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[porcupine]

In several weeks I will have a discussion about reappointment with my department chair. I think I have done very well in teaching, research, and service, so I think I will be offered reappointment - though I do not assume this. However, I am on the job market and am waiting on the results of two first-round interviews (one of which was last week). My chair knows this and is reasonably sympathetic to my stated reasons for moving, which involve a relocation preference for family caregiving reasons, and a lack of professional opportunities for teaching and research along my preferred lines of expertise and interest in my current role.

What the chair and I do not discuss is that I am spectacularly unhappy in what is rapidly becoming a nightmarish academic unit, run as a for-profit institution. When I say I am unhappy in my current position, I mean that being in the position is literally making me ill. I can barely stand to go into work and when I do, apart from when I am meeting with students, I am desperately depressed.

I am unhappy chiefly because I am asked by the chair to perform various duties that I think involve me in acting unethically and against broader institutional policy. I have tried to resolve these issues with the chair, but the chair refuses to listen to any objections or to make changes to the way our unit works. I tried speaking with officials further up the administrative hierarchy and they claim there is nothing they can do. I am not the only faculty member who is unhappy; most of my colleagues are as well, but many of them are tied to this region geographically and do not have the same flexibility I have to move (assuming anyone else ever wants to hire me). My colleagues have stopped challenging anything that the chair asks of us because of this; so now, any time I want to object to something, I am on my own.

My dilemma is this: should I resign if my job search is not successful? I do not want to leave academia. I am doing very well in teaching and research and want to continue - just not in this institution. I honestly do not know whether I can stand another year in my current job. I am already depressed and I think another year might do my health serious harm. But if I resign, I know I will have great difficulty finding any other job - and there's also the prospect of unemployment.

[farm_boy]

I feel your pain, but I have no answers.

I quit academe because of ethical conflicts, but after striking out in the non-academic market I came back, but at a much lower rank and salary.

It would help to have some job skills.

[aside]

My dilemma is this: should I resign if my job search is not successful? I do not want to leave academia. I am doing very well in teaching and research and want to continue - just not in this institution. I honestly do not know whether I can stand another year in my current job. I am already depressed and I think another year might do my health serious harm. But if I resign, I know I will have great difficulty finding any other job - and there's also the prospect of unemployment.

It generally is true that your chances of getting a university position are better if you currently hold one.  If you have gaps in your employment history, that raises all sorts of questions for search committees.  While your reasons may be perfectly fine and understandable, it is difficult to convey that in the application process without detrimental effects.  This is not to say you should stay in a toxic position forever, but that perhaps it would be better in the long run to stick it out until you secure another position.

[yumyumdonuts]

I'm so sorry you're going through this, porcupine. I don't have any good suggestions to offer other than that I agree with aside's point that if you do want to stay in academia, it might be necessary to stick it out another year where you are if your search doesn't work out this year.

[bigtwin]

If you are suffering from depression to the point that it's impacting your health, I'd consider getting professional help, like seeing a psychiatrist.  Leaving a job is a big decision to make. What if you move elsewhere and find yourself having the same issues?

[glowdart]

I wouldn't resign because finding a new job will be hard if you're not in one, but I would seek out some professional help, find some hobbies or other things that make you happy, and then start assessing all choices at work while considering some of the following:

1.  Will this task make me portable?
1a.  Can I spin this to make me portable?
1b. Is this portability-neutral?
1c.  Is this going to not only not help my CV, but is it going to keep me trapped here?

2.  Will this task make my blood pressure go up to unhealthy levels?
2a.  Can I prevent that?
2b.  Is it short term idiocy or long term idiocy?
2c.  If long term, then is there a way to get out of it that won't bite me in the ass?  Is there someone more logical to complete said task? 

3.  Who is asking me to complete this asinine task?
3a.  Someone who doesn't matter. 
3b.  Someone I need to keep happy but who might be gone in six months.
3c.  Someone I need to keep happy and who will never, ever, leave.

4.  How portable are you right now?
4a.  You're getting interviews, which is good.  What else might you need to ensure that you get more?
4b.  What is the weak spot on your CV, and what can you do to strengthen it?
4c.  Grants & fellowships -- apply for one and try to get out for a semester.
4d.  Get people to look over your materials -- talk with friends who have been hiring elsewhere.  Scour the job ads.  Figure out what your CV needs that it doesn't have.   

5. Campus Culture:
5a.  Can you simply not go to campus except to teach and make comments about how you're working on your book, articles, whatever to pre-empt and b*tchiness from people? 
5b.  Can you start holding your office hours in the library or the student center or the coffee shop because it's more "student-centered" and you're trying an experiment in student-centered advising?  (Work the jargon.)
5c.  If others are equally or more fed up and tenured, then can you mount an insurrection while not actually mounting it or participating in it yourself? 
5d.  Do you have any sympathetic senior colleagues who can protect you from some of the bulls***?  If you can develop some service tasks (or whatever) that show that you're a good department citizen, then can this senior colleague use that task to deflect the nastier things that you're being asked to do? 

6. 5d leads to, the Bait and Switch, employed by you:
6a.  Are there other service tasks that you can offer to take on in a pre-emptive strike that will get you out of the unethical service tasks? 
6b.  Is there some campus-wide committee that prevents you, due to your handbook language, from being able to do the asinine things you're being asked to do?  How do you get on it?
6c.  Can you create new service tasks that make you portable, make you look good internally, and get you off from doing other things?
6d.  Can you volunteer for a part-time admin job on campus?  Most places have these sorts of things that open from time to time; keep your eyes out and inform the upper admin that you're interested in admin and want to move into one of those openings.  This has the added benefit of getting you at least partially out of your department, but it also gives you something to do external to the department.  If your entire job isn't the department, then that can help to temper the internal stuff. 
6d.  Employed by you, on you:  What treats can you give yourself so that walking onto campus isn't hell?  New office toys?  New coffee machine?  Mental tricks where you only focus on the students?  Reschedule your office hours to avoid the chair as much as possible? 

Good luck. 

[porcupine]

Thanks to everyone for posting. I'll respond privately to those who pm-ed me.

I wasn't going to start a search this year. I was going to go on the market next year. However, things are so bad that I started already.

I think I would benefit from professional help. However, I would actually prefer to seek counseling over the phone - are there any services that provide this?

Looking at glowdart's list (which is fabulous and very helpful for clarifying my thinking):

1. Great advice - but see 2.
2. I cannot get out of tasks. The chair heaps administration onto us all and I don't think anyone has ever even tried to get out of their assignments. My usual tactic these days is to do the absolute minimum necessary so that nobody bothers me.
3. Unfortunately our chair is also senior in university administration. Usually the answer is 3c.
5a: doing this - it helps;
5b: strongly discouraged from doing this by the chair;
5c: everyone hates the place but nobody is willing to do anything about it
5d: unfortunately not. The unethical tasks extend to teaching-related matters, too, which are directly controlled by the chair.

This is why I feel so frustrated. Our chair is extremely controlling and will not accept any proposals for change.

4a: better cover letters, tailored precisely to job ads, with a really convincing explanation as to why someone with book contracts in hand who published a lot this past year also loves teaching, honestly wants to balance teaching and research, and would be thrilled with a 3-3 or 4-3 load; thinking about it, I also need to gloss my cv, and to provide a writing sample that makes me look look less like an interdisciplinary, Porcupine studies person and more like a focused, discipline-specific Porcupine theory specialist;
4b: I have a PhD from a non-US institution (nothing I can do about this); I could do with more good journal publications (working on it);
4c: The chair will not support me applying for anything that would take me out of the classroom - the expectation is that I will have no sabbatical or research-related leave, except in summer, until tenured;
4d: have done this but will swallow pride and get help from another source with more recent job market experience;

6: Great recommendations. I am trying some of these - especially new toys - but in a small institution it is really hard to become more invisible and to get out of things. 

[cancom]

There are a number of over the phone services that offer this sort of counselling that, to be sure, I should probably take advantage of myself - OP, it sounds (aside from a few details) like we work in the same place, or at least in the same situation. Do a search for an EAP (employee assistance program) like Morneau Shepell - they specialize in over-the-phone counselling and are often covered by your institution.

That said, sadly I agree that quitting isn't a viable option to leave THEN look unless you can afford to and are able to present it as a 'sabbatical' of sorts (many places have an option to take an unpaid leave or unpaid sabbatical that you can then use for research/job search but you have to check on what your obligations would be for the other end once the time you requested for the leave expires and you do/do not have a new job in hand). The bonus is that you are gone but haven't given up your title so, on paper, you are still employed which is a much better position from which to search for a new job. Even then it's difficult to explain if you've recently had a sabbatical and the leave isn't guaranteed by any stretch, particularly in a tight job market.

I feel your pain, for many the same reasons plus some other outside reasons myself. It's funny how many more of these stories I've read lately, almost as if the economy slowing down has lead the claws to come out since those who are inclined to be mean know that most people aren't able/willing to roll the dice.

Good luck.

[farm_boy]

Unfortunately, many of us are unexpectedly thrust into the position of either doing what we know is the honest thing or keeping our professional career.