More committee work. A task force nobody had volunteered for. Then a third request, before the semester was even half over.

That’s when a client called me and asked, “If I say no, will it look bad?”

It’s a fair question. I asked it myself more than once as an early career professor, and later, as head of department, I had to reflect carefully every time I made a request. Would this fit in with their current portfolio? Would it advance their career? Was there anyone else I could ask, and if not, why was that?

Sitting on both sides of that conversation taught me something. Universities run on inertia. They are slow-moving institutions that rely on people staying put, and administrators (often without meaning to) lean on the people who reliably say yes. There’s rarely a built-in limit on how much gets asked of you. If there’s going to be one, you usually have to create it.

That’s easier said than done, especially before tenure or promotion, when every request feels like a test. (A few of them are. Most of them aren’t. The trick is knowing which is which.)

My client did two things. First, we worked on how he talked about the work he was already doing, so the people asking could see it. Second, he started looking at other options. Within a few months, he had an offer in hand. He didn’t necessarily want to leave. But for the first time he could compare his options clearly, and that changed how he felt about every request that came next.

He stopped feeling overworked. He started feeling like he was steering his own career.

I’m not suggesting everyone start a job search when the service requests pile up. But it’s worth asking whether you’re saying yes because the work matters to you, or because you can’t see another option.

A few questions for you this week:

• How many new requests have you said yes to this semester?
• Which of them move your research or your career forward?
• Does the person asking know what you’re already carrying?
• If you said no to one of them, what do you think would actually happen?

Get in touch if you would like help figuring all this out. Some of the most interesting work I do is helping colleagues figure out how to handle the implicit requirements of an academic position.