Well, it’s starting. You probably don’t feel the pressure, but I do. You can go about your life without ever having to think about it. You assume somebody takes care of it, but, to be honest, you’re glad it’s not your responsibility.

But I don’t have that luxury. I have to think about it.

You can sleep soundly in your bed, thrashing in the middle of the night with all the “what ifs ….”

Not me, my friend. I’m the guy they pay to have anxiety this time of year. A lot of people are convinced they could do my job without too much trouble. Wouldn’t even break a sweat.

But when it gets to be this time of year, nobody comes up to me and says, “Man, I wish I had your job!”

I used to be like that. What a great gig! Getting paid to read and write, teach, share in people’s lives?

Um, yes, please!

Fine. I’ll admit it. It is pretty great. But if you think doing my job is easy, well, then I’d invite you to step up during this season.

You try grading exams and final papers for students with stage four-level Spring Fever warring with the sometimes crushing expectations of well-meaning parents and friends.

That’s what I thought.

Teaching at a university is all fun and games until one of the Volvo-driving/tweed suit-wearing tyrants pulls out a red pen.

I have a confession. I don’t like grading. Do. Not. Like. It.

One of my grad school professors told a bunch of us Teaching Assistants who were whining about grading tests and papers once: “Nobody ever got into teaching because they liked grading.”

And we all knitted our brows and nodded sagely. “Man, that’s the truth.”

No, the other reason exam time can be so tough is that no matter how explicit I am about my students making sure to turn everything in by a specified time and date, there are always a couple of things I have to track down. “Don’t turn it in late,” I’ll say. “I’m cracking down this semester.”

As my wife would say, “Mmm-hmm.”

“No, I mean it this time.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

I’m something of a pushover. I have colleagues who have no qualms about failing students—with very little pretext. But I don’t want to flunk anyone because I don’t have their papers—because maybe it was my fault; maybe they turned them in, and I lost them.

One time, I had a student who was getting an A- in the class, but I still hadn’t received her final essay. So, I emailed her a couple of times to see where it was. No response. So, I started to get a little anxious because I needed to turn in grades, but I didn’t want to punish this young woman, who’d been an excellent student all semester long.