PITA Colleagues and the Reduction of Burnout

Most of my colleagues are great people. Walking through campus last night, I could see into classroom windows where they were teaching and thought, "I work with some really wonderful professors." In fact, I can still say that, in three and a half years, only one or two real jerks have made themselves known (and we know who one of them is).

Nonetheless, there are always those one or two who can just make you want to scream. Aren't they always the ones that you have to work directly with, as in team teaching or on projects and so forth? Otherwise, you wouldn't notice their PITA* qualities. That, or you would notice, but the PITA qualities would have no impact upon your life so you can just say, "Ahhh, isn't that just like Prof. X?" and go on your merry way.

The project situations, however, are another sort of relationship. You become intimately acquainted with their particular eccentricities and, in the interest of being a "team player" (drink!) and because they are superior to you in rank of some sort, you end up deferring to their quirks. Because you defer, you have to go find a punching bag afterward. Not a metaphorical punching bag, but an actual one.

I'm trying to put a positive spin on my interactions with these PITAs. Spin is not difficult in the aftermath of the interactions. During the interactions, on the other hand? Well, you do everything in your power to keep from running to the punching bag mid-sentence -- or from saying something tart that you will, of course, regret when it comes back to bite you in the metaphorical butt.

I think that the main thing that I'm finding is the Peter Principle. Actually, maybe it isn't the Peter Principle -- I've worked with disastrous examples of the Peter Principle and these colleagues in no way attain those epic depths. Maybe it is just the phenomena of people who have always worked alone, and who are best at working alone, ending up in a positions requiring them to work with others. As a result, they have no idea of their own quirks and no skills with which to reign in those quirks. The quirks are really their own business when they work independently, but become a potential disaster for anyone with whom they work. They certainly are inconvenient.

For instance, waiting until the last second to do something, and then expecting everyone that they are working with to just drop everything to attend to the matter, and THEN being harshly critical of the work of everyone else, wanting them to change in in the last 1/2 second, despite having had that work for over a month and not having looked at it until the last 3/4 of a second. Or not giving everyone else all of the necessary information at the start of a project, even when it is available. Then, at the last minute, letting it seep and drip out in bits and pieces to the people who have to act on that information, sending everyone into a panic.

Their coworkers strain to keep from reminding them that "poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine." Except that it does because failure of the whole endeavor makes everyone involved look bad. If you are me, you also live in a state of heightened fear that you will be the one blamed -- if not officially, certainly by the person who created the situation -- because that's how these things play out.

Ahh! The smell of fatalism in the morning. Smells like defeat.

As I wrote, I'm trying to put a good spin on these things. First, this is just the grown-up world of interaction, and I have worked for more than one boss who had far worse quirks than these. None of them have asked me to sit on their lap in a conference, for example, or purposely created the sort of disaster that could lead to the unemployment of everyone else involved but not themselves. Remembering this helps me keep my cool and keeps me from running for the punching bag mid-sentence. I actually act like an adult. That's a good skill to have finally learned by my fourth decade on earth.

Second, when you work with or for people who do things at the last second and work themselves into a tizzy, you can look ubercompetent if you just remain calm, offer them anything that looks like a solution, and have your own work done at least by the last minute. Also, it helps if you wear a jacket. Jackets look sharp, giving the illusion of ubercompetence. So do ties, even if you are a woman. Sometimes, smoke and mirrors can go a long way in that direction.

Third, you become less burned out on your students. After all, while you expect better from your students because they are, after all, grown ups themselves, you can remind themselves that they are the students. They are still learning that college isn't grade school and that they can't revert to that sort of behavior. Plus, you are in a position to enforce that "lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine."

Which is to say that, three weeks into the semester (and without yet having to deal with any mass influx of grading with it's attendant stream of excuses and requests for exceptions), I am much less burned out than I was before the semester began. Part of it has to do with actually being in a classroom teaching. Online will absolutely NEVER replicate that energy. Part of it has to do with being just busy enough not to afford the time for burn out. Part of it has to do with defending my research time and space (and trying not to appear like a diva about it).

This will absolutely change by Spring Break, but right now, everyone in the classroom is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for learning -- or something approximating that -- including me. As temporary as that may be, it beats the hell out of massive burnout!

The mantras also help. I wonder if I can come up with some for these PITA colleagues? I wonder if the same ones will work?

----------------------
*PITA = Pain In The Ass. Yeah, it's not just a flatbread anymore.