Do you know which online tool to use for your expense claims? How about the one for requesting new library resources? Are you sure you used the latest template for your promotion application? How confident are you that the process for getting essay questions approved is the same this year as it was last year? Are you update with all your online training? My friend, if you've ever thought to yourself 'I'm a bad colleague because I don't know the secret process for completing this simple task', felt frustrated at being asked to attend a webinar in order to fill in an online form, or worried that everyone except you is navigating this Kafkaesque mess, this episode is for you. Because it's not you. It's the system.
Episode transcript:
Do you feel like an incompetent buffoon? Well, of course you do.
You’re listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. I’m Dr Rebecca Roache. I’m a coach and a philosopher at the University of London, and in this podcast I draw on philosophical analysis and coaching insights to help you dump perfectionism and flourish on your own terms.
Hello, once again, my friends! I hope you’re all doing absolutely fantastically. If I sound perky, it’s because it’s reading week next week. A week with no teaching and commuting. A chance to take a breath before diving back into the second half of the term. And, for me, it’s the smoothest term I’ve had in years. I haven’t succumbed to the sort of virus that usually hits me a few weeks into teaching. I should shut up now, in case I jeopardise it. Watch me step on a rake the second I set foot back on campus next week.
Ok, let’s get down to business. I have to admit to feeling a bit nervous about this episode’s topic. I was on the verge of chickening out of talking about it at all, because - unlike my other episode topics - it’s not really something I’ve talked about with others extensively enough to feel confident that it addresses a widespread workplace-related problem. What if it’s just me? Should I postpone the episode a week, so I have time to come up with a better topic, one that feels safer? But every time I resolved not to do this episode, I’d talk myself round, because surely this is not just a problem for me. Back and forth I went. And then after a while, it occurred to me that my prevarication was a version of a ‘What if it’s just me who is incompetent?’ anxiety - and that anxiety is exactly the issue that underlies the thing I want to talk to you about. A trip down a Google rabbit hole later, and I’m convinced that this is an issue worth talking about.
At the heart of the problem is the overwhelming volume of different apps, platforms, processes, and so on that we - in academia but not only in academia - need to use in order to do our jobs. At my institution - which is not at all unique in this regard - we have an online platform for our teaching materials. Another online platform where we can see who our students are and which of our classes they’ve attended. Another platform that shows which modules we’re teaching this term. There’s a shared drive with a folder where we can find out who our personal tutees and dissertation students are. Another folder where we put our exam papers, and one for our essay questions too. A shared area on a different platform where we can view the staff workload model. An area of the staff intranet where we can view our teaching timetable. A process for claiming expenses. A form for notifying the relevant people when we want to apply for a grant. I won’t go on, but even if I did go on, I’d still be telling you only about the apps/platforms/drives/whatever that I actually know about, and yet the experience of discovering new ones that I didn’t know about (but which apparently everyone else did) is painfully familiar, and that in turn gives rise to a constant background anxiety that there are still others that I don’t know about and that I’m supposed to know about. But even if I do know about them, and somehow manage to keep track of what they are and what they’re for and how to use them, life doesn’t get much easier. None of these … things are especially well designed or intuitive to use. All of them require a sign-in, at least when working off-campus, and a sign-in involves a double factor authentication using a smartphone, which means getting up and finding the smartphone, because if I had it sitting next to me on the desk I wouldn’t be getting any work done in the first place. Sometimes, I manage to sign in and I’m most of the way there - but at other times, there’s an online training course I need to complete before I can use it. And even if there’s not, there’s probably a video tutorial or a long instruction document with screenshots to walk me through whatever I need to do. Not that the ‘whatever I need to do’ is particularly complicated, mind. Yesterday, I just wanted to update a student’s attendance to show that they were present at their seminar last week. I don’t want to sound overly dramatic here, but I felt like I could have got an hour’s writing out of the amount of attention and focus I used on this - what seemed to me - overly-complicated task. It felt to me like, if there were an offline equivalent of inefficiency, it would be something like this: you want to do something simple like go into the kitchen and make yourself a slice of toast, but when you walk into the kitchen you find you’re out of bread, so you walk to the shop to buy some but when you go to pay for it you find you’ve forgotten to bring your money, so you walk back home to get some but you find you’ve locked yourself out of your house, so you walk over to your neighbour who has a spare key but find that they’re out, but someone tells you that they’re down the pub, so you walk to the pub to find them but find they’ve already moved on to a restaurant, so you walk to the restaurant and … okay, I’m sure you get the idea, but the analogy I’ve just given you is the easy version because it assumes you know how you’re supposed to make toast in the first place, and often that’s not the case with the professional processes. It’s all incredibly frustrating, overwhelming, and inefficient, and leaves you with the impression that every simple task involves performing a digital version of the twelve labours of Hercules.
Now, as I was thinking about all this and reflecting on what a horrible nuisance it is, I couldn’t help wondering if it was just me. Or, maybe, whether it was an ADHD problem. It’s not something I’ve had coaching clients talk about much, but then why would they, because it’s not as if a coach can wave a magic wand and fix their entire professional digital environment. (Believe me, friend, if I could, I would have stopped this nonsense years ago.) So, I did some research, and I found that there is a name for this: app overload, or app fatigue. It’s not unique to academics - it’s pretty ubiquitous these days, as we manage more and more tasks and information digitally. There is even - the absolute horror - a kind of meta-app, that you can install to simplify all those other apps that are causing you stress, which I am not going to name because I am really not convinced that the fix for this digital dystopia is apps all the way down.
Stressful as app fatigue is, though, it’s only part of the problem I have in mind. It’s more general than just apps and platforms and process and so on. It’s a kind of information management problem. Let me tell you about what set me off thinking about all this in the first place. The admin team in the school to which my department belongs can, of course, be contacted by email. But there are different admin email addresses that are meant to be used for different admin-related inquiries. At the start of the academic year, someone from the admin team sends out an email listing the various email addresses and what they’re for, and asking us to use the correct one because that makes things easier for them. But this presents a problem, at least for me. Now, let me make clear that I completely understand why the admin team want to use these different addresses - it’s their attempt to manage their own overwhelm and make things run more efficiently. I am fully behind them on this. But how do I remember which email address is for which set of issues? I could write it on a Post-It note and stick it to my laptop, I suppose. And that might work if this set of email addresses were the only thing I needed to remember. But, of course, it’s not. And if I were to use the Post-It-note-on-the-laptop strategy to remember all these important things, I would not be able to see the screen, or use the keyboard, or close the laptop. There is so much information to manage that in order to manage it in a way that ensures you remember it’s there and how to find it and when to look for it, you need some sort of information management system, and even if you had the time to figure that out, that information management system is just another system to deal with, and somehow dealing with all these systems and bits of important information and apps and platforms and processes is something we’re supposed to be doing in the background while doing our actual jobs - you know, the teaching and the research and the admin that all this nonsense is supposed to facilitate.
Are you feeling like you need a lie down, listening to this? If so, make yourself comfortable, and maybe also get yourself a hot water bottle and a cup of tea and a cat, because the task of managing all this information - which, come to think of it, isn’t actually Herculean, because at least Hercules’s labours were finite and in theory achievable, unlike all this, which is more Sisyphean - anyway, as I was saying, the task of managing this information is not even the worst part of it. The worst part, in my humble opinion, is the resulting anxiety that I’m not doing things right and that I’m having a negative impact on other people. There’s some officially sanctioned way to do the thing I want to do, which I don’t know about, and I’m doing it wrong. Or I’m supposed to be updating something on some platform that I don’t know about. Or sometimes it’s: I don’t know how to perform this task or access this information I need, so I have to ask someone, and that means burdening someone with my request, and also the fact that I need to ask someone for help with this simple thing at my career stage leaves me feeling incompetent. And if I do ask for help with something, I might be asking in the wrong way and through the wrong channels (we’re back to the multiple similar-but-different admin team email addresses again), and that’s going to add to someone else’s stress and overwhelm, and it would be selfish of me to inflict that on them. It’s a constant sense of ‘I should know how to do this but I don’t’. And, ‘I can’t do my job properly’. And, ‘Other people are better at this than I am’. And, ‘Asking for help means burdening someone else’.
Now, I’ve been with my current employer for 12 years, and the result of all this stuff is that even now I don’t feel fully competent at my job. The ‘12 years’ mention is a bit of a red herring, mind, because it’s not as if you can accumulate this giant mess of knowledge over time - the platforms and processes involved are constantly changing and being updated, with new ones being added, others being retired, and of course there are organisational changes too (so, for example, the collection of similar-but-different admin email addresses I need to memorise this year is different to the ones from the previous few years, because the school structure changed). But despite this nagging sense that I am not fully competent at my job, I also do kind of know that I am competent at my job. I’ve been at it long enough to know that I’m getting the important things more or less right - the research and the teaching. I’m long enough in the tooth to respond to discovering that I ought to have been using this newly-unearthed process for the past 4 years with exasperation rather than self-reproach. I can manage my expectations when I see a new email with a new piece of information and say to myself ‘It is quite literally impossible for me to be able to remember that or store that information in a way that it is accessible in any meaningful way, so I am likely to get it wrong if it ever becomes relevant, and if that happens it’s not my fault, I’m doing my best’. But it takes a long time to get to this point of being able to say, with conviction, ‘This constant sense of incompetence I struggle with is due to the system, not me’. I’m painfully aware of how difficult things must be for people who are at an earlier career stage. Arriving as a new hire, getting bombarded with this absolute avalanche of information, perhaps starting out by diligently trying to keep track of it all, doing the Post-Its-on-the-screen thing, but quickly becoming overwhelmed and realising that they’re incapable of doing anything at all with a sense of confidence that they’re not unknowingly doing it wrong, afraid to ask for help because they got the job because they’re supposedly competent, not wanting to pester other people and be a burden when they’re already struggling with impostor syndrome, feeling like everyone else is managing all this and that they alone are struggling, while perhaps wondering how anyone can possibly keep track of all this stuff, but the fact that everyone else apparently is doing it must be a sign that they’re just not cut out for this and that they should go and get a much less demanding job instead, one where mastering the workplace environment involves nothing more complicated than knowing where they can leave their bag and where they can take their tea breaks.
If that’s you, please know that it’s really not the case that everyone is confidently finding their way around this informational labyrinth while you alone are struggling along, lost, in the darkness. (I really can’t explain the Greek mythology theme in this episode. Maybe it’s time for a Clash of the Titans rewatch. I was obsessed with that movie when I was younger. The 1980s version. My friend Natalie had it on VHS and I used to make her put it on every time I was at her house.) I mean, sure, there are some colleagues who seem to know their way around, but really it’s just one tiny little corner of it that they’re familiar with, because they need it to do their admin role, or perhaps because that particular process has been around for years. And, sure, none of your colleagues are noticeably flailing, but that’s not the same thing as competence. As you’re painfully aware, there’s quite a bit of shame that comes with feeling so lost, which means there are plenty of people strutting confidently around the labyrinth pretending they know where they’re going and that the reason they walked right past that passageway is because they know for sure that they don’t need to use it, and definitely not because they are completely oblivious to its existence. When you do ask for help, and you receive guidance that doesn’t really solve the problem, don’t go jumping to the conclusion that you’re just stupid - it’s absolutely possible that the person you asked doesn’t know either, or if they do, they don’t know that they know, because for all they know the info they have might be out of date - and so you’ve been fobbed off, not maliciously, but because all this nonsense makes everyone feel stressed and nobody wants to be unmasked as the person who’s been winging it.
So, that’s the problem. What can you do about it? Well, with respect, asking what you can do about this is part of what the problem is in the first place. It’s not something you, as an individual, or even as part of a very determined and intrepid departmental task force, can do anything about. It’s the system, not you. It’s the end result of a process that, presumably, started out with one single online system that made some task a bit easier, and that grew into multiple systems, and because in theory life was becoming so much easier, there was no need for the support staff of actual humans who were paid to help with and oversee this stuff. Before that, there was no need to feel incompetent because you couldn’t get some system to work, or because you didn’t know the system was there in the first place, because it wasn’t your job to know, it was someone else’s - and, in fact, you shouldn’t know about it, you should be focusing instead on the stuff that was part of your job. Nobody has thought through the problem of how to manage this tangle of time-saving processes. That checks out, because it’s nobody’s job to think it through. And the fact that everyone is going round pretending that they know what they’re doing when they don’t, is actually a barrier to addressing the problem, because it means everyone’s hiding the problem and nobody’s talking about it. So, while you can’t do anything about this, and while it would be a mistake to believe otherwise, the lesson I want you to take away is this: it’s not you, it’s the system. You could be the most diligent, organised, competent, smart, switched-on person in your entire institution, and you’re still not going to be able to navigate your way through this system without constantly needing to stop to ask for help and without repeatedly doing things wrong because you had no idea that there was a right way, and even if you learn that there’s a right way, there’s no time to read the 54-page instruction document given all the other stuff you have going on. The system works to ensure you never feel competent. Not deliberately, as far as I know, but through nobody having thought it through.
While you can’t fix this, there are a few things you can do to survive it. The first is to ask for help. It really is okay to do this, and it doesn’t mean you’re a burden on other people (I’m saying this to reassure myself as much as you). If you’ve been in your job for a while, there are of course a few things you can check before asking for help - you’ll probably get to know a few places to look to find the answer, and you can search your vast inbox to see if you missed an email about this somewhere. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, then - and i know this sounds obvious, but I think it still needs saying - there really is nothing else you can do except ask. Maybe the reply you’ll receive from your harried colleague will leave you with the impression that they would prefer not to have been bothered by your question, and that may well be true, but that doesn’t entail that it’s you they resent. They, too, are victims of this overwhelming system.
And if you’re new to the job? Be proactive about asking explicitly where you can find this help, if you can. You might be assigned a mentor, who can help point you in the right direction, but if not, ask about it on your first day: ‘Who should I go to if I’m not sure about how a particular process works?’
Another thing you can do is set expectations. Expect to do things the wrong way. Expect to miss deadlines for things that you weren’t even aware you were meant to be doing. Expect that the correct way to do this last year is no longer the correct way to do it, and you missed this update because the email about it was buried among all the reply-all messages and the endless ‘for info only’ messages that you have no time to open, and you didn’t have time to attend the 90-minute webinar on the topic, and even if you had, you completely understandably lack the mental capacity to store the resulting useful info alongside all the other stuff you’re expected to know. It is incredibly hard to do things the right way, and even if you manage it, you’re likely still going to be worrying that you’ve done it wrong. Expect this. It will happen. It doesn’t mean you’re incompetent. It’s the system, again.
And finally - well, not really finally, but the final thing I’m going to talk about here: work out what are the important things to get right, and focus on those. The rest you can let slide. Perhaps you can’t bear the thought of letting anything slide, but please try to get used to it, because there are limited hours in the day and your energy and attention are finite resources that you have to use wisely. Your employment contract will set out some minimal expectations, although of course it won’t cover everything in the level of detail you’re likely wanting. There are some exercises on the Resources page of The Academic Imperfectionist website that you might find helpful here: in particular, the ‘Core values’ exercise to help you identify what’s most important to you, and the ‘What’s good enough?’ worksheet to help you work out how you can avoid throwing too much effort into things that don’t require it. And, without wanting to sound overly dramatic, thinking about your legacy can help introduce some perspective. Would you rather people knew you for your interesting and smart writing, or for keeping on top of your emails? Would you prefer that your students remember your thought-provoking classes, or your encyclopedic knowledge of the marking rubric? And don’t say ‘both’. That’s the road to burnout, my friend. That’s it from me this time. I’ll leave you with a little reminder that, any time you find yourself struggling, it’s very very very unlikely that you’re the only one. And if your response to that is, ‘But nobody else is saying that they’re struggling too!’, well duh - of course they’re not. They’re not broadcasting it for the same reasons you’re not broadcasting it. We’re all emperor’s-new-clothesing it together. You’re doing way better than you think. Laters.
I’m Dr Rebecca Roache, and you’ve been listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe on whatever podcast app you use. I want to help as many people as I can with these episodes, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d share the podcast with any friends who you think might find it useful, and if you’d leave a review on your podcast app. If you’d like to support the podcast financially, you can do that at patreon.com/academicimperfectionist. For more information about me, the podcast, and my coaching, please visit the website - academicimperfectionist.com. You can find me on Medium too, as AcademicImperfectionist. If you have an idea or a request for a future episode of The Academic Imperfectionist, please drop me a line, either via the contact form on my website or via Medium. Thanks for listening, and see you next time!
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