I’m a tenured professor. What I’m seeing now has led me to a secret plan.

Good Job is Slate’s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir here. It’s anonymous!

Dear Good Job,

I’m a tenured professor who has watched the demise of academia and higher education and want out. I’m considering a side gig that could turn into something full-time. My institution requires us to report all such side gigs to avoid conflicts of interest, which is understandable. Before I pursue this side gig, I must first seek approval. How can I do this without making my real motive (to quit my job) obvious to my employer?

—The Professor Is Out

Dear Professor,

I’m sorry you and so many other academics are being attacked by the most anti-science, anti-history, anti-scholarship, anti-reality administration in U.S. history. There has always been an anti-intellectual strain in American culture, but it is unprecedented to have federal and state governments and their billionaire enablers cut medical research, pull humanities funding, deny climate change, and re-segregate higher education at this scale. They are burning the Library of Alexandria.

Anyway, you know all this. I just want to make sure other people don’t think: “Oh, this lucky person has tenure, wouldn’t that be nice! How bad can it possibly be?” You have plenty of reasons to want out, and knowing you won’t stay in a job forever gives you a lot of freedom. Before you go, could you use your tenured position to advocate for others at the institution who have less power? Graduate students organizing a union could always use more support from faculty. Adjunct professors might want a tenured professor to speak up about improving their meager salaries. Do any student organizations need more faculty allies? You could write an article for your professional society or local newspaper about the consequences of DOGE creeps attacking your institution, and how that harms students and society. You’re already pursuing a side gig plus your day job, so you must be busy, but I encourage you to make the most of your position while you have it.

I assume your disclosure will go to your department chair or dean. They are well aware that their professors are looking for exits (and they probably are, too). But you can present this side gig as a feature, not a bug. Tell them, if it’s not too much of a stretch, that it will inform your academic work. Point out that you’ll be connecting with potential future employers of your institution’s students. They’ll be most concerned about any conflict of interest, so disclose anything that could be a problem and assure them you will separate any side work conflicts from your academic work. I hope the side gig works out, but if it doesn’t and you stay on as a professor, I hope someday you’ll be able to help your institution rebuild.

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Dear Good Job,

I work on a team of six. Four colleagues travel. The team lead and I have weekly calls that drag on because they use them as a venting session for personal issues. Their problems arise because they have NO boundaries. How do I stop this annoying, massive waste of time? I report to them on this project and feel like a hostage.

—Every Meeting Is a Therapy Session

Dear Therapy Session,

So many workplace (and non-workplace) problems boil down to: How can you establish boundaries with someone who has none? And of course, the problem gets even more complicated when the person trampling all over your boundaries is supervising you. You might be able to start with a structural boundary. Are these calls scheduled for a set amount of time? If not, or if that time is too long, tell your hostage-taker that you are organizing your weekly schedule, and ask about setting your weekly meeting from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. If the meeting doesn’t already have a running agenda, ask to start one—“for efficiency’s sake,” of course—and assign each agenda item a certain amount of time for discussion. Fill the agenda with items you think are worthwhile, even if you have to pad it a bit. You can include an “all other business” item at the end to contain the venting. If they run over the set time or refuse to limit it, you can duck out at some point by saying you have other important business to attend to: “Oops, I’ve gotta run. I see that we’re getting close to our deadline on our next project, and I need to jot down a few more ideas.”

Another way to shut them down is to treat their trivial venting as Very Serious. Try, “You sound really upset. I think our employee assistance program has emergency counseling services, maybe you should talk to someone?” Or encourage them to problem solve: “That sounds frustrating. How do you think you can change it?” (People who are venting typically hate to be told to find solutions.) Ask them to justify why they’re talking to you about their petty problems: “Can I help talk through any strategies for dealing with this issue?” If they still run on and on unstoppably, pour yourself a cup of tea before the call, say, “Mm-hmm” occasionally, and scroll through Bluesky, work a crossword, or catch up on Slate while half-listening.

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Dear Good Job,

I’m approaching my seventh year at the same organization, and I was promoted to be the director of my unit two years ago. This was around the same time that new upper-leadership came in as well.  Since then, I have felt I’ve been floundering professionally, since the new leadership’s vision for my position (and my new supervisor’s management style) just doesn’t line up with mine. This, along with the awfulness going on in the U.S. as a whole, has catalyzed me to change careers and move abroad. I’m on a one or two-year timeline.

I have an assistant director, “Lydia,” who started about a year ago, filling the position I had left. She has hit the ground running and is amazing. I know that my heart isn’t in my work right now (and probably won’t be), and while I am not consciously quiet-quitting, I do know that the quality of my work and especially the quality of supervision by Lydia hasn’t been where I would want it to be. I’m thinking of sitting down with Lydia and being honest about where I am, and thinking strategically about a succession plan for my position that gets Lydia into my role, where I know she will thrive. Essentially, I want to spend a chunk of my remaining work energies trying to get Lydia’s role reclassified as “director” (with an equivalent salary reevaluation), and we would work as “co-directors” until I leave.

Is this a crazy idea? One concern could be that if my longer-term plan to depart becomes widely known, I might get pushed out, but A) I have a pretty high level of trust in Lydia and her discretion, and B) getting pushed out might not be entirely bad, perhaps even expediting my plan. Another concern is that human resources may want to reclassify my salary level (although in any rethinking of Lydia’s role, I would still be doing all of the same responsibilities I’ve been doing).

—Shooting Myself in the Foot

Dear Shooting Myself in the Foot,

Before we get to your main question about Lydia and her career, let’s talk about your own timeline. You say you’re planning to move abroad in a year or two, but don’t say why you’re putting it off. Do you need time to save up more money? To do more research on visas and logistics? To launch your new, portable career? Sometimes we hold out hope of doing something in a year or two because we can’t bear doing it right now. I understand the urge to leave, but unless you are sure you’ll be ready to expatriate later, don’t plan your career around this escape route.

Whether or not you leave in a few years, what can you do now to address your sense that you’re floundering? Have you talked to your manager about how to adapt to the new-ish upper leadership’s vision? Unless it’s a misguided, unclear, or exclusionary new vision, you might be able to freshen up your work life by learning more about different ways of doing things. Ask to be included in strategy meetings with your supervisor. Explore ways to redefine your own role that fit with the new vision and don’t revert to how things were done before.

As for Lydia, it’s always a good idea to consider succession plans. Good for you for helping her thrive in your old role and for setting her up for a promotion. To get to your specific questions: Do not share your frustrations with her. That puts too much pressure on your direct report, who looks up to you and shouldn’t have to worry about your feelings. Do tell her you want to set her up for success, and ask her if she wants to take on more responsibilities. If so, talk to your human resources department and your supervisor about whether there’s another job title between her current “assistant director” and your title of “director” that could recognize her growing role and get her a bigger salary, like “deputy director” or “managing director.” Making her a co-director is probably a non-starter for all kinds of institutional reasons (salary budgets, organizational chart confusion, authorization lines, etc.). Tell your supervisor you’d like to take a fresh look at job responsibilities, which includes taking on new challenges yourself as well as giving Lydia new opportunities. Good luck, and if you do move abroad, bon voyage!

—Laura

Classic Prudie

I am a manager of a small team at my workplace. My industry is heavily male-dominated, and my team has one other woman on it besides me. My team member “Claudia” is professional, friendly, and intelligent. I have no qualms about entrusting her with important, time-sensitive tasks, and do so with great success. Claudia was always very large and has gained a substantial amount of weight in the past three to four years…

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