Tag: work

The Disposable Academic

The Disposable Academic is a somewhat cynical look at the world of high-level academia. I’ll take the article with a grain of salt, considering the secondary headline reads, “Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time”.

One thing many PhD students have in common is dissatisfaction. Some describe their work as “slave labour”. Seven-day weeks, ten-hour days, low pay and uncertain prospects are widespread. You know you are a graduate student, goes one quip, when your office is better decorated than your home and you have a favourite flavour of instant noodle.

Yeah, it can be a bit crap, but it’s on par with a lot of other professions. Talk to the struggling artists, apprentices and interns that toil away in indentured servitude for the betterment of their craft. Some make it big, some never will, most end up in the middle of life’s bell curve and do just fine.

Work can’t be fun

Dan Pallotta writes that worry isn’t work, and that our attitude of self-punishment equalling responsibility is flawed.

We have to rethink what it means to work and to be productive. We have to disentangle self-hatred from responsibility, self-criticism from self-care.

What does re-thinking mean in this case? Start thinking of being hard on yourself as being irresponsible. Start thinking of wasting half of your brain power on fantasies about your own destruction as self-indulgent. Conflate self-negativity with laziness. Start thinking of time for yourself as being responsible. Start thinking of a healthy mid-day meal as essential to your productivity, time away from your desk as productive.

It also doesn’t hurt to find a job doing something that you love. They say you never work a day in your life.