I’ve been thinking again about how hard it is–has been–for me to fight for myself. Professionally, I mean. Hard for me to toot my own horn. I’ve already written here of my discomfort with “selling myself,” but recently, whether it’s the brain meds or the therapy or the fact that it’s fall again and I have finally started to internalize that I earned that PhD, I’ve gotten strong enough or mad enough or desperate enough that I’m taking action.
I’ve been revising my CV, my coverletter, my teaching statement, etc. I’m acting like I am a professional, not a student or a puppyish apprentice. I’m bragging on myself a bit. And? And it’s kind of fantastic. Kinda like this was fantastic.
And just yesterday, I asked a colleague, a tenured man familiar with the ins and outs of our institution, about the possibility of getting funding (for conferences, etc.). I said that I feel like my insultingly low wages should be offset by some of the other benefits of institutional affiliation. I said that I’ve worked hard for this school, that I’ve brought new and exciting curriculum to it, that I’m an excellent teacher who really helps students learn. I told him I wanted to be nominated for such-and-such teaching award. I said “I deserve better treatment than I’m getting.”
And he agreed. And he gave me information, suggesting possibilities for funding (oy, the bureaucratic hoops!), and said he’d be happy to write me glowing recommendations for jobs or that award I so totally deserve. He even offered to collaborate on some sort of article about the class we’re teaching together.
!!!
I wish I could tell you what exactly has changed that I felt okay about it, but I don’t know. Maybe, now that I’m done with the long, solitary slog that is the dissertation, I’ve freed up emotional energy and will to fight again? Granted, asking is just the first step. I still have to do all this fucking work that may or may not pay off. But finally asking, and hearing “yes, you’re right” was positively elating, and has me ready to go out there and kick some ass.
All this to say that yes, it can be done. And it’s worth doing. You can do it. YOO KAN DOO EET.
Have you done it? Tell us how awesome it was.
You do deserve more PhDork. Getting that PhD is a BIG DEAL, and your institution should be treating you like a professional, with all the perks that go with.
My brother is a prof., and it seems if he is not teaching or researching, he is jumping through endless beaurocratic hoops for a chance at various funding streams. Sometimes it seems like he spends more time trying to attain funding for other projects than getting to do anything else.
Self-promotion rocks! Because you/we rock!
The best part of getting better at self-promotion is realizing that it’s not just promotion. It’s real. It’s seeing that your impressive narrative of your skills and achievement is in fact reality. You actually grow into the “suit” that at first felt uncomfortable, and then becomes second nature.
One of my favorite things about Mr. Elibard is how he keeps reminding me of my expertise, skills and abilities (I really have developing online science educational media since the beginning of “online,” and managing successful teams for more than 10 years), and encouraging me to vaunt them and to politely demand recognition. Largely because of his encouragement, I demanded and received promotions and raises I would not otherwise have gotten. And when I was no longer progressing, he urged me to move on. And I had the confidence, after years of experience, and seeing that yes, I actually have lots of experience in my field, to find rockin’ new positions.
As you say, you have to ask. You have to stand up for yourself, because no one else will do it for you. No business or employer will look out for you. You have to do it yourself.
PhDork, I’m so happy for you! Congratulations on realizing your own accomplishment, skill and ability! And sure, you’ll need to do the work, but you’ve already proven that you can do that brilliantly. You’re not in it to skim by. You’re in it for the opportunity to use your brain, to employ all your skill and talent.
“…..I still have to do all this fucking work that may or may not pay off…..”
If you would have us consider your use of the word ‘fucking’ in the above to be as a noun, how could it not pay off?
If, conversely, we are to understand the word to be an adjective, I commiserate.
Very recently I stopped shying away from things and now am volunteering at a local museum, and I volunteered to work for a prof. That’s turned into an honour’s thesis that he invited me to do. Research experience.
Previously I had basically been minimally involved as I felt others could offer so much more.
Coincidently I went on brain meds somewhat-shortly before all of that. (Hurray!)
Nu?
Is it my appellation or my word play on the double meaning of ‘fucking’ (and the hopeful humour) that prevents my previous comment from being positively moderated?
Or is it something else?
Don’t ‘positively moderate’ this comment though.
It has helped me to think in terms of self-advocacy rather than self-promotion. Perhaps it’s in my Midwestern blood! “Promotion” felt too close to advertising and the spin and disingenuous hype I associate with that. “Advocacy” on the other hand, means speaking up for myself and the worth of my ideas, my activities, and my presence in the world.
One of the things I’ve gotten a lot better at in the last three-to-five years is taking people up on their offers to help me connect to people and resources that will further my scholarly (and other) goals. So for example when someone shows interest in my work, I’m much bolder at sending them a PDF of a presentation, or a link to a blog post. I email people whose work I think might mesh well with mine. I offer to write book reviews or blog posts. During grad school I submitted proposals for conferences, papers to journals, applications for grants.
Nothing huge, it’s true, but even the small stuff requires that leap of faith — that belief that your ideas are worth people paying attention to. I don’t think there’s a magic formula, and that thinking you’re a person of worth automatically means other people will think you’re a person of worth … but it’s true that believing in your worthiness, and the worthiness of your endeavors, gives you a source of energy to make yourself that little bit more public.
Not, again, that I have the magic formula for deciding you’re worthy if you have trouble believing it. So complicated!
VD: It’s me being away from my computer all day, that’s all. We love fucking as a noun and an adjective and an amplifier and an expletive. And an activity.
I like Anna’s idea about thinking of it as “self-advocacy” rather than “self-promotion” if self-promotion makes you uncomfortable. Which it does for a lto of us because people—women especially—are conditioned to think about self-promotion as vaguely sleazy or huckster-ish.
I wrote about this in a post a couple years ago about being underpaid and how it took me longer than it should to get off my ass and get another fucking job already (adjective there!) when my boss didn’t deliver on a promised raise/promotion. It was a huge, permanent boost for my ego when I was hired within a month for 40% more than I had been earning. It made me realize that I did, in fact, rock my job, and that if I had done this once, I could do it again. That’s carried me through a few other moments in my career when I had doubts or disappointments.
I dunno if it’s the new meds or what, Dorkie, but I’m glad you are back in touch with the fact that YOU FUCKING ROCK and the fuckers who underpay you are lucky to have you. It’s so not you, it’s them.
Hurray for PhDork! I’m so glad to hear that you are feeling better about everything – and about the successes your self-promotion/advocacy has brought so far!
I’m utterly failing to come up with examples from my own life so far, but one thing you wrote really resonated: ‘I’m acting like I am a professional, not a student or a puppyish apprentice’.
When I started a job teaching last year in a foreign country, with zero experience and just about zero preparation (no teaching qualification of any kind!), I remember wanting at some points, when the going got particularly tough, to just run away and forget about the whole business. The mantra that got me through it was more or less ‘you’re a grown up and a professional now, whether you feel like it or not, so get on with it and do what’s necessary to do a good job’. Somehow, it really helped…
Thank you PhDork.
I was just about to off myself with a bottle of zinc tablets and a pair of jumper cables when you allowed my comment(s) through.
I was feeling a tad rejected.
What you did is expected for men and discouraged for women. Screw that. Go, Dorkie! And everyone else here who has learned to speak up on her own behalf. Whether your job is fucking or anything else.
Fantastic news Dorky! Yay!!
It’s taken me a while to work out this stuff too, and I understand it as “if you don’t ask the answer will always be no”.. and in the asking “there is the possibility that the answer may be no”.. I like my odds when I ask.
Go and fucking rock on Dorky! And I reckon there needs to be a celebration of the rockin’ things that the harpies do, and do incredibly well!!!