. More…
sastyk | August 10, 2010Dr. Isis is reconsidering the work-life balance issues with her usual thoughtfulness over at her blog, following on a longer conversation about the ways that this problem is (unfairly, obviously) shunted exclusively onto women. This is something I agree with - and I think her "Sack up, Dudes" is probably the most concise and accurate answer to the problem of inequities between men and women in the home.
As much as I totally agree with Isis that the shifting of the problem onto women is just plain old wrong (and it should be obvious that this is not something that happens in my house (if…
sciencewoman | October 3, 2009This job ad from Katherine Hayhoe, amazing climate scientist and one of my favorite Twitter people, is EXACTLY the sort of career opportunity that we need to see more of.
The realities of our world are that many of us need or wish we had
more flexible jobs - in terms of hours, location, and what we can do
with kids underfoot. With that in mind, about 10 years ago I started a
research consulting company that I hoped would create that ideal job
for me. Today, atmosresearch.com provides occasional to full-time work
to more than a dozen people, over half of us women.
Given our focus on providing…
sciencewoman | September 29, 2009In 2009, I've done ~9 reviews of journal articles, including two in the past week, and not counting the 1-2 more looming in the next two weeks. During the same period, I've submitted one 1st author manuscript, still in review, but probably only going cost 3 reviewers some time.
Anyone see a mass balance problem there? Or do y'all just see a case of a junior faculty member correctly working to build her international reputation in time for tenure? Or something else? 'Cause I'm no longer quite sure what to make of the situation. I'm dancing around the question of "How many reviews are enough?"…
sciencewoman | September 8, 2009Those following along on Twitter know that late August became my #weeksofdoom in which I triumphed over three major deadlines on top of the beginning of classes and starting Minnow in a new school. (Hence, the unexpectedly long bloggy absence).
Now that the weeks of doom* are over, I'm finally trying to settle into a productive but sane rhythm for the semester. It was such a blessing to have a long weekend to just hang out and play with Minnow (we tented in the backyard and baked an apple pie), and for the first time this semester, I feel mostly prepared for my new prep EDDA class tomorrow.…
sciencewoman | July 21, 2009Amazing momma-scientist Janus Prof asked me to ask y'all how many hours you really work.
Janus Prof is just completing her first year on the tenure-track at a prestigious university, and in the course of that year, she also gave birth to her first child and was diagnosed with an uncurable, chronic illness that limits her work hours. Yet she's also managed to get her lab up and running, recruit students, teach, and write a CAREER proposal. (I get out of breath just thinking about it.) So Janus Prof was understandably inspired to read a recent post from Dr. Mom, in which she admits that she…
sciencewoman | July 21, 2009Time to move hairy Ethan off the top of the page. Fortunately, there's a couple of great questions from readers qued up in my email account. And maybe by the time they get posted, I'll be ready to get back to my course design series. First up, loyal commenter GymLabRab wonders how to mentor a new colleague. GLR writes:
Hi ScienceWoman,
Thanks for your blog!
I just became department chair on July 1. Too bad it means more work but no more pay!
I'm wondering...what makes a good department chair? It seems from your conversation about your review, your chair is fairly hands-off and doesn't do…
sb admin | March 12, 2009Um, hi. Apparently I've been gone for a while. Yeah. Sorry about that. Life's been a bit crazy around here lately, and I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water. I'm not sleeping. I'm not taking care of myself. I'm sick. I'm stressed to the gills. I have way too much to do. I feel like I work all the damn time. Hmmm, maybe that's because I *do* work all the damn time.
In addition to not having time to breathe blog, I haven't really been in the headspace to blog. I have a ton of stuff on my mind, but I'm not sure how to blog it. It's all about tenure, of course: the…
jane | March 12, 2009Um, hi. Apparently I've been gone for a while. Yeah. Sorry about that. Life's been a bit crazy around here lately, and I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water. I'm not sleeping. I'm not taking care of myself. I'm sick. I'm stressed to the gills. I have way too much to do. I feel like I work all the damn time. Hmmm, maybe that's because I *do* work all the damn time.
In addition to not having time to breathe blog, I haven't really been in the headspace to blog. I have a ton of stuff on my mind, but I'm not sure how to blog it. It's all about tenure, of course: the…
sb admin | February 25, 2009I'm supervising a few independent studies this year, with groups of students working on fairly large and fairly fuzzily-defined design projects. These groups couldn't be more different from each other in terms of the way they act as a group, act as individuals, and interact with me. It's got me thinking a lot lately about group dynamics among students and the strong influences that certain individuals have over the behavior of the entire group.
One of the groups is highly functional---on the surface. The students all get along really well with each other and appear to complement each other…
jane | February 15, 2009I don't normally ask you, my dear readers, for help, but this time I think I need some. You see, my motivation seems to have taken a loooooong vacation. (I mean, who can blame it, really---it's February, which is a really sucky month, so why not disappear until it's over? I hope at least that my motivation is sitting on a beach somewhere sipping Mai Tais and having some hot cabana boy rubbing sunscreen on its back.....but I digress.)
OK, so my motivation is gone, and my usual tricks----tricking myself into working, tricking myself into thinking things are not all bad, tricking myself…
jane | February 12, 2009
Sometimes, when I look at Toddler Jane*, my heart aches over how beautiful she is, inside and out. Nothing in the parenting books, nor the advice and stories from other parents, can prepare you for what that feels like.
Call me crazy, but I really do enjoy advising undergrads. It's a different kind of problem-solving: should I drop this class or talk to the professor? do I have time before I graduate to double-major? if I major in X, will I still be able to take classes in Y? Plus, I really like getting to know the students one-on-one, and getting a glimpse into their lives, their…
jane | February 8, 2009Well. It certainly was not my intention to go more than a week without blogging, particularly with all that's been going on around here lately. I'm ok. I'm coping. I'm still micro-managing everything way too much (out of necessity, unfortunately). But on top of that, I've just been too damn busy to do much beyond the bare necessities.
Getting sick---twice---certainly didn't help things.
Nor did the business trip which took up much of the week.
Nor did the (seriously) day o' meetings, and when I say day o' meetings, I mean DAY o' meetings, as in ENTIRE DAY o' meetings. Yeeesh.
And…
jane | January 31, 2009I'd really like a do-over on this week. This was probably the least productive, worst week I've had in a long, long time. It started with this lovely incident, and went downhill from there. Astute readers may recall that I really couldn't afford any distractions this week, so the fact that I basically did just the bare minimum to not get me fired really was not my best career move.
So instead of making progress on my frighteningly long to-do list, I've been:
dealing with a backache that won't go away, no matter how many tried-and-true yoga stretches I do
feeling intermittently like I am…
jane | January 25, 2009I did something this weekend that, to be honest, I'm not sure I could afford to do:
I took the entire weekend off.
Now, lest you get the wrong idea, I have a ton of work that I could be doing. But, by some strange act of the universe, none of it is due immediately. And I spent basically all of Friday afternoon staring into space instead of working because my poor brain was just too fried to think anymore. And my calendar this week and next is frighteningly full, including (a) a weekend workshop, (b) a business trip, and (c) multiple late evenings at school for various functions, several of…
sciencewoman | January 23, 2009SW Notes: This post was begun a few weeks ago...you know, in the break between semesters. But I've been delayed and delayed in getting it done, and today is a day of metaphorical desk-clearing. So I'm just going to put it up now, half complete and let you all finish discussing it in the comments section.
The scene: My car insurance office
Insurance agent: You work at Mystery U.? You're on break now for a couple weeks, right?
ScienceWoman: Well, sort of. Classes start back up in mid-January, but there's lots of work to be done before then.
Insurance agent: Oh.
That scene is hardly unique in…
jane | January 20, 2009
Text messages from numbers I don't recognize. One of them was creepy enough to put me on edge for the rest of the day. This is especially annoying because I don't have a text plan, so I end up paying for every one of these messages.* Hey stupidheads, stop texting me already!
Having to micromanage my tenure process. Oh sure, we have all of these nice checks and balances in place to make sure this doesn't happen and make life somewhat easier for the tenure candidate. Is anyone surprised that all of my senior colleagues are by and large ignoring all of these checks and balances? At this…
jane | December 10, 2008No, really, I have been boring lately. No drama (well, unless you count the day one of my senior colleagues came into my office to announce that he had nothing to do....as I'm in the midst of slogging through my R&R and the other approximately 10 million things on my to-do list....I am really surprised that I didn't throttle him). No weird student stories (although I do have to say that this year, the grade-grubbers seem to be out in force. Does this have something to do with tenure? Does grade-grubbing increase the closer one gets to the tenure decision?). Just a lot of nose-to-the-…
jane | December 3, 2008
Prioritizing is good. Prioritizing is absolutely necessary in this job. But what do you do if you have time this month to do X projects, but X+1 projects are "high priority"? Is cloning legal yet?
Number of high priority projects = X+1 because a journal article I sent out for review before its time, which I thought would be a sure reject, just came back as a strong revise&resubmit. So that clearly needs to be fast-tracked. So yes, at least my plate is full for a totally awesome reason.
This is the first set of journal reviews that I've gotten back where there were no insulting/mean-…
jane | November 16, 2008Mr. Jane and I are so, so fortunate that we have good quality, affordable daycare for Baby Jane that we absolutely, positively love. It is so wonderful to drop Baby Jane off in the mornings and know that she is in a secure, loving, enriching care situation. It frees up so much of my mental energy (and Mr. Jane's, too)---I'm not constantly thinking about her, because I know she's having fun and is being well cared for, too---so that I can concentrate on work while at work. A novel concept, I realize.
The flip side, though, is that her daycare is a home daycare, which means that if something…