This morning on the bus to campus to attend a first-year lecture (part of the expectations of job number 1), I was reading a novel. It's currently on a module I will be teaching after Christmas at the other university in the City where the Castle is also a Prison (lets's call this job number 4). I have some control over what texts I teach on it, so because the topic of the course is not my usual area of research - in fact it's far from it - , I'm reading the current booklist so I can decide what to keep and what I might like to change. I need to make this decision at some point this month, I think.
After the lecture, I went back to my office in the English Department to continue to do a time consuming but not particularly difficult administrative task for which I am being paid by the hour in order to lighten the load of the office staff (job number 2). After a couple of hours, I went across campus to start my new part time job in the Philosophy Department office (job number 3). I suspect this may, at some point, be confusing for those of my students who take both English and Philosophy. The department is quite small, and seems to be friendly, and I spent most of the afternoon just finding my way around. I'm sure it will get busier though! I will usually do this job Wednesday -Friday, but tomorrow afternoon I have a meeting for job number 1, so had to move job number 3 to this afternoon to make up the hours this week.
When I'd come to the end of the working day at job number 3, I returned to my English Department office to continue with job number 2 for a couple of hours - actually until I ran out of the cards I was completing. And then, on the way home, I read some more of the novel for job number 4. If I'd just squeezed in a little bit of teaching prep or admin before that, I'd have had a beautifully balanced day:
4, 1, 2, 3, 2, 4.
5 comments:
My advice for multi-job-juggling (I have either 5 or 3 at the moment depending on how you count!):
1. Coffee.
2. If you're doing something for someone and they start drumming their fingers, do it slower.
3. Nothing anybody will ever pay you to do is worth your health or your sanity. Remind yourself of this when things get chaotic.
4. If you're working late nights and/or long days, take an mp3 player and have a playlist just for keeping you awake and happy on the way back home.
5. When you hear things like 'Only staff are invited to the Christmas party', just nod, smile and consider yourself exempt from any kind of volunteer work for the department for the rest of your life.
6. Students/people who know you in job 1 will come up and speak to you while you're doing job 3, etc, and it will all get very confusing. Feel free to look blank and direct them to someone else.
7. Shoes that hurt by lunchtime will cripple you by the end of the day. (But you have to see my new ones all the same! 3 inch heel and I can only just about walk in them, but SO PRETTY.)
Thanks!
I can't have too much coffee - it makes me ill - but I will have a strategically timed cup. Or two.
I entirely agree about the Christmas party thing! Totally exempt from any staff related 'volunteer' duties from now on.
I will very happily look at your new shoes. I love pretty shoes. :)
I'd better get some sleep. More job juggling (4,3,2,1,2,4) tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'll do if I get a day that is perfectly palindromic...
What is the course that you're teaching at the other place (ie not the place where the castle is also a prison)?
It's Contemporary Women's Writing. Any suggestions you might have for the reading list would be gratefully received!
Tell me what's on the course already and I'll certainly send you some suggestions, having taught varieties of just such courses... for a start 'Trumpet', as we're discussing on my blog, might be useful if you're not already doing that.
Post a Comment