{"id":1175,"date":"2015-05-26T13:58:45","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T13:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/?p=1175"},"modified":"2015-05-26T13:58:45","modified_gmt":"2015-05-26T13:58:45","slug":"recovering-from-depression-with-a-40-hour-work-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/2015\/05\/26\/recovering-from-depression-with-a-40-hour-work-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovering from depression with a 40-hour work week"},"content":{"rendered":"

written on May 8, 2012 and saved for publication until tenure<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Sometime in the fall of 2011, it became apparent to me that I was depressed.\u00a0 More than likely, I had been depressed for several years before, but that it had slowly become worse.\u00a0 Fall of 2011 was difficult for me.\u00a0 I was teaching two large classes, one a freshman class that I had not taught before.\u00a0 It was the last quarter before I submitted my mid-tenure review.\u00a0 By exam week, after weeks of just barely managing to keep up with my teaching duties, I knew that I needed help beyond that of my partner and close friends.<\/p>\n

I was not teaching during the winter quarter of 2012.\u00a0 So, I was able to devote a little more time to getting better, seeking council, and experimenting with various treatments.\u00a0 But I felt behind.\u00a0 Very behind.\u00a0 I would feel energetic and would pour every ounce of that energy into finishing papers, travelling, giving talks, advising students in a hopes to make up for what I thought was four months of futility.\u00a0 And I would tire myself out and I would crash.\u00a0 I think the technical, and thankfully figurative, term is ‘lose my shit’.\u00a0 Travelling was particularly stressful and, months and months before, I had planned for this teaching-free quarter to be a quarter of reconnecting with collaborators and establishing new ones.\u00a0 I managed a few of those trips, but had to cancel others.\u00a0 I was up and down on at least a fortnightly basis.<\/p>\n

So when winter quarter finished, and with a positive mid-tenure review behind me, I faced adding teaching to what I felt was an unsustainable pattern, I knew something had to give.\u00a0 I talked with my boss about taking a partial leave.\u00a0 Cutting back on my hours.\u00a0 She was very supportive and so I arranged to take one day a week off work.\u00a0 In addition to weekends.\u00a0 So, instead of working 6 days a week, I would work 4.\u00a0 I did this officially, through human resources, applying for FMLA leave so that I could take my leave unpaid and ease my guilt.<\/p>\n

So for the last 6 weeks, I have been working 40 hours a week, consistently, for the first time in a long while.\u00a0 I know that many (perhaps most) salaried employees work more than the usual 40 hour work week, but still, I do find that it is strange that I went through the rigor of federally protected sick leave to allow myself to work what is intended to be a normal work-week. I know I could have gotten away with working 40 hours a week for a long while without taking leave.\u00a0 But, I did this for myself.\u00a0 First, I knew that if I didn’t need to write on a piece of paper that I didn’t work one week-day per week, I may make excuses and exceptions.\u00a0 Second, I was worried that, if it took a while for me to feel mentally recovered, my productivity may have taken a dive and I may need an extra year to work towards tenure.\u00a0 With leave, I would have no problems getting that extra year.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it seems to be working.\u00a0 I have had 6-7 weeks of keeping my shit together.\u00a0 I feel productive.\u00a0 I feel happy.\u00a0 I feel healthy.<\/p>\n

Maybe we’d all feel a little better if we worked a little less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

written on May 8, 2012 and saved for publication until tenure Sometime in the fall of 2011, it became apparent to me that I was depressed.\u00a0 More than likely, I had been depressed for several years before, but that it had slowly become worse.\u00a0 Fall of 2011 was difficult for me.\u00a0 I was teaching two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3747,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[187579,187578,187580],"class_list":["post-1175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-depression","tag-post-tenure-posts","tag-working-too-much"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3747"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1176,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions\/1176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/glencora\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}