Is it a career limiting choice?

Author: Anonymous

Importance

I am often struck by the way that seemingly simple choices can have outsized effects on my work, my career, and my sense of identity. Or, perhaps more accurately, how those seemingly simple choices are not truly simple at all!

For instance, choosing to leave my work at the office and not dip into it over the weekends is both a no-brainer to me as well as a hard-fought boundary that I have to constantly reinstate for myself.

I see the provocative nature of my boundaries in the admiration and jealousy of my colleagues when I tell them I went hiking on the weekend (and didn’t spend it revising a journal article or marking assessment submissions). I see it in their frustration and resignation when meetings are booked when they are on leave, or when immovable deadlines force their hand. I see it in myself when I question whether I’m doing enough within work hours, pulled into a quandary that so easily leads to exploitation and exhaustion.

When even a decision about whether or not to work beyond the prescribed hours can be contentious, it illuminates how many other choices we make – both daily and throughout our careers – are not neutral or apolitical. While I do not have a specific scenario or case study (that I am willing to share publicly) to demonstrate Principle 10 Acknowledge that not everything is neutral or apolitical, I have written this poetic reflection to explore the principle through experiences in higher education – my own, that of my peers, and those seen in literature.

Poetic reflection

Is it a career limiting choice
To avoid the politics?
Naively assuming I can operate outside of them
While they continue to impact

Everything I hold dear

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To put my name to this poem?
Wondering who will see it
And think less of me

Instead of thinking me brave

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To say what I think?
When it runs counter
To the neoliberal narrative

‘Progress’ like a runaway freight train

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To yearn for academic freedom?
Reluctant to shoe-horn my interests
Into the latest strategic priorities of the institution

Chasing the flavour of the month

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To take my time?
Stopping to sharpen the saw
So the next move is more effective

Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To problematise and examine?
Not accepting it works at face value
Analysing until we know why we do what we do

Overthinking is my superpower (I think)

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To feel awkward about shouting my achievements from the rooftops?
Searching for ways to share freely with others
Without egotistically shouting into the void

Going public without being scorned as a tall poppy

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To admit what I don’t know?
While others bullshit and bluster
Never revealing the cracks in their armour

But the cracks are still there

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To move away from a ‘mentor’?
Wanting to forge my own path
Away from their encouragement and exploitation

Struggling to put me first

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To invest in relationships?
Defending my desire for collaborations and human connections
In a world of competition

What if they’re just using me to get ahead?

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To turn off the notifications?
Ignoring emails, chats, messages
So I can secure some time for deep work

Like writing this poem

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To protect my weekends?
Doing what I can during business hours
Keeping my home a work-free sanctuary

No-one will die if a report comes in late

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To take annual leave (and actually leave)?
Regular time away for rest and restoration
Without the dark cloud of guilt

If your email is urgent, take a deep breath – because few things truly are

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To be more than my job?
Am I a teacher, a leader, at my very core?
Or am I that, and more besides?

Life is multifaceted

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To pursue SoTL?
Dealing with the constant derision
About whether my research is ‘real’

When it’s the only thing that makes sense to me

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To seek Aboriginal ways of knowing, doing, and being?
Seeing anew the harm that colonialism causes
With its insidious agenda of assimilation

“Looking through the eyes of the colonised, you can see.”
^{(Bishop, 2021, p. 368)}

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To speak freely
Always with respect, and yet
Disregarding archaic hierarchies

How much deference is earned?

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To refuse to play the game?
Avoiding letting the metrics
Have an undue impact on what I pursue

Yet ever tempted by the thrill of the next dopamine hit

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To avoid grant funding?
Finding ways to do the projects I want
Without the administrative burden

But then where is my track record?

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To point out the disparity?
While VCs earn the big bucks at the top of the tower
Casual academics piece together patchwork contracts

And wonder why they’re not enough

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To expect your organisation to cover expenses?
Begging for conference funds
Or forgoing professional development

Self-funding is not always an option

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To take a so-called ‘lesser’ role?
As a teaching-focused academic
Or (*gasp*) a professional position

As though traditional academia is the ultimate (and achievable) goal

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To say ‘no’ to opportunities?
When I don’t have the interest or capacity
To do them well

Moving from the fear of missing out to the joy

 

Is it a career limiting choice
To think of these as career limiting choices?
Not wanting to pursue the next rung of the ladder
Simply because it’s apparently the next step

That’s not the career I want anyway.

References

Bishop, M. (2021). ‘Don’t tell me what to do’ encountering colonialism in the academy and pushing back with Indigenous autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 34(5), 367-378. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2020.1761475