#FollowTheMoney 54/n

This article is hard to stomach for all those of us currently looking for work, and not finding anything suitable, or anything at all. But it’s good that at least rising #unemployment is recognised now.

My own #redundancy last year and subsequent struggles have made me so alert to all these wider structural changes; I am really scared that this may be just the beginning. Terrible combination of AI and money going only to the rich

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/feb/10/britons-hunting-for-a-job-uk-jobseekers-pay?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

#FollowTheMoney 44/n but also: #Redundancy has made me think deeply (of course!) about the role of money in personal decision making. I may be wrong but it feels like this is something we don’t talk about much, and yet it is is so central to everything! I DO want to talk about it, even if I have nothing insightful to say actually. Just a few observations.

1. Money was at core of my decisions around redundancy. I have two teenage children and a high mortgage.

#FollowTheMoney 42/n Firstly, I am conscious of my own #redundancy being very much part of the wider hollowing out, draining out of both public services and professional, creative industries everywhere (see many posts ). I am really scared about this - it’s strange how this is happening but not really talked about; no #unemployment crisis narrative at all, as of course most people, like me, end up not being “unemployed” but doing smaller, precarious jobs; very few of us on benefiso no stats

#FollowTheMoney 41/n Ok so the reason for the long pause in this was being made rdundant in July, by my lovely (not) employer of 13 years, Goldsmiths University. You can read all about it in this long #AcademicVenting , tracing the whole sorry saga from first rumblings in Nov ‘23 to the bitter end. But of course, #redundancy is all about money, and I think about money all the time now (I have to), so really should write it about it all here a bit

https://mastodon.green/@pvonhellermannn/111563234050886278

@perry_mitchell I'd avoid not just #SMR but all #Helium-filled drives as a matter of principle.

• Also isn't #UnRaid that weird #KVM-Distro?

I mean, I know #trueNAS SCALE & #ProxMox doing #ZFS + #Ceph for #clustering and #redundancy...

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy But by yesterday afternoon I somehow turned a corner; I am beginning to work out strategies for being an environmental anthropologist in my own right, even without institutional backing. I may have a new book contract; a small consultancy for the RSPB; and some teaching for the wonderful New School of the Anthropocene. No huge earners but all really helping psychologically right now. Here’s to #RegenerativeAnthropology!
#ClimateDiary

https://www.nsota.org/

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy then I spent this last week with two very different but equally misery-inducing aspects of extrication:

a) sorting out future of my PhD students (4 current, 2 that were due to start now) - many conflicting emotions, and it’s all just so sad;

b) battling with the intersection of email, Outlook, Google, Teams, Adobe, Microsoft, etc. The horrors of this really showed how helplessly entangled we all are in all these platforms! (Not asking for tech advice).

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy Further twists and turns in the last couple of weeks: AFTER 62 of us accepted enhanced redundancy and 18 took fractional contracts (forced by deadlines), SMT and union struck a deal that the remaining 11 - the ones going for appeal - would be reinstated. Allowing both SMT and UCU to collude on a “no compulsory redundancies” narrative; UCU widely celebrating this as a union victory. A bit galling.

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy

After more back and forth (a great 0.5 was advertised for us 3 to compete for - same duties, half pay - but none of us applied) and more charming communications from our “Transformatipn Programme team” (always anonymous!) I have now accepted “enhanced redundancy”. Onwards and upwards!

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy These days I really can’t find the words to recount what’s going on. Let’s just say a lot of back and forth; chaos, incompetence and cruelty; never ending visionless mediocrity that destroys everything.

One thing to report: i have now had the privilege of an ACAS webinar. More competent than anything coming from SMT, but no faces, no in person questions, and a cheery “See you next time” screen at the end. Corporate dystopia, straight from #BlackMirror

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy Two weeks today and sadly not quite there yet with finding new ways forward - for one, there is just so much to do, get your head around, decisions to make around redundancy process itself. And this past week a physical reaction set in, just sheer exhaustion.

Also want to note once more: it really is unbelievable what is being done to myself and 96 brilliant colleagues. The “how” aa much as the “what”. And to Goldsmiths. It is total vandalism, brutal, traumatic.