Skip to main content

Death by tenure track



A 45- year old Japanese chief engineer working for Toyota had worked "nights and weekends and often traveled abroad" for six months. When he died of heart failure, a local Japanese government agency ruled that his death had been caused by overwork, reports an article today in the Washington Post. Apparently death caused by working too much has become so common in Japan that they have a word for it -- karoshi.

The thing is, this description -- working nights and weekends and often traveling abroad -- reminded me of so many of the professors I talk to. Could it be that academia is quietly killing tenure-track professors?

I've never heard of any statistics that indicate that academics go to an early grave. I do see a lot of people, especially pre-tenure, who suffer from what are probably stress-induced illnesses.

Perhaps there is no increased incidence of karoshi in academia because the tenure track has an ending. Your body says, "Hang in there; there is hope; this will end." Or maybe the relative break that the summer semesters provide allows the body to recover.

Either way, the fact that it is generally accepted in Japan that overwork can kill you provides a cautionary tale. Work too much, for too long, at your own peril. Learn how to balance your life, so karoshi won't get you.

Comments

  1. Tom@Funeral Homes Salt Lake City2:57 PM

    I'm from the US and I'm not sure that this would ever be a prescribed form of death here. While I understand that it probably happens, I'm not sure anything like this would happen.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gina Hiatt, Ph.D.3:15 PM

    Let's hope it's not prescribed! There are definitely laws against prescribing death. :)

    Although this is a spam comment, I approved it because it's so funny. You go, Tom!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jessica Williams @ Affordable Utah Funerals10:48 PM

    I find it very sad that 'overworked to death' is common in Japan. However, I have had several Japanese coworkers and they literally never stopped to take breaks or anything. It's a different culture for sure than the US work culture. I hope that this kind of thing can be frowned upon in the future.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Academic Exhaustion Syndrome: Four Recovery Strategies

The semester’s over. If you’re anything like the academics I coach, you feel like death warmed over.  Those last stacks of grading got done on sheer will, determination and fumes. And this is before considering your writing deadlines, committee responsibilities, and other demands.  You are suffering from Academic Exhaustion Syndrome.  Academic Exhaustion Syndrome (an advanced, more scholarly state of burn out) is a state of emotional, and physical exhaustion caused by prolonged stress, ending with grading, over the course of the semester and academic year. As the stress continues, you begin to lose interest and motivation to work, you have fantasies of standing up and screaming in the middle of a meeting, and you wonder what temporary loss of reality testing made you decide to become an academic.  This dreaded Syndrome can: Reduce your productivity and saps your energy Make you irritable and have thoughts of strangling an undergraduate Make you feel like you have nothing more to g
13 comments
Read more

"ABD" -- what does it really mean?

I thought I knew what the definition of ABD was. It was exactly the same as defined here in Carnegie Mellon's University Doctoral Candidate Policies for All But Dissertation (ABD) : After the completion of all formal degree requirements other than the completion of and approval of the doctoral dissertation and the public final examination, doctoral candidates shall be regarded as All But Dissertation(ABD). I have, though, occasionally run into the term ABD being used as a somewhat disparaging designation for one who fulfills the formal degree requirements of the Ph.D. but never finishes the dissertation, and then quits the program. Most recently, I saw it in What They Didn' t Teach You in Graduate School: 199 Helpful Hints for Success in Your Academic Career , by Paul Gray and David E. Drew. Number 9 of their helpful hints is one that I strongly agree with: "Remember that a Ph.D. is primarily an indication of survivorship." They go on to say, "You stuck wi
97 comments
Read more

The Second Holiday Writing Challenge for Academics

Here's a little boost for those who need a little kickstart to write over the holidays.  I first offered a Holiday Writing Challenge  back in 2005, so I'd say it's about time to do it again. Here's what you do: Post in the comment section: what you'd like to work on (if anything) over the holidays, and the maximum amount of time you'd like to spend on it daily . Please keep this time limit reasonable and low unless you're under huge deadline pressure -- in which case you don't need this challenge in order to get something done! Whether you're a professor or a grad student, make sure you get a copy of the Dissertation Toolkit.  These tools will give you more information and tips for productive and creative writing.  For those of you who have had trouble making yourself write, you may want to start with VERY short writing goals . Even 5 or 10 minutes will be enough to get you jumpstarted.  Don't go more than 25 or 30 minutes withou
35 comments
Read more