Friday night recap and how the evaluations went

It is Friday night and The Week of Continuous Demands From Other People has finally come to an end. I am tired and exhausted and want nothing more than sleep, go shopping for my sister's wedding next week and hang around and do nice things. But Fiance is out of town and I have sort of a longish weekend so I am going to camp out at my desk for a little work retreat beginning tomorrow morning. I am going to work on the manuscript I have been close to submitting for months, but I just haven't had the time to finish it up. It will probably be very boring, so expect lots of blogging.

As tonight is the last bout of freedom until after the manuscript is done I am going to waste it by watching TV and reading my non-intellectual but very hilarious book and generally enjoying myself in the laziest possible way. I do have some blog posts on my mind, but I don't have it in me to write those out tonight. What I can tell you is that I am almost done with the annual assessment meetings and it has been such a great experience. Everybody has been nice and taken me seriously as the head of the group (something I tend to worry about more than necessary) and I have gotten lots of great and positive feedback. I know it can be annoying when people brag on their blogs, but let me just say that you'd probably brag too if you got responses to "how is the leader perceived by the employee*" like "fair, organized, gets things done, open-minded, respects peoples differences and has a good balance between authority and listening to other peoples opinions". In short, I am definitely happy with the outcome. I have also gotten some good feedback on what people think the role of the group/ department leader ideally is and how it should be filled**. Basically it seems people want the head of department to take care of administrative necessities, inform them and involve them when necessary, provide good working conditions and support/ create a good social environment. While I am happy to hear that people are generally satisfied with how I approach these tasks, I think it's interesting to think about the process and how the daily interaction with people somehow captures so many aspects of what the workplace is like.

*As it is an annual assessment for employees most of the questions are concerned with the work situation for the individual, but we follow a pre-made questionnaire, and the one question about the leader is there to open up for a discussion about how the department works.

**As I am at a research institute I have nothing to do with administering teaching staff, courses, academic programmes etc., only administration relevant to running a research department.

Annual assessments

I had the first annual assessment meetings with people in the department today. According to institutional rules the department head must offer one-on-one meeting with each employee once a year. It's an opportunity for the employee to get feedback on their contribution to the group and the institution and a chance to air thoughts or concerns regarding the way the department is structured, projects, responsibility, ambitions, plans or wishes for the future etc. It is where the manager is supposed to give constructive criticism or feedback on how individuals can improve and where our little group is going. It is also a chance to discuss the way the department is run, the quality of management and to which extent we have been successful at creating a sense of belonging. Given that I am young, recently hired and have limited experience it is probably the one thing I've been fretting the most about since I put on the department head hat back in January.

I inherited a very good group of people. We work closely together on a number of projects, our research interests match and individual people's skills fit in neatly with what others are missing. We have a good social life, at least while we are at work. People speak kindly to each other and we laugh a lot. I think most people are generally happy and satisfied, but I do see potential pitfalls and a few clouds on the horizon. The department is expanding and the power balance is changing. Maybe a centre of gravity is developing around certain people while others are being slightly left out. Many new things are happening, and I am not sure they are all as coordinated as they could be.

My ideas about running a department are still developing. Each day brings new decisions to be made and new opinions to be had, and some days it evolves in a more haphazardly manner than I'd like it to. My general idea, besides go with the flow and try not to make too many fatal mistakes, would be something along the lines of creating an open environment where everyone has a chance to be heard, give everybody lots of freedom to decide for themselves how things should be done but listen and take it seriously when people request something from me. One thing I like about the job is way it forces me to care about and point attention towards other peoples work and results in a different way. I also like that I have a chance to distribute resources to the people I think deserve them and need them and how it's up to me to point it out if someone has done a great job. My weak points are definitely my lack of insider contacts higher up in the system and maybe my team building skills (because honestly I wouldn't really know how to do that if the team wasn't already great). I don't know how this kind of management is being perceived and if people think it works at all, so I am very excited to get feedback (sneak peek preview: so far it has been going well, but meetings will run all week so who knows where it might end up). Initially I was also freaked out by the idea of having this sort of conversation with people many years my senior and with far more experience and natural authority, but so far that part has been OK. Most people have asked for a time slot for a meeting so I take that as a signal that they don't mind having this talk with me. We'll see. I'm jumping in for another round tomorrow.

A week in the world of the academic administrator

This week is going to be crazy. I tell you, I don't remember the last time my schedule was this tight. It's like all administrative duties has been crammed into the next week with back to back meeting from tomorrow morning til Friday afternoon. Tomorrow hell breaks loose with the monthly department head group meeting followed by the first two annual assessment meetings with people in the department. Wednesday I'm going to the local travel clinic with the rest of the field crew for this summer to get immunised against all sorts of diseases before travelling to faraway field site. Hopefully I will make it back from that appointment just in time for the lunch seminar I suddenly find myself in charge of and another couple of annual assessment meetings. Thursday will be the big "get research group together and discuss our results from last years fieldwork"-meeting. This will probably be the day where we realize that we have nothing to report and that our work sucks (or that we are fabulous super scientists who will change the world). Friday I am going to attend the women's rights group at my workplace for their monthly meeting for the first time. While I'm all for women's rights I have a strong suspicion that I don't resonate with the work of this particular group very much, but time will show. They give a kind of career workshop/ talk about once a month and while I do like the idea of having that kind of resources available, I don't like the way they are singling out women for access to these events. Especially because we don't have any such resources available for male employees.

So how is it going?

No, I was not abducted by aliens and I did not stop blogging, but it has been a while and longer than I intended. Life has been busy in these parts. First a week of very intensive work and some evening meet-ups with friends visiting from out of town and second, my mom and sister were visiting for ten days. In other words time for free time activities on the Internet has been scarce and time for blogging non-existent. So to catch up:

Life

is good. A while ago I posted a list of things I wanted to change in my life and I am doing better at this than I dared hope. I do lead a more active life than I did last semester (even if going to the gym has not become quite a regular habit yet) and I do cook good food with lots of vegetables most days. This weekend I even went skiing, twice, and it was exactly as amazing as I remembered it. We did redecorate the house to some extent and I do feel very much at home here now. Now one year into proper grown-up working life I've had a promotion and a pay rise and for the first time in my life, I believe, been able to open a savings account.


Research

is falling scarily behind on my day to day schedule. Or this is not entirely true as I do spend time on research related work but not nearly enough on publications and I'm afraid the time I do spend on publications is not spent right. I am juggling two big active research projects with all the associated planning, logistics and networking, one small start up project and a backlog of four manuscripts which should really just be finished, polished and submitted asap. In reality I am obviously not very good at juggling and I end up spending a lot of time on the planning, logistics and networking and not enough on slogging through old manuscripts. I do make writing a priority and for short bursts this also translates into productivity (exactly the reason for the first week of my blogging absence), but then again something happens that I need to take care of and I'm back to square one. The lack of papers-ready-for submission is beginning to haunt me now. For the first year of my postdoc I tended to think that this will come with time and the number of papers submitted during the first year need not be a problem four years down the line, but now that time is approaching faster and I know it cannot wait forever.

department heading

is going surprisingly well. Who would have known? I have never held any paid administrative position before and did not know whether I'd like it or hate it or whether I'd be horrible at it. I'm sure it can be a very difficult job, but so far it hasn't, really. I have learned that I like this "being behind the scenes" kind of work. I like the responsibility that comes with it, the possibility of influencing decisions, the daily contact with everybody in the department and the role of being someone who encourages others and can make things happen. I have gotten nothing but positive response and feel much more at ease with the position than a month ago. Some days, however, I do feel my administration is happening a bit haphazardly like the other day when someone gave me some information and for the rest of the day I couldn't for the life of me remember what she had told me. I have developed a very extensive post-it note system because everybody gives me so much information, much of which I have no immediate use for (and maybe never will) and somehow I feel it just seems more serious if I write it down (like I will at least try to remember what I've been told).

Gender equality 101

I live in a country where the political emphasis on gender equality is bordering on the extreme. We have rules for the percentage of women in executive comities and boards of large business and state institutions and rules for the percentage of female university employees, full professors, and top leaders in education. In spite of the good intentions the outcome is riddled with problems like why did she get that position, was she really qualified or was it just to fill the woman quota. On the other hand the awareness of the issue probably does give many (young) women chances we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

Half a year ago when it was decided by the higher-ups that my institution should try something new and introduced an “assistant department head” position in each department, almost every single one of the new assistant heads were young and female – me included.

Today I went to my first leader-group meeting as a department head after my temporary promotion (while real department head is on sabbatical). Out of 21 people there, 18 were male and I was the only head of a research-heavy department (the other two women are both heads of organizational levels within the administration). My institution is very focused on the whole gender equality awareness business and has special gender equality committees to watch that hiring committees are taking this into consideration. They even have a special development programme from female employees, which is said to be boring and only focused towards the technical employees, so I’ve never attended any of the meetings, yet. However one of the points on today’s agenda was that we should encourage people in our departments to participate in this, apparently excellent, professional development programme.

The meeting itself was not particularly scary and the topics discussed were mainly things I’d already heard about and had an opinion on. I generally have opinions on lots of things and speaking my mind normally comes easily to me, and actually I am more worried about speaking up with the risk of sounding like a fool at a conference or scientific meeting than at the average “let’s talk about how things are going in general and give out some information” kind of meeting. So I spoke up and asked a few questions and did what I suppose anybody who is invited to a meeting like this is supposed to do.

After we were done and were hanging out and chatting a bit in the hallway the leader of the meeting (who is also the leader of this female employee development programme) came to me and said reassuringly “that she was happy to meet me, and how brave of me to even ask questions at the very first meeting”…… and I was like, HUH? Brave? That's what we are supposed to do here, remember? Somehow I cannot imagine that she was saying the same to the youngish male department heads when they were at their first meeting. In a way this entire meeting had me think that you can have all the quotas you want, but there is still a need for some fundamental changes in the way everybody are thinking.

No wonder I never get anything done

Monday:

9:10: Arrive late at work after spending 15 minutes thawing frozen lock on car door. Immediately go to PI's office for Monday morning hallway get-together and HOT coffee. Seriously cold hands after all the morning car trouble needed to hold something hot for a while to be functional.

9:30: Report results to co-workers from meeting on Friday with other department head, who does micro-managing all the way into our department….

9:35: Sit down in own office – open inbox. Yay! Email from Fiance who is working on the other side of the globe at the moment.

9:45: Not so yay! " Institution annual budget" for meeting later this week is also in inbox (I took economics for one year in high school and never understood how to make a professional budget… It hasn't gotten much better since. I still don't get it. I plan on being very quiet during this meeting)

10:00: Send agenda for department meeting tomorrow

10:15: Sign up for yoga class tonight. What I don't get is why one has to call this gym every single time to sign up for the classes. Why can't they just let people sign up when they are there anyway, even if it's for a class a few days away? Then I would at least feel obliged to go.

10:17: Add defrost-lock-solution to shopping list.

10:20: Transfer results from exam to office computer and my goodness! Every time I open this file I get so frustrated. How come that a group of students with otherwise pretty well functioning brains can't do better. What were they thinking!

10:30 Come to think of it – I also need magnets for metal wall in new office…..open bag, find shopping list again, add magnets.

10:30: Copy all new files from the fall semester from backup DVDs to office computer.

10:40: Pull hair out in frustration. How did my filing system become such a mess? I swear I am never going to switch computers again.

11:50: Stumbled across file called "department communication plan 2006", opened file and voila here is a template for the communication plan I am supposed to deliver in two weeks. I had no idea we had such a thing last year. Guess, I have not been reading my general information for department email very carefully.

13:40 Managed to update and sort downright chaotic folder with photos into actual work ones and private ones without deleting anything important….or at least I think I haven't deleted anything important.

13:50: oh, no – someone sent me a report for approval through weird internal no-paper file handling system, which I have absolutely no idea how to use.

13:55: Goodness!!! Managed to open said filing system and it turns out it's filled with things to do. What a horrible Pandora's box like thing to have installed. What on earth are all these projects? They seem to be registered in my name all of them. How scary! Hope it's only a formality as the department head and not because I am really responsible for all this at the drop of a hat.

13:57: What IS this thing? Turns out it is somehow connected to my inbox, which caused email from Fiance on the other side of the globe to suddenly turn up in inter-departmental, paper-less filing system, Geez….what's a girl to do? Decide to close the bastard and leave it behind for the time being. Still don't know how to approve the report.

14: 40 Still in the middle of organising last folder when alarm goes off to remind me of meeting with bank person in twenty minutes, and that’s the end of this work day.

Thinking as an administrator

So, today was the first day as an administrator where I was not away, sick or feeling terrible. So what was it like? Not bad and not particularly fun either, I'd say. It seems less frightening and more doable than I felt last week, it also seems like a lot of work and much of it seems to be rather boring. But it does still feel like a challenge, just not a completely overwhelming one.

My first task of the day was to say hello to a new staff member. I did not hire her and had nothing to do with that process, but she happened to have her first day at work last week. At least welcoming new people is a nice and meaningful thing to do. My second task was to sort through all the emails related to this new position and figure out which ones I need to take care of one way or another and which ones go straight to the archive. Maybe I am not a very good employee since I normally don't send copies of all sorts of stuff to my boss, but apparently that's what people do. At least I get lots of emails now about topics that are not even remotely related to my work or my interests and when I open them, they are "for your information" copies about all sorts of things my colleagues are doing or planning to do. So far they go straight to the archive since I don't really know what to do with them. But maybe I should start sending those too, when I take a step down the ladder again in six months.

Actually most of the day was spent filing things, organizing my calender, filling in all the dates for meetings, activities, deadlines etc from the email pile, responding to suggestions for meetings and answering questions. Some of the meetings are obviously important like the ones related to research projects or financial questions or an invitation to a seminar about staying healthy at work (where the offer fruit....according to the invite). Others are weird, but takes time like showing up in costume related to my field to have my picture taken....errrr, what is that? The only "real" thingI have done today (that is not related to administrating myself and my life) was propose a meeting for the department and provide an agenda for this.

So far none of this requires any higher education and anybody who knows how to do Outlook could do it, but I do know that more complicated tasks are looming on the horizon. I am also aware that to deal with those I will probably need a whole different set of skills than the ones I need to do research. I do think there is a reason why people study management of people, of projects, of money and the like, but academics are just supposed to walk in there and start managing. I am not frightened at the prospect of the job itself anymore, but I do feel that I don't know much about how to do this job in a good way and that irritates me and will very likely be a source of frustation in the coming months. Like most academics I like to do things well, but I also think this group of people deserves that I am not completely screwed up and actually make some good decisions. We have a very open atmosphere and flat hierarchical structure, and I expect everybody to be involved in most decisions, since that's the way things are done here, but some one has to lead the discussion and make the final decisions and I think that is going to be the difficult part.

One big jump up the academic ladder

As some of you might remember I was asked a couple of months ago if I was interested in taking on a more administrative post on top of my research for a while. I agreed because I thought it would be a good thing to put on my CV in any case and a particularly good thing when the question comes up whether my present position should be changed to a permanent position. I do think it is important for youngish academics to play the cards right and jump at the best opportunities, and honestly the selfish satisfaction of seeing the list of achievements grow is a major motivation for me, BUT I might really have jumped a bit too high this time.

This new position means that I will be head of the group of people I work closest with every day, including people much older than me, people in permanent positions and my own PI....and I am hired on a postdoc contract. I know my colleagues are supporting the decision, and while I am flattered that they want me in such a position and that they want me in such a position at such an early stage, I don't really understand why. Maybe my competitive gene is more dominant than usual (but not so sure about that), but I particularly don't understand if this doesn't annoy the other recently hired and I suppose equally promising young people in my department. So far they have been really supportive, but it does somehow feel very strange that an senior scientist or full professor with a mile long publication list has to send me an email and explain if he/she is planning to go to a conference next year.

It is not only my role in the hierarchy that creeps me out a little. I am also getting very afraid that I will never be able to keep up with the work load - at least not if I have any ambitions of getting any research done. Having research time now is really important to me as I already spent the entire fall semester on teaching and nothing else. I started out really well after christmas break trying to incorporate some good routines for writing serious academic stuff every day (which also partly explains the lack of blog posts recently), but now I see how easily these routines can fall apart again. Already on my first day as "new administrative title" my inbox was filled with papers to sign, forms to fill out, people requesting meetings and I don't know what and I have a very strong feeling that this is not going to stop right now. I also have the feeling that I will be more relieved than sad when handing this position back to the person on sabattical in six months time.

On my first day with the new responsibilities I felt literally sick to my stomach and thought all day that now the stress level had really gotten to me. Later the same day it developed into some evil stomach bug and I had to leave early. I went home and slept for twenty hours or something like that and had to take the next day off work. Now two days later I am finally recovering. I hope this is not my typical response to my new work load.

Life is sweet

It has been a crazy week with many pleasant surprises

My collaborators left today after a productive and fun week with lots of work but also lots of eating out and lots of talking about work and life. Last night we went out to celebrate that we submitted the final, revised version of our research proposal. We had drinks and strange coffee and christmas-ey food and laughed a lot and I realised that I am lucky to work with such nice people.

My students handed in their research projects today and they look really good. I have yet to read them of course, but I know that most of them have done a lot of good work and put a lot of effort into this and I am actually looking forward to read the reports. When I think about how much they have "grown" and learned since I met them for the first time this summer and realize what they are capable of doing now, I am really proud of them.

I have accepted a temporary position as department head at my home institution starting from January 1st. It feels weird since I am very new and have only been there for a year in total, and to be honest it scares me quite a bit. But I am happy to be asked and I hope I can handle it. It will only be for half a year until the regular department head returns from sabattical, and then I will switch to the assistant department head position.

Today we had the first trial lecture for the open position here at the place where I am right now. It is for the position I am in temporarily at the moment, and the new hire will be responsible for the course I have been developing this semester. For a long time I was so jealous of the person who would get this job since I like it so much, and I didn't really want to go home to the research institute where I am working. But the candidate who was here today did so well, and I like her and think she will do an excellent job, and I can definitely see myself handing this to her without too much regret. A part of me still wish I had applied for the position, but I haven't and I am beginning to look forward to return home.

It looks like it is all coming together in a really good way.