Hi everyone. It's my favorite part of the day, the hour in the morning when no one is up yet, I sip my coffee, and, as Glennon Doyle says, remember I'm a soul before I slip back into all of my roles. Like so many mornings, I have already taken the time to book every second of my day. Get ready, take the kids to school, consider what projects and tasks are most pertinent to complete around my four scheduled meetings, plan what time I have to leave work to get Ashton and meet Harper and the grandparents at Little Gym before we go home, make dinner, and get one hour of quality together time before falling into bed. Today is a reasonable day. I don't have deadlines I won't make or classes that I've only had a chance to half prepare for because adequate preparation is only something that can be done when one's to do list isn't a mile long. But it's busy. Every day is busy.
Lately the busyness feels impossible. I'll focus on the work element of this impossibility first. I have too much work. I know this now deep in my bones because for 18 months, for maybe the first time in my life, I didn't. During the pandemic, I worked from home, had one job, and, because the world was crashing down around us, felt empowered to say "no" to things that were outside of my wheelhouse or job description. Most days, I would accomplish a few meaningful things, but was also able to take my dog for a walk, prepare some lunch, throw in a load of laundry, maybe even schedule a doctor's appointment or swing by the bank or grocery store on my way to get the kids. My house looked decent because I was able to do small things every day in between my meetings and classes and service commitments. I think for a little over a year I had found that elusive balance of work-life motherhood. I was still busy, mind you, but I could breathe.
This stands in stark contrast to this semester. Spring 2022 has been absolute chaos. I am stressed and over-committed. My to do list is impossible. My house is a mess. Due to the great resignation, which has hit my library hard, I am doing the work of 3 librarians right now. Just for fun and perspective, I typed out a list of my current work responsibilities and it looked like this:
Running a competitive faculty and grad student Fellowship Program
Hiring a post-doctoral fellow
Program Director for Summer Digital Literacy Workshops for secondary teachers
Supervising Program Assistant and Undergraduate Internships
Monthly Digital Matters Reading group/ New Media Studies reading group
Supporting and pursuing Digital Scholarship projects – currently written into 3 grants
Gateway to Learning Workshops for College of Humanities
Digital Library Outreach Monograph
DHU Planning Committee
Reviewing NEH Grants
Serving on a thesis committee
Advisory Board for IMLS Grant
Political Science Liaison
ULA Advocacy Chair
Library Day on the Hill Co-Chair
Faculty Review Committee
ICPSR Rep
Teaching LEAP
SEBS Chair
Zotero Workshops and Support
This list may not mean a lot if you don't work in academic libraries, but when I look at it, I see someone set up for failure because no one can do that many things in a 40 hour work week. And I hate failing at anything.
In Anne Helen Peterson's fabulous keynote "The Librarians are not Okay" she says, "... if a person’s body can only create one widget a day, and they’re paid to work five days a week, and they’re told they must create seven widgets — something’s gotta break, the number of widgets or the employee’s body and health. You’ve all been breaking yourselves to do more. And it has to stop, no matter how much of a failing it might feel like to cut back on a part of your work that felt essential."
On that note, I will save this post and look back hopefully in a few months proud I made it through and of the ways I've been able to say "no" in the pending months. Stay strong, friends.
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