Job search: The continuing saga

So, I was offered a single course to teach locally. These things are pretty hard to get, but I turned it down. I don't know if this was the right decision, but a one-day commitment could prevent me from getting a full time job.

I've interviewed for a job I don't want. I think my odds of getting an offer are good, but I'd rather not get this offer. If I get it, I'll probably take it, as it'll pay the rent. Maybe, though, I should be holding off and waiting for something to come up in my area? Eventually it'll happen. How long can I handle unemployment?

Unemployment is going much better this time around than it did last time. I'm actually enjoying my time off, even if my bank account is not. So, maybe I should just go with that and hold out for a job in my field. I don't know.

I'm doing a very small amount of consulting work. I nearly turned that down too, but decided to do it to keep busy. It's far from ideal, but I guess it's something for my c.v.

I've been blogging about the job search for such a terribly long time now. I feel like I know what I want, but it just doesn't seem to exist. I'm getting bored of reading my own rambles about it. I have nothing else to say..........

Perplexed in the Job Search

This job search has got me confused.

I'm looking for a full-time job in a subject matter reasonably associated with my background, with reasonable work conditions, and with a reasonable salary. Seems, well, reasonable, no?

I am *this* close to a formal offer of a single course instruction at a local academic institution. This would be back in academia. I have no problem with being back in academia, but the prospects of a full-time job in this city are negligible. This course, well, it would be good for my ongoing cv development if academia is the way I want to go.

As a single course, though, it's not enough to pay the rent, and the one-day obligation could prevent me from getting a full-time job. And, would it really help me break into the academic jobs in this city? One course? I don't know. Am I willing to work in academia for basically minimum wage (considering the part-time status) for the years it would take to maybe get a full-time gig? No.

So what do I do? Do I take this course, since it's better than nothing? Is it really better than nothing if it prevents me from getting a full-time job? Do I piss off the institution by pulling out after getting the offer? Is this course even what I really want?

Why is it so hard to find a reasonable job with a Ph.D.?

Scientific integrity

Throughout our time in academia, isn't scientific integrity one of the key things we learn? Behind the facts and the theories and the procedures, isn't scientific integrity one of the major underlying lessons?

I just lost a job as a researcher in industry because I wouldn't compromise my scientific integrity. That last job of the many jobs I've posted about. The one where they poached me from an okay-but-imperfect job, because they were so impressed by my statistical analysis skills.

I walked in there and did my nerdy little thing, analyzing data the only way I know how, with statistical methods. The results were really, really bad -- bad enough to crush the company. I presented my findings scientifically and objectively, but apparently I scared them and they didn't want to let me get my hands on one more dataset. So, they let me go.

Here I am, a full year after leaving academia, and unemployed again. Making a go of it outside of academia has proven to be really, really hard.

I don't regret analyzing the data the only way I know how. To produce results that would support that company would require turning my back on science and quite literally fudging the results. It would mean screwing the companies that come to this firm for help. The firm has other Ph.D.s who are either lacking the skills to find what I easily did, or lacking the scientific integrity to say it like it is.

I don't regret presenting the numbers as they are, but what's next for me now?

Academic positions are near impossible to get if you want to be in the city you're in, and I do want to be in this city. Industry jobs -- do they all require sacrificing your integrity? It has been suggested to me that this is par for the course. So, maybe industry is out.

So where does that leave me? I could scrub my resume clean of the last decade of my life and pretend I was off work raising my children (I don't have any), and maybe get a job making coffees. Okay, so maybe I'm catastrophizing a bit, but just a bit. After the rollercoaster of a year, I truly don't know what's next for me. Is there no way to maintain my integrity, use my skills, and be gainfully employed?

And yet another new job

Here we go again!

That job I had been idealizing for a year? Turned out it was not all that. It was very junior, menial, boring. I've gotta say, it doesn't compare to the freedom of academia. Not that I needed the full freedom, but going back to not being able to make decisions, deferring to a boss, who defers to a boss, who defers to a boss to make decisions that I'm capable of making myself... Yeah.

I got a surprise though.

There was a job I applied for nearly a year ago that I didn't get because they chose someone more junior for the position. They would "keep my file on hand" they said. They always say that.

But they did.

A few weeks ago, I got a call from them out of the blue inviting me for an interview for a more senior position. I wasn't looking for a new job. I was really trying to make a go of this one. Since I'm so underwhelmed though, I decided to follow the process through to the offer, if there was one, just to see.

It turns out I got the offer. And I accepted it.

This job is not directly in my field, but it's close, it's research, and it seems to come with a lot more independence than the "dream" job that isn't. It also comes with a nice chunk more money. I'm not in it all for the money, but they made me an offer I just couldn't refuse.

So, here we go again. All I really want is a stable, reasonably interesting job with a salary that's reasonable for the training I have. This might be it. I have some qualms about it, as it's not quite my niche, but it's not a lifelong commitment and I'm giving it a shot.

I think I've given up on the whole "dream job" idea. Academia directed me into such a narrow niche that jobs just don't exist. This is a danger of following your interests to the fine point of specialization in academia.

Professional life after academia has proven to be tricky. I have no regrets of giving up my professor position though. Moving back "home" was something I needed to do. I wasn't willing to sacrifice my city for a professor job. I think I am willing to sacrifice my niche, at least for now.

Maybe I'm settling, but I'm settling for a little more this time, I hope. I've had excellent developments in my personal life, and that was part of the plan, too.  There's more to life than work now. I'm not living for work anymore. At the moment, I'm living for the weekends, which isn't good either. Can I strike a balance between the two with this new job?

I can't believe I'm giving notice again. This time, I'm cautiously optimistic that it'll be good enough.

A(nother) New Job - The Job

So, I got the job. Or a version of it. I didn't get the continuing position that was posted, but I got a contract position. I was rated number 2?  Okay, not ideal, but I'm taking it.

Tomorrow I give notice at my current job, where I've been working for less than three months, a month of which I was away. She is not going to be happy. But the job is a disaster, so you do what you have to do. Wish me luck, dear internet. I'll be trying to be nice and not burn bridges, but sometimes it's hard.

The new job? I start it in the new year. It'll be my sixth new job in the last three years. For someone who has been looking so hard for stability in life, I've sure moved around a lot.

I'm excited about the potential in this job. I will learn a lot. I will learn more there than I did in post-doc. I will get my career on the right path. And it's what I need to buy my condo.

I'm nervous about the job because I spent too long idealizing it and, let's face it, any job sucks at times. I'm also nervous because I've had a rough, rough fall and I hope I'm up to it. And because I'm rusty on the work I'll be doing and I hope I'll do okay. And because I have to do better than okay or the contract will expire and I'll be without a job.

This is good news. Stressful, of course, but very, very good news. I am hopeful.

In the meantime, there's the holidays, in the sunny south.

all the while I'm wondering, what will the new year bring?

The job

Remember the job I didn't get a year and a half ago and I've kept talking about ever since? I talked about it here, and here, and a few other places too.

It's the job I nearly got just before getting the professor position. It's the job I've been thinking about ever since. It's the job that gave me (arrogant) confidence when I decided to leave the professor position. It's the only job that I feel really fits my profile. It's the job I really wanted when I settled for the messy one I'm doing now. It's obscure and they have few competitors, none locally in the city I chose.

Tomorrow morning, I have an interview for exactly that job.

Wish me luck, dear internet.

Post-academic crash

I dunno. Did I make the right decision? Shitville was not the place for me. But could I have made it work? Or was I headed down this same path regardless of The Decision.

This blog is still super-anonymous, right? Can I say this stuff here? The two or three real-life people who know who I am (*wave*)... they're okay. I think they all are. Have I shared this with anyone who's not safe? This post might not stay up for long.

So, post-academic crash. That's what I'm in.

A year in review? I was "miserable" in shitville, but I was working, I was engaged, I was busy, I was functional. I made that gut-wrenching decision to move back to sparkling-shiny-city-I-love, and I was on the top of the world. For three weeks. Then I crashed.

No job. No prospects. No life.

Then came the job I got. It's a job. It pays the bills, when I go to it. I'm over-educated and under-qualified. Before taking the job, I believed in what they did. Now that I've seen the inside workings of this organization, I'm aghast that they get the public funding that they do. They don't deserve it. It's a fucking train wreck.

So, what did this job do to my post-academic crash? It sent me spinning out of control.

***edited out***

That, my friend(s), is what happened when I left academia.

I don't know where I'm going from here. I have absolutely, positively no fucking clue where I'm headed from here.

Who am I kidding?  Academia was all I had in my life that worked. And I left it. So here I am, a non-academic, and the bottom has dropped out of my world.