is life just so much faster, louder, intense, unkind, etc that we are just trying to keep up?
I read an article on teacher shortages and related teacher issues. It rings true for me and what I see. The corporate style that has been pushing into education for many years is encouraging high stress, short term teaching careers. One of our big pushes in Colorado several years ago was specifically against career teachers, they wanted people with more energy and ability to work longer and intense hours because those were the ones who would make a difference. They would also accept the lower pay (career teachers of course cost more). I rarely see long term teachers in my district. Energy and positive attitude was deemed more important than years of building skills in teaching,
My job got a big raise a few years ago, and we got a bump up in responsibility. Meanwhile the work load and number of tasks just keeps increasing beyond that. I hear this all over. Many people my age range (mid 40's to early 50's) are just tired. We expected at least to have some expertise in our field so that we could use that to have a life balance, not happening. Several people I know are going through career changes and actually earning less when we still have 15-20 years to work.
I am facing a re-boot at work, a chance to show I am better than what I have done so far and pull off a decent rating. I also am demoralized, I can see so many ways I could do better and yet I have not done it. I feel that I expect from myself and others expect from me that my quality of work will be every increasing regardless of the circumstances (like sitting on the floor to use a printer because my office sucks). This as well is something I hear all over,