<p>Two possibilities … you have no concept of time or are delusional. And that might explain why you “have” to laugh! </p>
<p>Here is a hint: one person who works 12 hours a day for six days a week averages 70 hours. If he were to work 50 weeks in a year, he would work 3,500 hours. We would be happy if the average professor works ONE THIRD of that on an annual basis. The tenured diva even less! </p>
<p>I have relatives who are university professors. I know how they complain all year long about office hours and having to rush to finish grading papers. The only time the complaining stops is around this time and around Christmas when they have weeks upon weeks of free time. What is absent in their life? Missing school functions, recitals, games, or other activities of their children. More? How about worrying about babysitters and camps during school vacation days and having to take time off during the holidays like common mortals. </p>
<p>Laugh all you want, but do not assume that others only have a remote knowledge of the time people invest in educating others. Working long hours is simply not very common for the ones who “made it” and got to the sinecures. Adjuncts and lecturers might not be that lucky, but they are the ones who have to balance the extraordinary benefits of the generations before them who did and still exploit a quasi feudal system. </p>
<p>I don’t have statistics handy on averages and my experiences are more on the sciences and engineering side where there is substantial research work done. But it appears to me that professors do work very, very hard.</p>
<p>Oh, that infamous “spending a lot of time on research” boondoggle! That always works well to appease the parents who foot large bills for the undergraduate years. And we know how much of their time the senior faculty devotes to teaching those pesky youngsters! </p>
<p>Ever noticed why almost all issues concerning rapidly rising education costs are raised by parents with kids in US years, and very little about graduate school expenses? </p>
<p>It will simply get worse until the day the entire system collapses with a tertiary education that will be too expensive to afford and an extremely poor investment in time and money. The good news is that people will be able to actually subscribe to that bunch of worthless research journals that are currently only read and used by the peers of the authors. </p>
<p>But, heck, let’s applaud how well the system works today! Researchers will tell us it works beautifully! And, I will buy what appears to be true to BCEagle, and set aside what I happen to know.</p>