Susie

Illustrative portrait of Susie

I see my job as a job and I want my time to be my time.

Susie is a long-term casualised researcher, employed on multiple one-and-off precarious contracts for around 20 years. After a career break she returned to academia, through spending two years doing unpaid work in writing funding applications: ‘I did do that work in my own time, yeah…’ This is the first time she is employed fulltime in academia.

Susie is not paid for applying for funding but does that anyway. She highlights the expectation in academia of working unpaid: non-academic colleagues think ‘it’s crazy’, but in academia it’s normalised. She believes doing research part-time should be more accepted, and negative attitudes need to be changed on this: ‘People need to accept that if you have family or “don’t go all in” you can’t work full-time, or you have to do things differently.’ Susie’s own time is ‘mostly my children’. Sometimes she does paid work in her ‘own time’ when with the kids.

Susie’s comic: ‘Time Trade-offs’

Susie is a neuroscientist who has been working on and off on casualised contracts since she finished her PhD in 2003.
[Image Description] Susie looking at blocks with text, describing different phases of her imagined life.

“I always thought of my time in blocks, even when I was little.”
[Image Description] Susie’s younger self.

“You don’t need to think so far ahead!”

After becoming a parent, she combined part-time job roles to get the flexibility she needed in her life.

“In the university sector, you work hard to get nowhere.”

“When you’re part time you’re made to feel like you’re just faffing around.”
[Image Description] Susie juggling whilst on a unicycle on a tightrope.

She believes that you should be paid for your work, and feels that this conflicts with the unpaid work demands of academia.

“Once a friend was telling me about doing overtime at her work. I was like– ‘getting paid for extra work?!”
[Image Description] Susie having a cuppa with a friend.

“My own time is mostly in the morning.”

“It’s the time of day that is just for me.”
Image Description] Mobile phone showing alarm going off at 6:00.

“I meditate before anyone else is up.”
[Image Description] Susie sitting on carpet with eyes closed and legs crossed in living room

“Sometimes I go to yoga classes, walk the dog.”
[Image Description] Susie outdoors with her dog.

“You need to learn how to prioritize yourself when you have children.”
[Image Description] Susie looking at family photographs.

I’m learning transitions – switching from home mode to work mode and vice versa.
[Image Description] Susie takes a step from ‘Home zone’ to Work zone’

She works in a lab and has worked hard to put boundaries around her research. To earn extra income, she works freelance from her kitchen table.

“At the end of my fellowship, I felt pressured to work on funding applications in my own time.”

“These were ultimately unsuccessful.”
[Image Description] Susie working at kitchen table with cat sleeping underneath. Dog looking for attention and in background family photos on the wall

The kitchen is full of photos of her family, her kids.

“I’m acutely aware of how little time I have with my family.”

When she works from here in the evening, she can hear her family in the other rooms of her home.
[Image Description] Susie working on her laptop, with laughter coming from another room.

She’ll be interrupted by pets and the pull of family life. This is a constant reminder of what she is trading for work.
[Image Description] Dog looking out kitchen window at the cat outside pawing at window to be let inside.

[Image Description] Susie working at kitchen table with words ‘work, analysis, editing, emails, reading, writing’ focused on her laptop. kids shouting in background ‘mum, is there anything to eat, can we go to the par, when will you be done? muuuum’..

“I am careful about giving up my own time to the job.”

“And I need to have my own time to do my best at work.”

“I try to keep my work and home separate. I don’t allow myself to work in the living room.”
[Image Description] Closed laptop.

“People may see me as less invested in my research, but that’s not true.”
[Image Description] Susie switching off light as she goes through door.

I have always felt that I could get my career back…
[Image Description] Susie looking at her family in the living room.

But not the time with my children.
[Image Description] Susie and her family watching TV.

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