Teaching: 39%, admin 58%, research 3%, total work time 10 hrs 20 mins (v.g., can leave early tomorrow), number of times checked blog to see if new comments 39 (pathetic), posts or comments written before this 0, boyfriends 1 (v.g.), number of times almost deleted comment from boyfriend 38 (understandable).
8.30 a.m. Remember email from yesterday. Dean requests pleasure of company. With director of humanities faculty. Signed, Vigdis. Do I call dean by her first name? Anti-feminist to call dean Vigdis and director by last name just because male? Decide to call both by first name as proof of equal rights.
8.31 a.m. Check blog. Boyfriend left awful comment! Said was boring! But hot! How dare he!? Does he think of me as empty-headed fool?
8.57 a.m. Realise would be worse if boyfriend didn’t think was hot. But still! Consider ringing him and complaining but decide to be self-assured mature woman instead.
9.45 a.m. V. pleased with boots, skirt and black top. Think will project image of self as self-assured, professional leader. Except hair is wet. And skirt is wrinkled. Will just iron skirt. And add lipstick.
9.52 a.m. Or are boots not power-dressing?
10.16 a.m. Hurrah! Only one minute late for class! Students lovely! Only one student complained at creative writing assignment!
12.15 p.m. Outside faculty director’s office. Realise despite first-name basis I don’t know what dean or director looks like. People everywhere and I don’t know who to smile at.
2.15 p.m. Never had to use their names at all! V. fortunate. Also, when asked whether compensation for increased admin possible, dean said am head of department, can decide that heads of department teach less! Hurrah!
2.27 p.m. Oh, though. Department has to offer six courses next semester and is short of two positions and has limited budget for hiring other teachers. Who would teach instead of self?
6 p.m. Home again. Decide not to talk to boyfriend.
6.01 p.m. Check blog in case he left new comment.
6.04 p.m. Check his blog to find out what he’s doing and whether he still loves me without having to talk with him but is still weeks since he posted anything. Hasn’t even commented on group blog is on.
6.07 p.m. How to talk with him when am not talking with him? Want him to make it up to me! Realise he may not know was upset by hot comment but want telepathy.
10.32 p.m. Hurrah! Boyfriend wonderful! Loves mind as well! Respects my personality! Says will be very good head of department! Was disappointed hadn’t blogged percentages today, had been looking forward to them! Is meeting me in Paris in a fortnight! Hurrah!
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Mum
Just wondering where agonising over boyfriend, clothes & names goes?admin., teaching, research or none?
netwoman
I love the dept head blogging…I even talked about you doing this in my class today – I was doing my blogging lecture, and talked about the many ways people are using their blogs….and this is one of them.
ps – I don’t find it boring 😉
Netwoman – waving from Canada
scott
I meant your mind, you know. Very picante.
weez
You have a lovely mind and wit to accompany it.
Jill
Oh mum, of course getting dressed isn’t entered on my time sheey (though it does make you think: all that time getting dressed and doing laundry and choosing clothes simply so they’ll work as work attire, maybe it should be part of the job!) and the agonising about names was easily multitasked. The boyfriend agonising was in my offtime, naturally.
Scott, sweetheart, your mind is spicy and delicious too!
Weez and Netwoman, you’re gorgeous 🙂
Mum
Just in case there’s the slightest doubt Jill, the motive in asking was fear that if the agonising stuff gets into one of your timesheet categories, it may get eaten up and underrated. The agonising probably takes only nanoseconds anyway. But it’s those fleeting thoughts you’ve recorded that make this something very different – and quite the reverse of boring. What you’re doing is wildly different and exciting. Just hope you can keep it going. Everyone I’ve ever known (maybe self excepted) who’s ever got themselves into a management/ leadership position has almost overnight closed up. The weight of responsibility & all that. But you can bet most go through the concerns you’re airing. Real strengths (like openess & honesty) get painted as weaknesses in the corporate cultures of today. So long as those being managed are empowered they’ll feel more secure rather than less by this sort of stuff. Tvi tvi!
Liz Lawley
Oh, Jill, what a fabulous post!
I, too, am quite enjoying the head of department blogging, and hope you’ll keep it up.
Are you recording time spent by hand, or are you using software for it (I’ve been looking at a free app for OS X called Khronos…)
Jill
Liz, I set up a very rudimentary time sheet in Excel. It has issues, and I bet not all the formulas are equally elegant, and I doubt anyone else could use it because it needs manual cutting and pasting daily, but it’s been working OK for now.
The time sheet has been working brilliantly for the last week. It fits in well with things like Flylady and GTD. Best of all, it makes me feel as though my work time is actually limited and scarce, and I really do seem to get more done, with less pain and suffering. And this week I get my dream of six-hour days with no work in the evenings and no guilt – I worked Saturday, when my daughter was at her dad’s, and now I get to leave work at three and spend my afternoons with her for all of this week! Yay!
I’ll have a look at Khronos, cos if something else actually just worked, that’d be wonderful!
Clancy
This is the best department head post yet. 🙂
Orbit Now! » Blog Archive » A Trailer For Your Blog
[…] The following words were lifted from the left column of Jill Walker’s blog.¬†¬† this season on jill/txt:¬† Jill’s realised she’s practically an established academic by now. Nearly eight years since she attended her first conference, more than three years since she finished her PhD and she’s been head of her department for more than a year. She’s still scared of actually writing that book proposal and she hasn’t quite worked out how to teach well, research well, administer well and enjoy life – but she’ll get there. And she (mostly) loves her job. […]
jill/txt »
[…] I’m an associate professor at the University of Bergen, and I do research on how people tell stories online. I’ve been a research blogger since October 2000, and I’m currently writing a book on blogging for Polity Press. I’ve been head of my department for more than two years now, and am really looking forward to my sabbatical, which starts in July 2007. […]
jill/txt » my first day at blogher: swag, sponsors and mummyblogging
[…] I don’t really blog much about being a newcomer to academia any more, not being so young any more and being tenured and secure and settled and all. But I figure the more personal the better, seems to be the currency around here. And I did wrote some damn fine posts about learning the ropes of academic administration! […]
Hvordan blir man konsulent i sosiale medier?
[…] Noe av det jeg liker best med sosiale medier er det at folk deler kunnskap og erfaringer og bekymringer og h?•p omkring denne typen prosesser. Jeg gjorde det selv da jeg holdt p?• med doktoravhandlingen min, og da jeg like etterp?• ble kastet inn i jobben som seksjonsleder, og det var utrolig verdifullt for meg b?•de ?• f?• satt ord p?• det jeg jobbet med og ?• f?• st??tte av lesere, kollegaer og venner som kanskje ellers ikke ville visst hva jeg balte p?• med. Det ?• skrive ned hva jeg planla ?• gj??re hjalp meg ofte ?• gjennomf??re det, ogs?• – for det er en slags forpliktelse i ?• fortelle verden at i dag skal jeg gj??re s?•nn og s?•nn. Jeg har ogs?• f?•tt mange tilbakemeldinger p?• at det var nyttig for andre som var i samme situasjon. S?• jeg h?•per virkelig at Astrid fortsetter ?• dele av sine erfaringer! […]