Winter is coming.
No, not the weather kind, especially not if you're here in Australia. No, not the winter of our discontent, though there might be some of that. And no, not that other one.
This is the long, gaping maw that is the end-of-year session. Yes, that magical holiday time when paid casual teaching work is thinnest on the ground. The last semester is finished, marks submitted, I's dotted and T's crossed, and now all that's left to do is wait 4-5 months for the ride to start all over again. This is the Work Winter.*
(* I'm going to confuse everyone by figuratively referring to this time-of-year as Winter when here in Australia it is literally Summer outside - the metaphor works if you ignore the thermometer)
Generally, casuals who aren't keen on taking a few months' break will fall into one of three categories during the Work Winter:
1. If you're really lucky, you'll take the reins of a Summer subject as a casual coordinator. It may not have the enrollment that an Autumn or Spring subject does, the students may desperately ache for a bludge subject before Christmas, and you've already taught fifteen tutorials across the last two semesters combined, but it's work.
2. If you're like some of my colleagues, you may dip back into casual work in retail or hospitality. After all, Christmas casuals can power through for three months of shelf-stacking, line chef'ing and helping out the Santa photographers at Myer (that last one was my job for a while - some of those Santas have lived truly fascinating lives to get to that big red suit), and come out with a nifty paycheck. The trip-up here is that Christmas casual work - in any field, but especially in in customer-facing ones - is hard yakka, draining you of the mental and physical energy required just to put on Netflix, let alone write a journal article. But who knows, you might decide that becoming part-time manager of a Body Shop store after a bout at Christmas is far less stressful than curriculum development and conference pitches. (This happened to a friend of mine this year, and I have never seen her so happy) Adjacent to this are those of us who need to rely on CentreLink to make it through, which in many ways can be just as stressful, if not more.
3. For the rest of us, we hibernate on the money we've hopefully saved through the year, intending to put our heads down and work - without pay - on research. We might be asked to sub in for a week while a coordinator attends a conference, but otherwise it'll be a lengthy, student-less and pay-less break for many, if not the majority, of us. That can be demoralising and stressful in and of itself even if it wasn't Christmas, which in turns makes that research difficult. So more often than not, you may spend that 4-5 month gap developing (un)healthy amounts of anxiety.
This year, as with every year, I'm in that 3rd category. I've got from now until early March to make it through the Work Winter. I wasn't able to snag Summer teaching work, and though I debated returning to retail work I decided it wasn't for me: seven years was enough for me. So that leaves me with time to write, and research, and shoot for some publications.
As I've inferred above, this is easier said than done.
Obviously, there will be plenty of casuals who are perfectly fine not working over Summer, especially those who've done that fifteen tutorial-style workload over the year and are ready to stop. I don't want to begrudge that. Similarly, I don't want to focus on blaming the myriad factors informing the Work Winter. Instead, I want to provide encouragement as the chill (or, in our case, blistering heat) sets in. There may be little that we're empowered to do right now, but surely we can empower ourselves.
Thus, #MyWorkWinter.
This is what I'm going to be doing my with my Work Winter.
I'm in the middle of a project on combining television and cinema, and looking at how audiences and producers create and receive shows like Westworld, Watchmen and Game of Thrones. I've got a book proposal (started in January, nearly finished) and ideas for two articles. I'm going to wait a little after I publish this post, then talk about my article ideas a bit more on Twitter.
I'm going to work on these until I go back to teaching, and I'd like to finish at least one of them.
For some, it's the easiest thing in the world to fill the teaching gap with research time and churn a ton of output. For others - myself included - that demoralising break can feel isolating and intimidating. It provokes anxiety and uncertainty. Even those of us in those first two categories, who are able to fill the time with work, will feel the drain.
With that in mind, let me declare that we can all - regardless of what group we're in - get through the Work Winter.
If you're reading this, I want to hear what you'll do for the next few months. Are you going on holiday? Writing a paper? Chairing a conference panel or two? Finishing a book, or starting up a proposal for one? Are you one of the chosen few who snagged some Summer teaching work? Tell me on Twitter how #MyWorkWinter will play out, and see what the rest of us are doing with ours. Let's make the break a bit more communal, and come out the other side ready for a kickass year of teaching in 2020.
Because make no mistake, each of us does kick ass, even if we're not always paid to. So let's discuss the boots we wear when we do it.
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In other corners of casual conversations since last post:
Over on Twitter, Amanda Ann Klein, Associate Professor of Film Studies at East Carolina University, retells an unbelievable horror story around tenure and race in the academic job market.
In a similar vein over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Teghan Simonton looks at the potentially damaging onus of tenure in the American academy. (NOTE: Depending on how you're reading, this article may be paygated)
While my post today talks about productivity between semesters, this great Twitter thread from Helen Berents at Queensland University of Technology also discusses the potential burnout that comes from overload in academic work. Make sure you're giving yourself downtime as well, folks.
Finally, it's worth digging up this Sydney Morning Herald piece from 2012, where Benjmain Preiss looks at that anxiety I mentioned around casuals academics lacking work over Summer. Clearly, after seven years, there are things still to change.
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REFERENCES
Bender biting nails GIF - https://media0.giphy.com/media/nEovVMM8Z5H6U/giphy.gif