The light at the end of the tunnel is starting to look a bit like an oncoming train (155/365)

[white_hart]

The news is full of rising COVID case numbers, although I was at a meeting the other day where our Professor of Infectious Diseases seemed fairly upbeat about things and suggested that given the progress of the vaccination programme this wouldn't necessarily lead to increases in hospitalisations and deaths, and suggested we shouldn't be worrying too much. On the other hand, I've now got two active student cases in my department, having not had any at all since New Year, so it's hard not to be worried that we're staring down the barrel of the next wave and counting down to another lockdown. And, foolishly, I was just starting to feel a bit hopeful for a return to normal, and thinking that maybe once the pandemic is over my job will stop being a complete and utter nightmare (not that that's guaranteed, either).

(Also, I realise that I've been assuming that the pandemic has turned all jobs into complete and utter nightmares, but maybe it is actually just mine? Or at least, the higher education sector? Are other people's jobs not actually nightmarish right now?)

Comments

[cmcmck]

I'm retired as you know, but I worked with seriously disabled, terminally ill and highly at risk kids in education so I can only imagine that this would have been an absolute nightmare!

[white_hart]

Yes, I think people working in schools are having an even worse time!

[perennialanna]

I suspect my students are funnier than yours! Plus primary school teachers (mostly mad as a box of frogs) are definitely nicer to deal with than academics.

[white_hart]

Some of my academics are lovely, but a lot of them are resentful of being asked to do new things, or unwilling to engage with the technology so they need a lot of support, and others are very demanding that we have to make X, Y or Z happen; there's not necessarily a sense that we're all working together to get through this, which may also be part of the problem. (And the students are often really quite difficult - they are all, obviously, stressed and worried, but that means that a lot of our interactions with them are very fraught and some of my team have been quite upset by emails they've received.)

[cmcmck]

I ended my career as a primary deputy head so I'm saying nothing! :op

[perennialanna]

I think the fact that we went through a several year period of rapidly changing (and in one case completely vanishing) Heads has bound us together as a staff to an unusual extent.

Our current Head came in as Deputy in September 2019, found herself promoted to Acting Head on arrival, and became permanent in the middle of the first lockdown. We went from expecting at least a quarter of the staff to change every year to looking forward to the second year in a row of no permanent staff changes (although we do have three of our younger teachers due to give birth in one fortnight in October). Pandemic hit just as we were getting used to the idea of being regarded as competent professionals who could be trusted to get on with our jobs.

[perennialanna]

The nightmarish bit has been the Government's continued insistence that children neither catch nor spread Covid. Therefore we should not wear any PPE in case we frighten them). We were only permitted masks this March, and now we've stopped requiring them (and half the staffroom have gone down with a filthy cold - today is the first day in a fortnight that I have woken feeling remotely well. All of half term gone, and seven more weeks until the summer holidays).

[white_hart]

Which is patently nonsense, given the number of times my team member with primary-school children has had one child or other in self-isolation because there's a case in their class...

[perennialanna]

I mean, they spread everything else, and they all firmly believe that being in the same room as soap and water is absolutely the same thing as washing their hands (speaking as a veteran of hand-checking at the entrance to the dining hall. I once sent one boy back six times before his hands were remotely damp to the touch. He never tried that on me again). One of the joys of the second week in September is hearing the Reception teachers totting up this year's tally of Biters, Bolters, and Carpet Lickers. Sometimes we get those who lick their teachers too.

[jinty]

That does reassure me that my kids' school must be doing something right - neither of them have had to be off for self-isolation, and I don't think it's because people are hiding it. They are pretty keen on ventilation at their school - of the 'keep your coats on and keep the doors open' variety, given budgets, but definitely better than nothing.

[ephemera]

I am also in the higher education sector so the ongoing nighmarishness is not diagnostic

[mrs_redboots]

I only realised this morning that there was bound to be a spike in cases this week, as it's about 3 weeks since people were allowed to eat and drink indoors (in public places, I mean; obviously they've let us eat and drink in the privacy of our own homes all along!). It is thoroughly depressing, but only to be expected, and we are all hoping that the vaccination programme will mean far fewer hospitalisations and/or deaths.

[white_hart]

Fingers crossed! That's certainly what our medical experts think, but the news and social media are so full of gloom I can't help wondering if they're wrong.

[mrs_redboots]

I hope the social media are wrong, but I agree, the picture is a bit gloomy just now.

[qatsi]

I started a new job in March last year, and it was nightmarish for a while, as no-one had prepared for the possibility of onboarding in a lockdown (I have only visited the office for my first day). But once the helpdesk finally surrendered and gave me admin privileges on my laptop, it has been mostly fine.

I often think I would like a less stressful job, and would accept less money for it. But whenever I look around, it turns out that lower paid jobs also generally come with much worse T&Cs. It's sobering to realise not that software engineers can have so much empowerment about their working conditions and environment, but that many occupations have so little.

[white_hart]

Yes, supporting new staff in lockdown has been really tough.

[sfred]

My job is just very, very different - we can't carry on forever like this, but it's not a nightmare. I'm sorry yours is.

[white_hart]

I think the trouble with mine is that we've had to keep planning and replanning as government advice changes - we haven't been able to say "right, this is how we're operating until further notice" and just get on with it. And meanwhile lots of big organisational projects like new IT systems just keep rumbling on and occasionally demanding attention when we really don't have any to spare.

[sfred]

*nods*
I think working in a very small organisation makes this easier.

[nineveh_uk]

It's probably OK in at least some of the jobs in the Forestry Commission. Otherwise I suspect it is a case of "every pandemic job is a nightmare in its own way."

[white_hart]

Funnily enough I've been daydreaming about going off to be a forest ranger or something. That just sounds peaceful and likely to involve considerably fewer teams meetings.

[shewhostaples]

My job is not a nightmare - we're doing much the same sort of thing as we were before, and about the same amount of it, but in a different way. I know some of my colleagues in different roles and departments have had it a lot worse, though.

[white_hart]

We have more work in some areas - for various reasons we have more students this year, and managing staff remotely is much more work - but we are also having to keep replanning as government guidance changes. And then fit all the ordinary stuff around the edges!

[caulkhead]

Mine's really not a nightmare at all. It was bad to start with, until we got the amount of meetings under control (or at least the amount of meetings that I need to attend; I think other people are still suffering). But my predecessor did her job entirely remotely, and even ten years on it was remarkably easy to shift back to that model.

My boss is retiring at the end of the year, and while I might apply for her job - I am confident I could do it - the amount of meetings she ends up in is giving me serious pause.

[white_hart]

My meetings are not remotely under control, sadly. I think some of it is that managing a team remotely takes a lot of time and energy, and we're also an organisation that works very much on a basis of consensus-building so that translates into lots and lots of meetings. And then we have to keep planning and replanning with every change in government guidance.

[girlyswot]

Mine is not nightmarish. It has changed but largely not in ways that have increased stress or time. Less travel, for a start.

I think education has beeb particularly difficult to manage in the pandemic.

[white_hart]

I think the biggest problem in education is that we haven't been able to say "right, this is what we're doing until further notice", we have had to keep changing. And my team are having to support academics who are using unfamiliar technology and students who are anxious and isolated, and it's all been quite grim.

[cybik]

My job is not a nightmare but also I was furloughed for a long time. Now I'm back it is quite different and I am honestly dreading "back to normal" because I don't understand how I used to cope with 15,000 visitors a day when 4,000 is feeling like TOO MANY PEOPLE AAAAAH.

[white_hart]

That sounds like too many people!

[fencesitting]

My job isn't nightmarish, although it seems like everyone else's around me is - all the extra assessments and stress about getting the kids to sit them (in a classroom instead of an exam hall which means they've got their phones on them), all the extra marking, and all the extra scrutiny of grades to make sure the kids are getting the grades they deserve AND we won't be dinged as a school for accidentally grading them too high.

My nightmare is mostly working with people who refuse to get vaccinated, or wear masks in a closed office, or both. :/

[white_hart]

I'm sorry you have to work with people who won't wear masks or get the vaccine. At least the University is insisting on masks for onsite working.

[danieldwilliam]

My job is fine.

Some parts of it are harder or take longer or are a bit more prone to misunderstanding. Mostly those parts involving slippery or gritty conversations.

Other parts are easier. Those parts involving longish stretches of focusing on something.

Overall a net positive even before considering the pleasant aspects of being at home more.

[white_hart]

One of the worst things for me is that I find it almost impossible to focus deeply on things. Partly that's because so much of my time is taken up by meetings and it's hard to get pong stretches of time at all, but I'm not sure my brain ever gets properly into work mode at home.

[danieldwilliam]

The extra time on meetings is caused by COVID isn't it?

Do you know what it is about being at home that gets in the way of you focusing?

[white_hart]

Partly it is just the being in and out of meetings or knackered because I have already spent hours in meetings, but also, I'm working in my craft room so I'm surrounded by distractions (yarn, fabric, books, the birds and neighbourhood cats in the garden), I have another person in the house who will occasionally come and ask me random domestic questions, and my work setup is quite cramped (it turns out that if you put a large monitor, a small laptop and an external keyboard on a desk which is a perfectly good size for a sewing machine it takes up literally the entire desk, leaving no space for writing or looking at papers) and I almost feel like the cramped space also cramps my thoughts. I definitely can't just get absorbed into tasks the way I can in the office.

[tree_and_leaf]

Mine's been a nightmare (some of which is for the same reasons education's been bad - constantly shifting goal-posts, including quite a few just before significant seasons).

[white_hart]

Yes, I can see it would be.

[crinolinerobot]

Mine's definitely nightmarish. I've hit the point where I'm having long, serious thoughts about going freelance in order to maintain my work/life balance. I've worked every bank holiday this year, plenty of weekends... it's all getting too much. I'm knackered, and resentful of not having enough spare time and not enjoying the spare time I have because it's mostly spent waiting for my head to recover, there's no headspace for fun stuff.

That said, I'm working from home; it must be unnerving working in an environment with loads of students during a pandemic. That's extra stress for you.

[white_hart]

I am mostly working from home too, and haven't had that much contact with students - but the levels of student anxiety and constantly changing Government advice have definitely added to the stress.