The Times They Are A-Changin'

Yesterday, I accepted a job offer with a tech company I'd never heard of a month ago.  (Look, sometimes those LinkedIn 'you should apply for this' suggestions are really good.)  

Today I went to work and hauled away all my plants and papers and spare shoes and all the other things that accumulate over years. Also all my co-workers had feelings at me about this- they are happy for me but also the fall is now going to be mildly disastrous and also they're sad because I was good at it, dammit.

I am now having a complex emotional reaction which I can't easily interpret.  On the one hand, my new co-workers seem legit awesome and I'm actually looking forward to all this.  Also, they are paying me nearly twice what the university was, so, you know, that's nice.  And the university could have made me a more long term offer any time in the past THREE YEARS if they wanted me to actually stay, but you know, things happen in academia like glaciers in an ice age.

On the other hand, the [redacted] job at the university that was kind of half-earmarked for me by the head of that division finally came around and they emailed me about a second interview literally one minute after I emailed them and said I'd taken another job.  Did I do the right thing?  Is this a good choice?  Is it bad or just scary???    I DON'T KNOW!!  

On the one hand, I have already made a decision and sent it to the Provost and ordered new office equipment and re-assigned my advisees.  On the other hand, should I have held out for something different rather than taking the (very good and extremely appealing) first offer I got? (I wouldn't have taken it if it didn't seem good; my contract at the university had two more years to run and also I am not new here.)  On the first hand again, the uncertainty was extremely trying to live with and getting rejected over and over and over from jobs was actually pretty disheartening.

And then again: well paid new job!  What on earth do I have to complain about??? 

Anyhow, I'm not going to change my mind or anything, I'm just going to have a lot of incomprehensible feelings about it for the next three weeks until my new job starts.

P.S.  I read this book at a formative age and therefore I both asked for and got 10% more money than they initially offered, so yay.

Dear Students and Colleagues,

 As you have doubtless heard by now, public schools have just- six days before school was to start!- decided to go all-online for nine weeks.  Yes, they have freaked out today about a cumulative regional caseload that looks like this, distributed across a population of almost 300,000:

Lest you think, but the college students! all of ours were tested on return and almost nobody was positive. If this seems misguided to you, wait until you hear the best part: the superintendent, who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is convinced things will be better in 9 weeks. In October. You know what's just getting going in mid-October?

You will note, students and colleagues, that it is, literally, illegal to leave a five year old home alone. Our childcare now consists of two mornings a week of the 16 year old neighbor, a college student one afternoon a week, and my 68 year old mother.  I will be available approximately 30 hours a week to do all the work for my full-time job. This is because the country, state, and university are united in responding to this set of impossible conflicts with a firm and caring  "Dear Parents, Fuck You Very Much." In return, I'm proud to respond to their support in this trying time by offering the bare minimum of effort that will still get me paid!

In summary, if you need something, email me. 

Yours in complete fury,

Jenny F. Scientist

A Very Specialized Imposter Syndrome

Right now I am teaching a very intense lecture in my speciality, as in I would say "I am a surfboard design specialist" and the whole class is in surfboard design.

I am walking up every week - sometimes every other day - at 2 am in a flat panic. My little bear brain is convinced that I'm doing a bad job (especially in the middle of the night) and is super anxious about it. I'm having stress induced migraines and I have a headache all the time and frankly I feel quite unwell.

And then there's the other FOUR whole goddamn classes I'm responsible for and inside my brain it feels like I have to run a half marathon every single day while people throw things at me and I keep dropping them (extremely heavy handed metaphor, brain! Thanks!) so every time I have to do something, more anxiety!!!!!! What if I'm doing it, but badly? What if I can't, really?

Only 9 more weeks. I can do 9 more weeks, right? RIGHT??

(Very deep breath.)

Work Frustration

This summer, my work partner and I redesigned, set up, tested, and then piloted a series of new (teaching) labs. They are not perfect, but they are better than they were.  (These are for, essentially, lab for humanities majors. No, we can't cancel the lab part.) Things change colors! Students get to pick a few variables! They're actually interesting to teach! And so on. I've been teaching this class for years and I am an actual goddamn expert on biochemistry.

The teaching staff is divided about evenly between 'this is great' and 'this is terrible because change is bad and also it might not work perfectly the first time.' I have already spent entire days editing, doing demos, setting things up, going through protocols, and managing people's feelings. (To their credit, my boss's position is These Are The Labs Now, Deal.)

I am tired of this. Labs can't stay the same forever! It is bad pedagogy! We got a grant which obligates us to do this! The whole department is on board! The Dean approved it! I am running out of things to say to people. The competent scientists are all fine with the new labs. The people lacking a basic foundation in science are panicking because they don't understand any of the science. I'm going to go on cheerfully and thank everyone for helping us revise the labs and for being such GREAT sports and generally treat them as if they were super keen but really? I have to treat my colleagues like toddlers?

(If anyone has useful anti-whiner strategy, let me know....)

A Feeling of Flailing

As I may have mentioned, I have a new job starting in one month. I'm teaching classes in my speciality, BUT the whole curriculum already exists. Also, the person who teaches the other half of the sections - and has all the materials! - is my spouse, who is a) completely overwhelmed with other work and b) out of town.

I sat down today to look at the syllabus (dates completely messed up), the slides (about 10% are mysteriously blank?!?!), and the other materials (just kidding, nobody sent me that yet). I have a plan and notebooks and I know mostly what I need to do and this is the thing I know the most about in the WHOLE WORLD and yet I suddenly feel extremely not competent. Adventure! I asked for this! Gaaaaaah!

More Work and Garden Related Updates

I have, in fact, a full-time job.  For the next five years, probably.


At my other job, we got a grant, so I have to do that job next year too (one lecture & lab, plus all the grant stuff, aiieeeeee).


I continue to be generally depressed about ever finding a permanent job despite the fact that I have produced A Result and also I have enough job for at least 1.5 people right now. 


My four gooseberries have all leafed out!  We also re-landscaped a friend's backyard this past weekend; it is very satisfying to see a plan come together and look nice, and also digging holes is excellent exercise!


I bought my annual fancy hellebore and it is very pretty.


This has been a dispatch from my finals-grading avoidance.

Intersecting Functions

I just quit one of my three jobs.*  This is the convenient, lucrative, but extremely boring one where I am paid $$$$ to babysit lab.  However!  I am so bored of doing it that boredom as a function of time has risen exponentially, to a point where its function has overtaken the money.

Five years, it turns out, is how long I can cheerfully do a dead-boring job that pays really well. 

(And it also suffered from a recent last straw and hey!  I never have to interact with that guy again!)

In the near-ish future I will probably be offered a full time job Elsewhere* and have applied for a different, even better full time job at Elsewhere which, I have reason to think, they will likely interview me for.**  So!  Things are changing! 

Two years ago, I decided I wanted a job at Elsewhere.  I took online classes!  I wrote a grant!  I worked my rear off on a course redesign!  I did lab protocols and discussions and took a third job and all of these things were aimed at one goal: get job at Elsewhere by August 2020, when Sweetpea goes to kindergarten.

I didn't really expect the sudden acceleration, but it's gratifying to have an effort produce an effect.


* But not until May because academia.
** Long story which I cannot relate.
*** Same, largely.

Placeholder for less vague updates

I quit one of my jobs this week. I'm finishing the semester and I'm out. Hurrah!

I'm interviewing for another job, which would be full time but not permanent. My co-workers are all desperately curious but I can't talk about it at ALL. No, really, guys, not at all.

I'm keeping my current second job because I'm in the middle of a big, successful joint project with someone else whom I a) like and work well with and b) don't want to ditch. And it's going so well! New Maybe Job is okay with this and would schedule around it.

(My current third job - no, I'm not joking- is only this semester. Thank goodness. The constant rushing about is extremely wearing.)

My oldest kid has been stealing small stuff from friends. This has inspired despair but also a future post about the stuff that I know I'm doing right.

Also! Turns out having two jobs pays more!

The Usual Miscellany

I don't even know what to say, so I haven't been.

I applied for a job!  I was very well qualified for this job!  The college had decided whom to hire before posting the job, and readers, it was not me.  HRs of the world, please revise your stupid policies about this? Surely there exists a reasonable policy that does not require a farce of an open search.  (It is not a state school, i.e. they can do whatever they want.)

Thanks to my dear spouse stirring the pot, Mountain U's Other Science Department chair has now emailed me about maybe teaching there?  Next spring?  Meanwhile, Yet Another Science Department also has emailed me about the same.

As it never rains but it pours, it also transpires that at My U, the intro bio courses are being handed off to the newest faculty member ('You've won the complainer's penalty!' I said), who would very much like to re-design the whole darn thing.  I would also like to do this thing, and I am bored.  So!  We are now writing a grant (even better, an internal grant) together.

None of these things are permanent or predictable or guaranteed to alleviate boredom.  On the other hand, doing nothing surely won't alleviate boredom, so I may as well...

I am finishing up the grading (ugh) and then don't have to do anything for three whole weeks (yay!) except I signed the kids up for swim lessons spanning an hour and a half, twice a week for the rest of May (ugh).

The spouse and I are ditching the kids for two weeks to go to Australia, though!  It's one of the few highlights of academic life (for me).

Brief Detour for Despair

So I have a cunning plan, and I'm working through it, and it's fine, mostly.  (Right now I'm still feeling residually quite ill, which has probably upset my equanimity.)  But sometimes, I wonder if it's going to do any good.  Where am I going with all this?  What is it going to lead to?  Will it ever END?



(The whole point of the plan is that most of the probable outcomes are acceptable outcomes to me.  So mainly I think the uncertainty gets me sometimes; and when I read job ads, which, here, are ludicriously and unreasonably specific, I despair.)



All those years ago, I chose to step off the escalator of Your Career Here, Step Right Along.  Regardless of how I feel about the choice now, it's done and past taking back.  The thing about the Career Escalator is it can be a very straight path.  You know where you are, you can see where you're going, and you can see how to get there, more or less.



Well, I feel like I not only stepped off, but then wandered through an abandoned warehouse for a time, found a thrift shop where someone had bought 200 tons of scrap metal and sorted it by type*, paused to buy a large metal bowl, and then found myself blinking in the sunlight in the middle of one of those labyrinthine Brutalist government building**, with no idea where the escalators got to, or indeed, if I was willing to find another.


I'll let you know when I find my way back out.  It's somewhere past the disassembled washers and those five tubas with no valves.




* This is a real thing near me.  Imagine 15 feet of Benares ware, six disassembled tubas, 27 identical lawn ornaments, 100 feet of bicycles....

** I have also been mildly lost in this actual building.

Career Reboot, Five-Year Plan

My work life so far looks like this:

2002-2008: Grad school
2008-2010: Bicycle Company
2010-2014: Extremely Bored Housewifery
2014-2018: Adjuncting Eternally

While I joke about it a great deal (renovations as a cure for boredom!), I also do not intend to keep doing this forever.

Last year, my long-term plan was: 1) do online databasing program thing; 2) ? ; 3) profit.

Then I picked up a lecture, which rendered me less bored but more despairing - I could, in fact, actually do this forever.  (OH, GOD.)  While the database-and-programming parts of the online thing are great, the MBA type stuff makes me stabby.

I thought about it at great length over the last months (while plastering the ceiling endlessly and going to PT and ferrying children around): What do I have that's good?  What do I value in work - what do I want my work to contain?  And what do I need to add or find, to feel that my work overall has value and meaning to me?

The current work situation has:

• value: it is paid, but part-time
• meaning:  I believe that the teaching I do is worthwhile and adds to my personal satisfaction and the world (in some exceedingly small way). 
• convenience, proximity, and a fairly high degree of stability.* 
• no summers (early May through beginning of September!  This is a LOT of vacation! Often too much...)
• pleasant and professional colleagues

The current work situation lacks:

• full-time value
• enough intellectual stimulation to turn my brain on
• variety
• the ability to advance me towards anything else.

The database program:

• costs value (I pay money for it)
• lacks intellectual stimulation
• but may advance my goals.

[I remain deeply, deeply ambivalent on working full-time.  We don't need the money - but I don't have a full-time income, and I feel insecure.  I like the flexibility - but I'm bored.  The children are small - but in a couple years they'll all be in school.  If a great job was available here, I would take it - but a mediocre full-time job doesn't seem, net, better than what I have now.]

SO, obviously, what I lack is mainly a) intellectual work and b) a clear path towards anything I definitively want, work-wise.

My five-year plan (now in year two!) is this:

1. Database thing.  Work on the certificate, but slowly; for IT work at the university, working-on-it is probably as good as having-it, given the PhD I already have.
2. Teach myself Python, then C++.  This is intellectually stimulating!  It is hard enough to be interesting!
3. Use the programming to collaborate with the spouse on his research projects.  This is also intellectually stimulating, and will give me practical programming experience, i.e., a marketable skill.  It helps him for a variety of reasons (including undergrad turnover and, you know, the fact that I'm actually a trained scientist), so then my life is better because we're all happier.
4. Even if all of this never gets me a different job, and I think it might eventually, I'm still happier in the meanwhile and most of the outcomes are at least modest victory conditions.

What most inspires me to despair is feeling stuck, feeling like all the other choices I have are unattractive or unacceptable ones (no, I am not commuting 90 minutes each way! no, I do not want to travel 50%! no, I do not want to move to Germany!).  This is my plan to feel, and maybe be, less stuck.  Wish me luck.


* Highly unusual for adjuncting, but this is a small town with an extremely limited labor pool.  

Rest in Power, Ben Barres

I recently learned that Ben Barres died at the end of the year.

When his article about gender came out in 2006, I was in grad school at Yale. (Also known as Snooty U, in past years). I wrote to Dr. Barres - and I don't remember, all these years later, exactly what I said - but I wrote that I was frustrated, and I could see discrimination around me, and I could feel the discrimination, and I didn't see how I would ever become a research scientist.

He wrote back to me, a great kindness to a stranger amidst what must have surely been hundreds and hundreds of similar messages.  The West Coast is nicer, he wrote; maybe you could be happier here.  The Yales of the world are the worst places for a young woman like you to be, he wrote.  I hope you find perseverance and strength and success.

I didn't end up as research scientist, and I doubt I ever will, but I will always remember his kindness.  Rest in power, and the knowledge that you did righteous work of so many kinds, Dr. Barres.

Hello, Maybe I Am Coming Back

For.... reasons.  (I may continue to complain, privately, elsewhere; but...)

Here is a series of updates:

• I taught bio again
• I got sick again
• I got carried out of work on a stretcher and it was not awesome
• I met my out of pocket maximum after four months again
• I got better mostly
• Not keeping kosher any more has improved my life greatly, because dinner is 75% easier
• I kind-of-accidentally adopted five students from Mountain U (where I teach), which, if you know where it really is, is pretty hilarious, and yes, they all call me ma'am
• We feed them dinner every Sunday now
• They ate eight pounds of chicken one Sunday - four of them
• I finished my house renovation and will eventually post a picture once I hang the hat racks
• Sweetpea turned three
• We had 31 people over for her party/brunch/excuse to invite people over
• It was a surprisingly large amount of fun
• I bought enough wire shelving to organize all our tools
• I need the students to come over and move furniture (before I feed them dinner) some weekend
• The spouse got a very large grant
• We are both probably-almost-certainly going to Australia this summer because his grant has travel funds and because I *can* so why not
• The sabbatical plan is currently to spend a summer (as in 3 months) in Scandinavia, because why not
• This will be in three more years
• I am still working on an IT certificate thing in the hopes that I can escape my job, one day, or at least trade it in for another job
• Tatoe is learning to READ
• Sweetpea is going to daycare 4 days (until 3:30) a week and I get Fridays alllll to myself (between 8:50 and 3:30 at least)
• This is delightful and I feel only 10% guilty
• A friend is expecting twins in the spring so I will be able to hold all the babies I want to, probably
• Not having a baby in the house any more is completely amazing and I will never miss all the incredibly hard, wearing, impossible parts, never as long as I live.

FMB: Jobs, Part 2

With respect to the previously mentioned diagram: I don't think one's job necessarily can or should fulfil all the desirable qualities at once - it's labelled 'a reason for being', after all.  Ideally, 'get paid' should be included: that's what jobs are for.  (Please don't start with parenting is a job because it is but no-one is paying me for this nonsense. For the purposes of this discussion, 'jobs' are 'things we do in exchange for money', as opposed to, say, 'work'.)

So... what is lacking in *my* job?  Change.  Opportunity to learn or do something different. 

And what do I love?  Gardening.  Explaining how science works in the real world (it's all chemicals! let me introduce you to... the liver!).  Sewing, canning, making things.  Having a tidy house, though not actually tidying it.

It is no coincidence that the things I love are the things I do the least: I am the primary caregiver for a two-year-old, and I only have childcare while I'm at work.  (For many complex reasons, starting with finances and ending with small-town-with-only-one-daycare and did we mention holy hell it's expensive, 'just pay for more childcare' is not going to work.) 

Next year, I will have twelve hours a week of child-free time when I'm also not teaching; this includes lunch.  Six hours go to class prep.  At least an hour goes to lunch.  The last block will be between classes - so gardening is probably out - and I expect medical appointments to take up much of it. So the main problem is I just don't have time to do anything I want to do.  (For health reasons, I also haven't been strong enough to do much, either.) 

Next up: how can I make room for these things in my life?

(It took me 30 minutes to write for five minutes due to children arguing, the phone ringing, and numerous requests.  Argh.)

On Jobs, Part the Millionth (Naptime Blogging)

I recently applied for a job Assessing Things. I was quite well qualified, but they didn't bother to interview me. (I guess that they had already decided who they were going to hire, but anyways.)   This makes three jobs at Mountain U that I've applied for, with zero results. 

There are, functionally, no other viable employers here.  Will my spouse's employer ever employ me?  Will he have to apply for jobs elsewhere to give me any leverage?  (Possibly, but that doesn't make it a good idea.) 

On the other hand, for now I have a job.  It's conveniently located and relatively well paid (per hour). I am not super fond of Endless Lab Which Everyone Hates, but this semester I picked up a lecture which actually contains stuff I care about and/or can engage the students with, and that they don't totally hate.*  Let's be honest: titration is not really a useful life skill, but biology is at least relevant to them being alive.   For Reasons, however, my wages are functionally capped at half-time.  I would very much like to make a reasonable total salary at some point. 

I worry that the longer I teach, the more likely it becomes that I will be stuck teaching forever.  (Yes, I am still doing the certificate in IT Things.)  I'm actually pretty good at it - I can tell where I need to get better, but this is the first time I've lectured since 2004, so cut me a little slack - and I can interest all of my students at least some of the time.  I don't think I'll inspire any of them to go into research (not least because I strongly discourage grad school!) but I can teach them something.  (This year, this is the one thing they'll remember, but whatever.)

But.... I've been doing it long enough to have a reasonable schedule.  I want a MWF lecture with a W lab?  Yep, I can have that.  I can have 3 other labs every semester (this sounds like a lot, but isn't; they're the same lab, and designed to be very little work for me.)  The people who do the scheduling are now different people, and they treat me with respect and courtesy and also it's February and I have a September schedule already.  This is much more workable; the previous chair inspired me to fire-filled rage, so that was 100% not working, but this might be okay.

What do I really want from a job?  Probably... something that feels like a mental stretch at least some of the time, rather than force-feeding science.**  Something where I get better at something that I value.  (I am not sure that the Foie Gras approach to science has value to me, although it is standard for this intro course, for well-founded reasons; also, this is why I didn't major in biology in college.)  Something with a full-time salary. 

But again, I don't know if it's so bad.  I was talking to two of my female students a couple weeks ago, and seeing myself through their eyes practically gave me vertigo.  The person they were seeing is dressed in professional and stylish*** clothing, earned a fancy PhD, takes no nonsense, and leads a nice, fairly well-off, happy life with a good spouse and healthy children.  She has a job where she gets respect, professional fulfilment, and the opportunity to make science interesting.  She's a role model.  (Who is this person?  Not me; I'm the barely-awake mother of a toddler who switched xylem and phloem the other week, and just said a totally wrong thing about epidurals.)

Whaaaaat am I even doing with my life?  I have no trajectory!  I lack a plan!  I am... going with the flow and, incidentally, doing a LOT more of the housework than I'm happy with long-term!^  Ack!  Ack!  Ack!

TL;DR = I flail a lot but this is Good Enough For Now, so nothing's going to change right now.

* This week, in response to a casual question, I gave a short lecture on muscle-related mutations which lead to increased performance in elite athletes. Everyone was interested and awake!  It was great!
**I was offered an upper-level lecture/seminar next term, but it would end up being twice as much work (really) for 50% less money - and a one-off, not a regular thing- so... no. (I pointed it out to my immediate employer in those exact terms, in fact.)
*** My work wardrobe is 100% from our (relatively posh) Goodwill.
^ Because I work somewhat less than half-time.  Also, five-minute commute.

Yes, Well, Plus State of Self

Here. And a sincere FUCK YOU VERY MUCH to all (edit: that is, the subset of) the white dudes and straight white Christian ladies who are convinced everything will be fine through the next four years.  People of color, religious minorities, immigrants, queer people... even some straight white Christian friends in town with black children?  We're all terrified. (Along with anyone who has sense.)

Now that we've gotten that over with.

I am in... less pain!  I have not achieved No Pain since June.  However, I have a lot of drugs now and a very expensive round of physical therapy.  It's getting better.  I feel like one day I might be Mostly Better.  Huzzah.

Today I did my first round of Terrifying Antibody Thing.  It was enlivened by a brief round of intense itching.  Friends, itching is not good when you have been injected with antibodies. However, it mostly went away.  My kind neighbor watched Sweetpea for two and a half hours while I sat about knitting, trying to not go into anaphylactic shock. Good times for all.

Next semester I have been roped into teaching something I don't really want to teach.  For Reasons.  (If I say no now, it's no forever; it pays fairly well for fairly little effort; it's actually the Science Thing I know and like the best; there is the possibility for more interesting work in the future; I know and like the person who offered me the job and therefore I have a reasonable expectation it will be okay.)  I'm a bit afraid I'm going to end up teaching forever because I'm lazy.  Yes, yes, I know: I don't have to do it if I don't want to.  But if the choices are This, Nothing, or Move, then This wins.  Is this better than nothing?  Sure, fine. 

My assortment of part-time babysitters is working out pretty well.  The kids love them, Sweetpea runs up and demands "Lap! Read book!", and everyone is in one piece when I get home.

I continue to apply for Other Jobs. (They never write, they never call.) 

I am taking an (online) class in databases from Mountain State University - it's surprisingly good, taught by someone with a deep and abiding love of the database- and predictably, writing code is the only part of it I'm actually good at.

Between my students and the election, I have a terrible headache, so I'm taking to my bed and trying again tomorrow....

Summer of My Discontent, State of the Self, Etc.

WORK:  Hey, my job is... boring.  Easy, but also boring.  By the third time around with the same lab, I am really a little tired of it.

I continue to look for Another Job.  There continue to not be Other Jobs here.

The downsides of adjuncting - the unpredictability has been much improved by New Chair - are that it never changes, and there's nowhere to go, professionally speaking.  How many years in a row do I want to do Intro Chem Lab?

(Although the biology department wants me too and there is room for something different, eventually. Still.)


SELF: I have had a headache for 106 of the last 110 days.  It's maybe getting better.  I think.  Maybe not.  Here, let me make you a chronic pain scale:

0: Feel like a normal human being.  Stabbing chronic pain?  What's that?  Also puppies, kittens, unicorns.
1: It hurts like I whanged my elbow on something, or stubbed all my toes.  But not quite all the time.
2: It hurts all the time.  I can ignore it for multiple hours at a time!  Possibly I can sleep!  (With drugs.)
3: I can ignore the pain for an hour at a time.  The laundry mountain is growing and the kids are eating Cheese on Bread two meals a day.
4: I cannot ignore the pain at all, and the spiders are taking over the basement.  Getting the mail is a challenge.  It hurts to move.
5: At least 2 hours/day of laying in bed, considering sticking myself in the head with a small knife. I cry when the children touch me.
6: Considering a larger knife.  I scream when the children touch me.
7: Seriously considering throwing self under the next passing large truck.
8: Would throw self under truck, but it hurts too much to get out of bed.
9: Would like to die imminently.
10: Can only lay in bed weeping.  Can barely get up to go to the bathroom.  No quality of life, would prefer to be dead RIGHT NOW.

It's at least a 4 or 5 every day.

(I am not actively suicidal.  But also, is my pain adequately controlled?  AH HA HA HA NO.  My otherwise-excellent PCP suggested that I might be at risk of opioid addition*.  I take 2.5 mg of opioid per DAY.  No.  Though partly I take that little because I fear that doctors will not prescribe me enough adequate pain relief NO REASON.)

I've run out of ETC.  Happy Friday!

*  "Rates of opioid abuse or dependence diagnosis ranged from 0.7% with lower-dose (≤36 MME) chronic therapy to 6.1% with higher-dose (≥120 MME) chronic therapy..."

Job Qualities

There aren't a lot of job openings around here.  But even so, whenever I see something, I ask myself: is this better than nothing?  I don't need to work, so will this job improve my net quality of life?

Two hour daily commute: Worse than nothing.

Primarily customer service: Way worse than nothing.

Pays less than $25/hour: Probably worse than nothing.

Local: Odds increasing of being better than nothing.

Local, but in [department redacted]: Definitely worse than nothing; they interviewed 20 people in person for a low-level retail job.  No, really.

Local, but [job I applied for two years ago]: Working with these people is -100 points worse than nothing.

Local, but part-time and always last-minute: Who can say?  Oh wait, this IS my current job.  It is fine once they sort out the contracts (note this happened 15 days before classes started, this year).  The inevitable scrambling for childcare is extremely frustrating, but the job itself is not terrible; it has 1) zero room for change and 2) zero room for advancement, but it's better than being stuck at home with my children all day..

(This is all theoretical. I am still stuck concurrently in Knife In Ear Headache Land, and Dead End Adjuncting.)

You Never Write, You Never Call

Dear Readers, there have been THINGS going on.

(I have three small children.  There are always THINGS, frankly.)

I weaned Sweetpea two months ago; I have been either pregnant or nursing for seven of the last eight years. My health was most charitably described as not fantastic.  I am now giving my health a year to recover from All That Stuff.  (Also, a nice course of steroids and three kinds of antihistamines... yeah.)

I rage-quit the local LLL group after one round too many of "Food before one is just for fun!"  Oddly, the WHO believes it is for not having fucking malnutrition. Apparently science is only for when convenient.

My lovely flower bed is almost too full of plants to plant anything else.

(I have started another, deer-resistant, one.  There are worse problems to have.)

My part-time job has had Issues.  I can't really talk about those issues. Let's just say, someone quit but is still hanging around, someone needs to be hired temporarily, the local accreditor threw their usual fit over 18 Credit Hours Of Thing (my actual PhD in science from fucking Snooty U may be insufficient qualification to keep first-year students from setting themselves on fire, and teach them titration, my hand to God).  A somewhat unfortunate conversation left me with the impression that my work is not valued.  This set off a round of my Screw You Reflex, which was already present due to Person Who Quit (I have applied for 6 jobs in the last 3 months).

Also, I've been engaged in fine round of reflection on "Is this what I really want to be doing with my life?"

I am an adjunct.  I'm well-paid to do this, but there is no room for any kind of advancement, more pay, or even more work.  How long do I want to do this?  I don't know.  Somewhere between one more year and five more years, but probably not more than that.  Also, they still haven't told me if I'll even be teaching... in August.  You know, in two months.

So!  What am I going to do with my life?  I have been working on it.

Here are the things I value: time to pursue hobbies like gardening; money; social interaction with reasonable humans; work that I feel has purpose; work that is interesting; work that has social value to me;

Right now, I have very little time not devoted to child-wrangling, and so only the social-interaction gets filled. That is necessary, but not sufficient.  What would be sufficient?  At least two.  Time and social value would do, but that won't happen until the children are all in school.  Otherwise, one needs to be money.

ADJUNCTING:  Pluses: convenient, local, money per hour is good.  Minuses: cap means my max earnings there ever will be ~30,000/year (for 15-20 hr/week of work for 9 months a year); will likely never do anything but intro chem; lack of professional respect*; nowhere to go; may limit future career prospects; unpleasant uncertainty until the last minute, apparently forever.  Uncertain factors: New boss who isn't really the boss yet; nobody knows what is happening including new boss.**  VERDICT: Form exit strategy for within next 4 years.***

SKIPPING TOWN: Pluses: literally anywhere else has more employment prospects.  Minuses: we are near my parents, who are fantastic and make my life 50% easier; we live in literally the most beautiful part of the state; we have a nice house and a really good life; the local public schools are pretty good; a huge set of benefits including college tuition; Dr. S has a fantastic job with fantastic people, which he really likes and which is basically optimized in a lot of ways that are difficult to achieve.  In essence, all parameters except 'acceptable employment for me' are met.  Surely I can find something acceptable in the next four years?

WAITING IT OUT: Jobs do, periodically, come open at the colleges.  (One for which I applied is now open AGAIN because the lady they hired instead of me... up and quit!).

MOAR EDUCATION: Pluses: there is an online course at Nearby Respected State University in computer stuff; this would probably make me more competitive for all the IT stuff.  Would actually give me interesting useful skills.  Minuses: Would still need to find something I could do remotely, or would have to commute 2+ hrs/day; or could wait it out for an IT job at local college (iffy!).  Money for course (not excessive).

REALLY MOAR EDUCATION: I could go get a bachelor's in computer science and redo from start.  While this seems ridiculous, if my knowledge/experience/credentials are doing me no good now, they are a sunk cost and it's time to move on.  Pluses: I could be a programmer for real! More possibilities for remote work. Minuses: Time, initial investment, other programmers.

POSSIBLE JOB AT COLLEGE IN NEXT CITY OVER: I applied for an adjunct job there and the chair emailed me about a job opening up next year.  I mean... really?  There is no way.  But let's pretend. Would I even want to do this?  I DON'T KNOW.

POSSIBLE OTHER JOBS:  Would need to convince various parties to employ me long-distance.  Current job contacts work in defense (I am an honest-to-God pacifist) and education software (about which I know little).  Would prob need at least the Moar Ed option.

I have no more time to reflect right now, but, More Thoughts Later.


* I am 'not competetive' for a 'real' faculty job because I didn't go do research at an R1 for 5 years after getting my honest-to-God research PhD.  Which, fine, whatever, I wasn't willing to pay that price.  But still: Academia, DIAF.

** We did have a friendly conversation the other day in which I said "If this continues to be one course per semester there will come a time when it is no longer worth it to me." (Implied: That time will be really soon.)

*** At which point Sweetpea will be in school and Dr. S will have gone up for tenure, which gives us both more latitude and time to deal with everything and, for many reasons, would make it easier for him to find another job if we have to burn it all down and move.

On Working

Dear Readers, my course is over for the year and I am bored.

You know what?  I don't really value stay-at-home-parenting.  It's necessary that someone should do all the Stuff but damn, I'd rather be doing something else.  As a corollary, I have no plans to ever home-school because I value my professional labor over my child-wrangling/educating labor.*  Also, the thought gives me hives. I pretty much loathe being stuck at home with screaming children and/or in Nap Jail, trying to make food I can't eat for children who are going to whine about it.**

I'm applying for jobs^ and talking to the new chair^^ and trying to work stuff out but people, this is a HARD time.

Problem: Boredom
Solutions: More stuff to do
Impediment: None of it is stuff I want to do (cleaning, laundry, fucking dinner fucking again)
Other Solutions: More job
Impediment: Two cows per person; county population 24,000

Problem: Many small children
Solution: Time, drinking
Impediment: Have had to give up drinking for boring medical reasons
Other Solutions: More chocolate

Problem: Lack of employment
Solution: Apply for more jobs
Impediment: Lack of jobs
Other Solutions: More chocolate; more gym

Problem: Loneliness
Solution: Talk to people more
Impediment: I don't like people
Other Solutions: Find more logical/rational people.  Where ARE they?

* Notice how I don't say I would never.  I recognize that there are many life circumstances that may make home-schooling rewarding, necessary, or Something That Is Happening.  Great for you!  Not great for me. Also not, at the moment, necessary for me.

** Overlapping set of things I can eat that the children will reliably eat: hummus, tortilla chips, scrambled eggs.  Citrus fruit and pineapple.  ... that's pretty much it.  We discourage the whining with great vigor, and yet.  

^ All one of them that pay above $10/hour

^^ SOMEtime, who knows when, for Boring Academic Politics Reasons.