We’ve reached that time of the semester where things usually start feeling overwhelming, you haven’t completed tasks that were due weeks ago and you realise how much more is still to do. This year is so much worse because everything we do takes longer (apart from commuting) 1/n

Now I have discovered I have another 30 hours of extra work to fit in and I am feeling the urge to push back. I’m hearing of burnout and staff crying because they are feeling so overwhelmed. We can’t just keep loading work on people and hope for the best. 2/n

Having witnessed the horrific and deeply distressing unravelling of my mother’s sanity and seeing other close friends battle with their mental health, I am convinced that guarding my own sanity has got to be my number 1 priority. 3/n

I care very much about my students and I do what I can to support them, and they know that, but I am no use to them if I am unwell. So, I am not going to start working 7 days a week and neither should you. 4/n

At a staff meeting our VC @NCanagarajah recently said that we should not be working more than 100% FTE and that we should speak to our line manager about it. But there are two problems: 1. My line manager has 0 involvement in our teaching n/5

2. If my line manager went to my head of school all he would say is that he doesn’t have sufficient staff. What would be the solution? Passing my workload to another overburdened colleague who hasn’t spoken up? n/6

I don’t know what the answer is, other than that we need more staff (that was true before the pandemic and has been exacerbated by it). But no one will believe us if we keep working all hours to meet the unrealistic demands and in the meantime we sacrifice ourselves. 7/7

Oh and I forgot to mention that some of us have the sword of Damocles hanging over us wondering whether we will be made redundant in the new year. Just another pressure to add! Thank you @leicesterucu for all that you are doing to support staff!