There is such a thing as a, “toxic work environment.” Many of you have worked in one. It is likely that some of you still do. There are lots of things that can make a workplace toxic and often times that toxicity comes from coworkers or a terrible boss, and we often stay at these places because we need the job and the pay is decent, maybe even good. So we stay. We stay and sacrifice our mental health. We stay and sacrifice eight, or nine, or ten, or twelve hours each day to that toxicity. Then we spend a few more hours trying to mentally and emotionally recover from a day filled that toxicity. We do these things so we can pay for the things we need and want. It is difficult to leave toxic jobs, especially when we are established in that job. One of the many reasons why my wife is one of my greatest teachers is that when faced with the prospects of working in a toxic environment for the long term, she gave up tenure and a safe position and said, no thanks to all that noise. She’s an OG! Many end up putting up with that toxicity so our non-work lives can be comfortable. I get it, but the math just doesn’t seem to work.
Work: 8-10 hours, including commute - another potential nightmare depending on where you live and work - and some of you reading this work even longer days.
Life’s daily responsibilities: 2 hours (probably more).
Sleep: 6-8 hours (hopefully)
We are already up to about twenty hours, and we have not done anything we really want to do. And yes, some of you work at jobs that you love, that are not toxic, that are rewarding and provide you with meaning, a sense of purpose, maybe even joy. But it’s still a job being done for the purposes of eventually paying that earned money to others.
I have a job that I love. I have a job that provides me with a sense of purpose and dare I say it, quite often, joy. I do not work directly with any toxic people, oh they are there, I’m just lucky enough to not have to see or deal with them, pretty much ever. The public however can be extraordinarily toxic with regards to teachers. Keeping all this in mind, it is important to recognize that there is very much a systemic toxicity in teaching. Some of this is specific to teaching, but much of it comes from the societal myth that our lives are defined by and centered around work: the very activity that so many people loath - the activity we spend most of our adult lives doing. The activity that causes many of us to trudge through, zombie like, 70% of each week for the pleasure of two days off. Again, the math doesn’t work. And it doesn’t have to be like this.
First, let’s get it out of the way. Yes, for teachers, the summer is awesome. I am not going to hide behind that and tell you that I spend each waking moment lesson planning or doing professional development all summer long. I do some work in the summer, but not very much until the last few weeks. I get every single holiday off. I never have to miss a single Thanksgiving or Christmas. That’s an amazing perk of teaching and many jobs do not have that luxury. It’s weird that its considered a luxury to enjoy holidays with one’s family. Not all jobs can guarantee this, health care workers, first responders, and the military immediately come to mind, but there does not seem to be a reason, beyond the relentless drive of capitalism, that retail stores need to be open on Thanksgiving.
Here is an insight that you all already know: Each of us has a finite number of years, months, weeks, days, and hours on this planet. I imagine that we your number is called you won’t be taking comfort in the fact that you worked that extra shift rather than going to the baseball game, the concert, or even just enjoying a few moments of doing nothing.
As a society, we need to relearn how to live and how to enjoy life. Trust me on this, I am a recovering workaholic.
Once upon a time, I would arrive at school each morning between 5:45 and 6:00am. My first class starts just after 7:00am. I wanted to get in early to put in an hour of work before the students arrived because often, I could not stay very long after school because I volunteered as a coach for Football, or Track, or Baseball - depending on the season. I would then, get home around 4:00pm or 5:00pm and start grading and prepping again, normally for a few hours. I’d answer emails from parents, make phone calls to some of those parents, update my website for the students, basically, I’d be at home working for a few hours each day. Around 7:00pm or 8:00pm I’d have dinner and then go to sleep around 9:30pm in order to wake up a 5:00am the next morning and do it all again.
I had tremendous guilt if I did not get the papers graded the next day. I hated the feeling of being unproductive or unprepared for class and so I overprepared. I never took a day off, often coming in sick. I never used my contracted personal day. I rarely missed school for any reason. Parents of my students and athletes had my phone number, I connected with students on Social Media in order to provide more help over the weekends, I signed up for education apps that allowed for texting between myself and students without exchanging phone numbers. In essence, whenever the students or their parents needed me, they could get hold of me. And I answered those messages instantly. At dinner I would finish up quickly in order to respond. While watching television I would have my phone next to me and respond, I would get back to people while at a Red Sox game. It really was all consuming, but I really did not know any better.
A few things changed my entire perspective and ultimately my behavior.
Having Kids. This one is obvious. My kids require my attention and I give it to them. But even this did not entirely alter my work habits. I’d simply stay up later to get all that other stuff done.
Pandemic. The forced isolation really helped to center me and helped to refocus my energy. This and the fact that the public was so vicious to teachers regarding how school was being done - as if teachers were making any of those decisions. We were constantly called lazy and told that we really did not care about the kids. Some folks I was really close to were saying these thing and when I confronted them they would say, “well not you, but others.” I called bull-shit on that and cut those folks out of my life pretty quickly, and realized that all the extra time and effort did not matter as soon as folks did not get exactly what they wanted. Teachers went from hero to villain over night.
Betrayal. I learned that some of these students for whom I sacrifice vacation and family time would turn on me as soon as it was advantageous for them to do so or so they can get a few social media ‘likes’. This was a tough to deal with, for I am a pretty emotional guy. It did help me realize that my time, attention, and emotional investment would be better spent elsewhere and so for that I am grateful.
Cancer. My wife’s cancer diagnosis put into painful focus that my professional life is nothing but a job. I will still work to do that job well and I will never mail it in, but I will also never again feel one ounce of guilt about taking a day off for my family or for my psychological or physical health. I will no longer run to respond to after work emails or stay up past midnight grading papers, or use those connective apps. I am working very hard at leaving work at work.
This last part is tough for teachers. The toxicity of teaching often comes from the hero-teacher mentality and the expectation that teachers, because we do love our students, are just expected to volunteer our time, work for less pay, and be constantly within reach of our students and their parents. The toxicity come from things like that ridiculous meme that says, “Teachers teach for the outcome, not the income.” I hate this quote with a seething passion. It endorses the ideas that it is okay to not pay teachers what they deserve. It exploits a love of students and learning in order to justify a series of bad financial practices. Worse still, it is more often than not shared by teachers. So please, stop it! Or, I guess, you can opt to work for free because after all, it is not about the income… right?
Our society is defined by work, as is our sense of personal and collective. Work is important, obviously. Society could not function without our division of labor, but somehow it has become seen as acceptable and even desirable to work fifty or sixty hours a week - people boast about it as if all that time toiling is a badge of honor. I had hope, naïve hope, that the Pandemic would change, or at least start to change, our work first mentality. Lots of businesses realized that their work force could be just as, if not more, productive by working fewer hours each day or switching to a four day work week. Many folks realized that working from home was possible without a loss of productivity. And yet some seem to wonder why folks are not running back to their service industry jobs where they are underpaid and underappreciated - as a side note, based on comments on social media it is clear some of you never worked in those service industries, or have just never been told “no” in your lives.
It says a lot about our work-first culture when the question, “what do you do for a living” is one of the first few questions we ask when we meet someone new. Are our lives really that devoid of meaning, joy, leisure, and experiences that we revert discussions of work during social settings at which we are trying to get away from work? I can tell you that not every society is like this. Some have really figured it out. I want to figure it out too.
Thousands of years ago Epicurus argued that our very short lives are better spent in pursuit of life’s little pleasures. Far from the modern hedonism that is sometimes laid at his feet, Epicurus thought that finding moments of joy and serenity amidst life’s struggles is how we find happiness, with the ultimate goal being to extend those momentary joys to the larger parts of our days and our lives, thus minimizing the toil and maximizing the joy. Imagine that…
Now, I gotta get going to work.