Thread by @cath_fletcher, So I have a story for #UCUStrikesBack about starting out 15 years [...]

Catherine Fletcher

cath_fletcher

So I have a story for #UCUStrikesBack about starting out 15 years ago as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and being told I had 20 minutes to grade each essay. https://twitter.com/seefryar/status/1200416599263629313">https://twitter.com/seefryar/...

https://twitter.com/seefryar/status/1200416599263629313

I had just taken a career break from a job in TV news, where we worked to actual real deadlines and people often had to get things done very fast. So I took my 20 minutes literally.

After all, if teams can produce a three-minute report for the One O& #39;Clock News in three hours, I can grade an essay in 20 minutes, right?

So I cheerily went along grading fast and that meant my students got one short paragraph of feedback and I only ever corrected spelling/grammar on one paragraph as an example.

I had NO IDEA that other people didn& #39;t work like this until the end of term when I went for drinks with some other GTAs who were all moaning about how marking took 45 minutes an essay.

Me, with look of horror: & #39;What, hang on, why are you doing work we don& #39;t get paid for?& #39;

And no-one really had an answer, except that they had somehow been convinced that they ought to do their best for the students.

I think that was the first time I realised that academia gives people very strange ideas about what is and isn& #39;t work. And don& #39;t get me started on the overtime thing. Did I tell you about how in my old job we got OVERTIME at a HIGHER RATE?

TL;DR - Don& #39;t do work you& #39;re not being paid for #UCUstrikeback

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