When University Systems Create Pressure Without Ownership - Burnout and stress

Higher education is spending its people like money and eating its own capacity...

The work never ends, but the control over it keeps drifting upwards and sideways, away from the people who have to deliver it.

Then everyone acts surprised when the people left holding the mess get tired, sharp, foggy, slower, less tolerant of one more “can we just” request that lands five minutes before close of play.

In both professional services and academia, you feel it first because you sit at the point where decisions become tasks.

A plan gets agreed by someone, you find out late, the date stays fixed, and suddenly you are the person explaining why it cannot happen by Friday while also being told it still has to happen by Friday.

So you fix it.

You borrow time from next week.

You cancel something important.

You write the comms, fix the data, calm people down, take the heat, then go home with your brain still buzzing because you never got to finish the actual job.

Nothing dramatic needs to happen for damage to rack up.

It’s the repeat.

The handover that isn't.

The “we need this signed off” that arrives after the choice got made.

The meeting where you get told what the outcome is, then get asked to make it real, and aren't allowed to say what it will cost.

I wrote the longer piece because I keep seeing good people blame themselves for a setup that would grind anyone down.

If you are in HE and you’ve started thinking “maybe I’m just not coping like I used to”, you’re probably not imagining it.

You’re reacting to load from an unworkable system and not failing at your job.