The Diary of an Unemployed Academic - Part 1
May 10. 2022.
The life of an academic is not a bed of roses, especially when you are very young in the system and trying hard to balance teaching, research, and administration. And if said academic is working in the private sector, life gets to be a little bit tougher. Not too long ago, I had disagreements with the senior management of my past employer and decided to move on from my first ever academic assignment. In my experience, people start looking for a new job, get a new offer letter, and only then quit their existing job. This was not my case. At the time of resigning, I was hasty and probably a little bit immature, but then, my gut has a way of sensing bad things to come, and I felt like me leaving was going to be good for all parties concerned. For a few days, it was fun to go around telling people that I was “headed for unemployment”. In India where I live, the rate of unemployment was recorded at 8-9%. The real number of unemployed was likely much larger (give that unemployment numbers use the number of jobseekers in the denominator). I thought it may be a good idea to for me to document my unemployment and understand how it makes one feel. Unemployment is a key problem that merits scholarly discussion. But then, I don’t think there are many instances when good academics get completely unemployed. Given that this is an interesting opportunity, I thought it may be a nice academic exercise too.
Let’s cut to the chase and begin with the meat of the matter.
Disengagement:
Perhaps the first key step that needed to be taken in my case was disengagement. Given that there is plenty of social media and digital connections that one holds, I had to take some key steps to actively disengage.
First, I began writing to all key stakeholders informing of my stepping down and passing on all relevant information to them. The documentation process took a few hours of time. Given that I had already clean documentation for much of what I was doing, it was relatively straightforward. Then I met the key people within the organisation and said my good byes. This was actually the toughest part of the day. When you leave a regular corporate job, one could expect to miss their colleagues and maybe clients, but in an academic job, you are leaving behind your students with whom you create real bonds. Severing them is really painful. After evading as many students as I could to not have uncomfortable conversation and having many more uncomfortable conversations with admin staff who wanted me to stay back until I got another job, I had to move on to the next step.
Second, I began clearing out of my space. This was a huge deal for me. I had so many things that I had brought into my office space, an extra monitor, reading light, my own keyboard, tons of books and print outs, coffee mugs, actual coffee powder, and even spoons. Putting each item in a box or bag made me reminisce the good times I had in the office. I then moved everything to my car with the help of my friends. My colleagues were the best part this job. I was very certain that we would still stay connected through various routes and that I would not ‘miss’ them the same way I did students. But then, it was not until a few hours back when I woke up that I realised that I would not see them in their office and share coffees with them from time to time. We have a saying in IIM Calcutta, “we don’t leave anyone behind in Joka”. I was an am still a firm believer in that philosophy. But then, I did really leave people behind in Nerul. And it was hard. Very hard. I really hope I can make it up to them in the weeks to come.
Last but not the least, I began by exiting from various WhatsApp groups and other social media. There were quite a few to begin with. After that, I went to Linkedin.com and changed my employment status. Turns out, you cannot just say you no longer work (given that the site is designed for job seekers and networkers). This made me create my own new firm, ‘unemployed school of business’ and became a full time employee there. That was fun. I was worried that LinkedIn would throw up an update on the walls of all my friends. That worry, I feel was the first step on my way to understand that tomorrow morning, when I wake up, I would not have any ‘official’ responsibilities to perform. I could do whatever I wanted (therefore I have chosen to conceive of this really weird experiment and begin writing). The next stage, logically, should be planning for the day. But then, I after a sip of coffee, I have decided to wing this step. Maybe a walk would help.
