At the Margins

I have an esteemed senior colleague, who I respect on a number of levels, who has colorful ways of describing various aspect of our jobs. One day, after an especially difficult meeting, he reminded me that we earn our paychecks "at the margins." There are so many aspects of our job that are truly enjoyable that we would probably do them even if we didn't get paid. So, we get paid for the tough cases; for the work "at the margins" that requires extra effort, extra guidance, extra patience, and extra careful decisions. The end of the semester is when the margins are stretched to their limits -- students who are not quite performing up to par, journal papers to review that should just be stamped "reject," but that require extra effort to be constructive about, articles that are not shaping up as you thought they would, people asking for extensions for any number of obligations, etc. At this point in the semester when non-academics think we are "on vacation," we are truly working hard for those paychecks.