So, in a textversation today, The Dude ultimately responded to my offerings with the following:
“I didn’t realize that being an English professor could be so stressful.”
First of all, let me note, he didn’t write that in an assholish way. He honestly was NOT like, “wow, that’s surprising since you people eat bonbons all day long, and you are a whiny baby because lots of people have it worse than you!” No, he was genuine in his wonder, and he was genuine in his compassion for me, even though I did feel like I was being a whiny baby. And, frankly, before I became a professor I probably would have responded exactly the same way. I didn’t get into this profession for the stress. Not at all. Indeed, I’d really imagined that this was the nonstressful option of the others I’d considered (law, journalism, working a “regular job,” becoming a novelist, whatever). And yet, here I am. A stressed out English professor.
Why am I stressed?
- Department politics. I have a really hard time with pretending that people who don’t pull their weight deserve an equal say in decisions. I also have a really hard time with letting people have a discussion about something abstract idea that is fucking stupid when there is a real item on the agenda that would address a real concrete issue that is why the abstract thing is upsetting people. I like identifying a problem, coming up with a solution, and then strategizing for how to make the solution happen. As much as I like theorizing about literature, I’m a pragmatist in my working life as a professor. People who don’t intend to make a real thing happen, and who aren’t willing to work for real, concrete things, drive me fucking crazy.
- Students at nearly midterm. They take a lot of energy. Mainly because they are freaking out. And them freaking out causes me to freak out. Freaking out engenders and inspires freaking out. It’s not easy to be the person who is supposed to calm people’s fucking nerves.
- I have my own shit right now. Now is the time to submit abstracts for MLA panels, now is the time to submit applications for certain kinds of prestigious seminar things, and now is the moment when I should hear about certain grant applications that I submitted in September. Also, I’m supposed to be polishing my book manuscript (which is not getting done because of items 1 and 2).
None of the above would be stressful, I realize, if I weren’t ambitious and if I weren’t competitive. If I didn’t have those qualities, I could just come in every day, teach my classes and take pleasure in teaching them, and then come home and be fine. But I realize that I am both ambitious (within my university and within my discipline) and competitive (within my university and within my discipline). I really have a drive to excel, which is maybe ok, and also to beat people, which makes me kind of an asshole, even if it’s what is required to excel in academia.
I am ambitious. And I don’t even know what I’m ambitious for, really. And I am competitive, mainly with an eye toward beating other people, even with something as stupid as “my” students getting into better grad or professional programs or getting better funding packages for those programs, which is great for them, but it really has little to do with me, and it shouldn’t. I hate being a person who claims those accomplishments that I know aren’t mine, even though I do. So.
The point of this post is, I am super ambitious and I am ridiculously competitive. Even though I resist those things in myself. I’m embarrassed to be these things. But also? This is who I am. And I’d rather be those things than be the opposite, even though I think that my impulse to be ambitious and competitive in this particular way is wrong.
Reassigned Time 2.0 
This: “I like identifying a problem, coming up with a solution, and then strategizing for how to make the solution happen.” And also, I am ambitious, too. This is exactly what I’m like and why I’m apparently such a pain in the ass to manage.
Exactly the same way here, though I try to stay out of department politics unless they directly impact me (which is more rare than when they try to impact me). As long as the department meetings are short I don’t worry about the people who suggest things that are never going to happen… back when we spent ages discussing things with no action items I also wanted to blow a gasket.
http://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/ambition/
Ditto for me. Had to check and make sure that I didn’t write this post. Now that I am chair, I am starting to implement policies that call people out on their lack of work. Even though I don’t have much power, I utilize people’s laziness to my advantage. We need to develop standards for evaluating effectiveness in advising – who would like to volunteer? Oh none of you will – fine I will (and I will create standards that are completely reasonable but that will bust you because you don’t do those reasonable things). Being chair adds to the stress level, but at least now I feel like I can do some thing about #1.
Thatte’s absurd to feel bad about being ambitious and competitive. Itte’s awesome to beat other people!
I haven’t read academic blogs in soooo long. It’s very strange to read them and see how you all approach your careers. The tremendous concreteness with which you strategize and see tasks.
So amazing to read yours and profgrrrl’s blog and see how very goal-oriented you both are. I cannot approach any aspect of my work in that way. I think it would make me unable to work. So much of this feeling you describe of wanting to beat people–perhaps it is how you motivate yourself? It is a very smart tactic. If it worked for me to get things done to think that way I’d absolutely try it
Yet, I’m so lost–not ambitious and not competitive. I don’t think I ever was. But instead I have a terrible feeling when I am not accomplishing things and I want that feeling to go away. This is what motivates me.
Wishing to be like you would be like wishing to be another person entirely. So I am not envious. However, the way you are doesn’t seem at all embarrassing but rather precisely how one is supposed to be in this and perhaps most professions.
And agonizing, puzzling, floundering as I do and only accomplishing things to avoid the shame of non-accomplishment is not at all how one is supposed to be. Writing this comment, I suspect it works for me in some way though.
I wonder if I thought I *could* beat people I would be more ambitious. Rather, I want people to leave me alone and that also motivates me–if I do such and such they can have nothing to say to me. I also care very much about my work and my students but only in a very personal way, not in a very general way. I get invested in particular bits of work and particular students.
I’m not sure why I wrote this much on this post but I suppose the upshot is–think of the alternative to ambition and competition. These are things you probably need. You have found 2 amazing tools to get you where you need to go. So don’t knock it.
I wonder if some of the difference in the competitive/ambitious person and others is the difference between introverts and extroverts. I am very introverted and somewhat detached from people in my university (except for students, whom I am very attached to) so there’d be no payoff in beating them.
Also, one of the many reasons I hate academia is that the ambition and the competitiveness of people make it more unpleasant for me. So that is another great asset you have
For the non-competitive person the contemporary atmosphere of universities and conferences is a bummer.
What CPP says. I am personally fiercely ambitious and competitive and I believe these are among my best qualities, as they provide an internal engine (especially wanting to beat everyone else).
But I totally get your feeling of shame about ambition and competitiveness. It likely comes from the fact that “girls are not supposed to be like that,” i.e. girls are socialized to be nice, likable, and always yielding to the needs of others.
There is nothing wrong with being ambitious. I am. I do not feel that I am competitive but that is because the people who are tend to be insecure, backbiting, back-watching, jealous, etc., destructive, and so on … maybe I am also competitive but I am just not like that.
I find Americans, or at least the ones east of the Rockies, tend to think that for them to succeed everyone else must fail; they seem to fight over potato chips and things that; I am glad not to be in that culture.
I posted a few weeks ago on competition. http://profacero.wordpress.com/2013/01/19/on-competition/