Abstract
This chapter considers the many challenges and choices academics face in neoliberal workplaces. It highlights the authors’ individual and collective experiences as they make decisions that reject the intimidation of the neoliberal university. Embracing Harré et al.’s (2017) conceptualisation of the university as an infinite game, the authors have been repurposing neoliberal obligations and standards using an ethics of care and rest to guide them. Employing collegially supportive collaborative writing processes, the authors are learning how to make intentional choices that do more than tick neoliberal boxes, but which purposefully enrich their lives. In this chapter, readers are invited to join the quest and become ‘game masters’ of their own lives and work. They will negotiate obstacles and overwhelm, recognise and gather the resources that sustain them, and ultimately, face ‘The Boss’.