What I would be doing if I weren't striking

This is the first part in our series on how academic staff spend their time. Throughout the strike, we'll report from the frontline of unsustainable workloads. Have you ever wondered what a lecturer, a postdoc, a teaching fellow does outside of the classroom? Read on to find out...

The list of what I haven't done feels longer

Having gone to bed last night at some point after 1 am (I was up late drafting a new paper), I'm up at 7 to start a new day. I glance through the newspaper headlines on my phone, jump in the shower and then sit down to some breakfast and emails. I spend a lot of my time dealing with emails. Today I have questions from students, a request for a letter of reference, agendas for meetings I have to attend, a new assignment to mark, and a whole lot of irrelevant junk. I deal with what I can and leave the rest for later - I have to glance through my lecture one more time before I'm out the door at 8:15.

I teach from 9 am until 11 am. I'm tired and my brain feels a bit slow, but I hope I get my point across. Some students look happy with the material, but others look decidedly confused - a pretty standard lecture! Afterwards, I spend about 15 minutes answering questions before running off to my first meeting of the day.

A student feels they are struggling in my class, and has asked to meet with me. I'm always happy to receive these requests - I love my subject area, and enjoy helping other people appreciate it too. We chat a bit about how the student is feeling and work through some problems together. At the end of the meeting, I think we've cleared up some issues, but I always feel like I could have helped more.

It's 12:15 and I check my emails again - more questions, more meetings, more junk. I fire off a couple of answers and then run to my next meeting.

A colleague from another department wants to hear about my experience collecting data, and is asking for my advice. I don't feel qualified to give anyone advice about anything! I am very much a sufferer of imposter syndrome. We have a nice chat and a cup of coffee, but I'm again left feeling like I could have helped more than I did.

At 2 pm I have a meeting with members of the department. I had been hoping to get some lunch before this meeting but ran out of time. With stomach grumbling, I listen to updates on UCL bureaucracy and the department's attempts to do good work despite it. Some updates are promising, but most will inevitably lead to more work: more boxes to check, more meetings to attend, and less time for research and teaching.

Late for my next meeting at 3, I rush back to my office and open up Skype. I'm meeting with a colleague in another department about a paper we're working on together. Unfortunately, neither of us has had much time to look at the data, and our deadline is coming up. We update each other briefly on what we've read, what we've written, and what we intend to write before the next time we meet, and we reassure each other that if we put in a few extra hours over the weekend we'll be in a better position next week. Then they have to go for their own departmental meeting.

It's 4 pm and time for lunch. I eat while going over my emails. I try to delete what I don't need, but am still left with over 30 that need answering. For about an hour and a half, I answer these, and do some Moodle admin (updating lecture slides, posting a new assignment, answering a few questions...). I know I've made progress, but these kinds of tasks feel never-ending. At 5:30 I decide to head home, but end up chatting with a colleague and generally putting off heading out into the cold and dark.

I'm home by 7 and am faced with a dilemma: do I get a start on my marking, or do I try to make some progress on the paper I'm working on? I decide that I don't quite feel up to the marking, so I read over what my colleague and I have written so far, and heat up some leftovers for dinner. (Note to self: need groceries!) After a while, it's clear I'm not going to make any more progress tonight, so I check back to my email. This was a mistake: I find more emails to answer, but don't have the energy to do so. Around 9 I decide to call it a day (well, maybe one more email...), and spend the rest of the evening on Netflix and the Guardian feeling like I should be working.

Objectively, I know I've been busy all day, and I know that I've done a lot. But the list of what I haven't done feels longer: marking, prepping my next class, finishing the article that's been sitting in my drafts folder for weeks, cleaning my bathroom, answering that text from an old friend... I constantly feel like the tide of 'to-do's is on the verge of sweeping me out to sea, and it's only by swimming as hard as I can against it that I'm able to stay within sight of the shore.

Right now it doesn't feel like things are going to get a lot better. That's one of the reasons I'm striking: these workloads are unsustainable, and they are going to push dedicated, able people like me away from working at a university. I can only hope that universities listen to their staff, and do what they can to allow us to work more effectively and more healthily.