Pissants!
I’ve had a number of conversations lately with faculty colleagues who are struggling with a little midsummer malaise. It seems like summer days should be so easy, a cool slide into a pool.
In reality, however, shifting from the over-scheduled time of semester’s end to the weirdly-scheduled days of early summer is more like a lurch.
If this is the struggle you’re currently experiencing, I have a suggestion for you: take on the pissants!
What’s a pissant? Well, there actually is an insect species that smells like urine (the more you know!). But, more generally, a pissant is a small thing that is annoying out of proportion to its size.
Dealing with pissants is, therefore, incredibly draining and frustrating. Think of any task that you know to be elaborately bureaucratic but not very consequential. Or, a technological update that you don’t actually care about. Also, unlike other small tasks, the completion of pissants isn’t particularly satisfying. Pissants really suck.
I know that I’ve discovered a pissant when I’ve avoided something week-over-week and then, upon doing the thing, it turns out to take 20 minutes but I’m exhausted for the rest of the day. That’s an energetic pissant.
Or, conversely, when I work on a loathed task that feels like it should be minor—locating and updating my HSA info, for one—and I discover that a whole day has been devoured, I know I’ve found another breed. These are time pissants.
Pissants can range in level of annoyance, but they are, like those pee-smelling ants, little pests.
During the semester, when I’m busy and otherwise stressed I know that my reaction to them can be similarly out of proportion to the size of the problem: Why doesn’t anything work around here? Why doesn’t this university want faculty to get any real work done? Etc.
In other words, mid-October is a bad time to deal with pissants.
In contrast, summer is a perfect time.
While you’re casting around for something to do that’s a little less weighty, why not make a pissant list?
Tackling pissants during a break can feel less overwhelming, give that virtuous I’m-checking-something-off-my-list feeling, and make life better during the next academic year.
To spur your own brainstorming, here are some of the pissants on my list:
· Unsubscribing from emails
· Figuring out how to print to the office copy machine
· Discovering and writing down my login names and passwords for conferences and scholarly organizations
· Updating Adobe on all devices
· Begging dry cleaner to give me the dress for which I lost the slip
· Figuring out how to use my Garmin
I’d love to hear about your pissants and how you’d categorize them.
If you’d like help thinking about your own days, writing productivity, post-tenure blahs, work-life balance, etc., consider coaching with me. Book an exploratory session here: https://katherinefusco.com/work-with-me
