So today I confronted the bits and pieces that are my book manuscript. A conference paper here, an invited talk there, an actual drafted chapter elsewhere, bits and bobs of notes and quotes and ideas… When I work on a big project like this, I don’t do it in a linear way. Or, rather, I work on tiny portions in a linear way, but the while the parts are linear, the whole is not. Until it has to be. And, really, the whole has to become linear now.
My original goal, in December of last year when I quietly circulated (the first version of) my book proposal, was that the manuscript would be ready by the end of January 2013. Clearly, I did not meet that internal deadline. However, I forced myself to confront the amorphous manuscript today, which I’ve been avoiding, and July 2013 is entirely reasonable – indeed, it gives me a full month of wiggle-room, in which to do what I need to do. I am currently at around 55K words, but the project is fully formed in my head, the research is done, and the theory is grappled with. I’d say I’m about 75% of the way there (even though the word count doesn’t really reflect that). If I had two solid months with no teaching or professional responsibilities to write, I could be done. But I have two solid months of a 4/4 load, so reasonably, I need to give myself through the end of July. But: there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and, also, the good thing about tenure is that you can give yourself that extra 6 months on a project. This isn’t life or death (career-wise) for me. And that is awesome.
In other news, I am supremely irritated by my colleague (who is also my friend) to whom I am a mentor who a) takes none of my advice and b) is “distracted” – waah! and c) doesn’t seem to realize that if she doesn’t do what I tell hir to do that she is going to get denied tenure and be motherfucking unemployed. Oh, I am “different” and have so much fucking “energy.” You know what? My job isn’t on the line! Zie’s job is! But apparently I’m just fucking exceptional, and so when I tell zie that zie needs to get hir shit together, I’m being an asshole who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Except what zie doesn’t realize is that I’m not advising her based on my productivity at all: if I were, then I would expect zie to have a book plus a handful of articles, plus about 10 courses, plus a variety of service things, at tenure. No: I am coaching zie to the baseline, and not at all to the fucked up shit that I did. But DUDE, if you don’t meet the baseline, you won’t get tenure! And you’ll get fired!
The Dude, who is amazing and great and in line with me on all things, says I need to drop the colleague, because you can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. And I actually totally agree with him and think he’s super smart. But where he’s not like me is that I feel upset and sad about dropping people. Even if I know it’s totally the right thing to do.
I really love The Dude, though. He is SUPER awesome. It’s too bad that most people aren’t as awesome as he is 🙂
P.S. I don’t have the energy for this right now, but I’m gonna do a post soon about my “energy” in the job, and about how I approach the things. But, man, I’m tired. I can’t.
Reassigned Time 2.0 
It is very frustrating to mentor junior scholars who view themselves as so magical wagical that the standards and rules that applied to all the now-senior colleagues that preceded them are magically wagically not going to apply to them.
It sounds horrible, but you get to a point where you have to let some people fail. After a colleague was denied tenure, zie realized taking my advice might have made a difference, but it was too late. I did all I could do. I’m sure you’ve done more.
This relationship you have with your mentee sounds interesting to me. I am a post-doc right now and all I have ever wanted was for someone more senior than me to offer some direction. (Honestly, I wouldn’t mind hearing what they think I should do). I would love to hear about mentoring from the mentor’s perspective. If your colleague isn’t listening maybe you could shift the terms of the relationship to focus more on the friendship than the mentoring? I can imagine that it can be frustrating but it sounds like you’ve done the best you can.
Maybe your colleague can’t do what you’re advising him/her. For whatever reason. That is okay, too, as long as you’ve been open and honest, and it sounds like you have. People have their own paths, which they need to follow.
It’s frustrating when a junior colleague defeats mentoring, DC. My sympathies go out to you (and my anxieties go out to your resistant mentee). And I have no idea how “distracted” could be offered as a serious excuse.
Rather than simply dropping this person completely, you might consider reducing the energy you put toward hir until/unless zie takes more action on hir own behalf. If you’ve tried to persuade someone to do something (for hir own good) twice, and it hasn’t taken, you don’t need to keep trying to exhort or persuade. You can simply ask, “How is [X] coming along?” If you get a BS answer, you can not engage the BS.
Or, to put it better than I’ve been managing, after you’ve made an honest effort to warn your junior colleague, you should consider energy and attention spent on mentoring hir as a *reward* for professionally healthy behavior. Don’t spend that energy rewarding hir for negative behaviors; even if it’s a frustrated exhortation it’s energy you’re spending on this person. Save the energy for when zie’s done something good.