... you spent nine years of your life to get good university education from an undergraduate to a Ph.D. degree, published in one of the top journals in the world in your discipline, were offered a job with a promise of research time and support, and then were told what academic research is by people who struggled to get their bachelor degrees from under-performing universities? Yup, welcome to our hell! Let this post be a warning to ambitious and intelligent people who consider applying for jobs at post-1992 universities (even those that appear to be good judging by league tables, etc.). Don't believe the managers and people who interview you, instead approach some young and mid-career lecturers for some unofficial information on the working conditions, duties, targets, etc.
A couple of years ago we were offered lectureships at the Degree Farm. Already in the job interview we were assured of the extensive support for our research and amazing opportunities available to us. The message was reinforced when we were offered the positions. It all seemed good. The picture was quite exciting - being a part of an underdog that wants to join the big dogs in the game. A chance to change something, to be a part of some great development. What else a young idealist could ask for? The first year was tough - focused almost entirely on teaching, course development and admin tasks. But hey, the first year is expected to be difficult and it should get better later on, right? Well, it didn't. The teaching load was steadily increased to 70 - 80% of our time, we got involved in 4 - 6 courses simultaneously and the rest of the time is spent on more and more mundane and brainless admin tasks. On top of that, some of us teach 3 semesters in a year - September to August! The requests for basic (and inexpensive) research software were repeatedly denied as the management couldn't see any benefit in spending money on it. Conferences? - "Expensive, do you really need to go?" Workshops and additional training? - "Expensive, can't you find something cheaper? Sorry you used your share of the annual budget when we paid the 20 pound fee for your previous workshop..." We could spend a whole day counting more outrageous examples. The problem is that they would always come up with some dramatic excuse - someone being sick, absent, had an accident, the department was understaffed, etc. But how can that be the case for over 2 years? Our recent departmental meeting made it clear - research doesn't count or matter! The management more-less said that most members of the department do not have intellectual capacity to conduct research and they shouldn't be treated any different. Therefore, no one should get any research support! Obvious logic! (sarcasm).
So to sum up, they recruited a whole bunch of people with Ph.D.'s from the top UK universities on the promise to develop the university's research profile, then once they had us in, they kept denying any chance of doing research and in the end our line manager shouted (!) at us saying that research is not really our job.
We must be sadists to be still around... Time to move on, don't you think?
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