Identity
I haven't blogged in like 2 months.
Well, March was crazy. I had a paper deadline that took up a lot of the month and we didn't end up submitting. Then, I immediately had to switch to working on my job talk. The practice could have been better. My advisor thought my talk was in great shape, so he didn't go to the open practice talk. One of the professors was a little harsher than he should have been (okay, a lot), and one of the people who came spent an hour afterward telling me how much he disliked one of my graphs. After that, I had a bit of a cry. One of my colleagues was very upset by what happened, and told my advisor. My advisor apologized profusely and went over the talk with me again the next day to fix the two areas where I got the most grief. But my colleague, who has a young daughter told me: "I know why women don't go in to [our field]. It's because then they have to work with [our field]-ists." I can't say I disagree.
I then flew out the next day for my one on-site academic interview. On my end, it went about as well as it could have (except my damn bra strap kept slipping off - grr). Unfortunately, only 6 faculty members showed up to it, and 12-13 grad students, many of whom seemed to have come because they're required to go to a certain number of talks per month or semester. Then only 2 grad students showed up to my meeting with the students. So, I get told there are 30-35 faculty members, 200 master's students and 150 PhD students, and that's all they could get to show up? Laaaaaame.
I've spent most of the past 2 weeks decompressing from the hell that was March. I've bought myself 2 pretty new bags though (a blue Bridezilla by Tano and a black Havana Hobo by Hayden-Harnett - the leather is sooo soft). (Both were on sale, and I didn't have to pay any federal taxes last year thanks to living in a Midwestern diaster zone. The HH is really a graduation present to myself, and I bought it because it was on super sale and I don't know the next time it'll be as cheap as it was). My de-stressing has come along with a week of headaches, but it's been about 6 months since my last headache week, so that's okay. Especially since they didn't occur during an interview or paper deadline.
Unfortunately, I found out at the beginning of this month that my father will be laid off from his job. He seems to be doing pretty well, but he sounds really burned out - like he needs a nice vacation. He's been busting his butt working on establishing a product line for a company (that was then bought by a huge company). He and his people have met all their sales goals, and the company decides to ditch him and 26 others, and move in a different direction with the product. So his reward for his hard work, long hours and exceeding expectations is a pretty pink slip. Corporate America can go f*ck itself.
So now he's thinking of taking himself out of the rat race to repair clocks for a living. The pay is actually reasonable ($30-$35/ hr), but it's kind of odd for me to tell people that's what he's thinking of doing. Going from a very white-collar job to working with his hands. I wouldn't call his type of clock repair blue collar - it's kind of a dying art, and is basically only done on clocks that cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. Plus, both of my parents are total (antique) clock fanatics. I'd never really realized how much of the identity I have for my father is tied up in him being a sales/ business man until now, so it's kind of weird for me to have to start thinking about him differently. I'm still working on this.
I'm also working on the fact that, come September, I'll most likely no longer be affiliated with any school or university. I came to grad school to be a professor. But if it's being a professor at the one academic place where I got an interview, or working in industry, I might still choose industry, even though the thought kills me. (This is totally getting ahead of myself, since the likelihood of me getting an offer from the school is still only 20% (5 candidates)). But if I don't get an academic offer, I'm definitely going into industry. There aren't really any post-docs doing what I want to do. And the industrial places I assumed I'd consider most highly aren't hiring this year. So there is a very high likelihood that I'll end up working for some (a) company, (b) that I didn't even think I'd consider, if I did end up at a company, (c) in the one part of the country I said I didn't want to end up in. But I think I'm okay with that. Maybe I'm just resigned to it, but I don't think so. I know people with PhDs who are happy at the two companies I have interviews with at the end of the month, and I do have a lot of friends in the likely new location. And if I don't like it, I'll look for a job somewhere else when the economy recovers.
So there's been a lot of identity reworking in the past few weeks - for both my view of my father and of myself. It's been weird, but I think things will work out. Of course, I can't get one of my favorite TMBG song lyrics out of my head (sung kind of lounge-style): "I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploited working* class."
* I know neither my father nor I would be considered working class in the traditional sense. But I think to the the CEOs, we might be.
Well, March was crazy. I had a paper deadline that took up a lot of the month and we didn't end up submitting. Then, I immediately had to switch to working on my job talk. The practice could have been better. My advisor thought my talk was in great shape, so he didn't go to the open practice talk. One of the professors was a little harsher than he should have been (okay, a lot), and one of the people who came spent an hour afterward telling me how much he disliked one of my graphs. After that, I had a bit of a cry. One of my colleagues was very upset by what happened, and told my advisor. My advisor apologized profusely and went over the talk with me again the next day to fix the two areas where I got the most grief. But my colleague, who has a young daughter told me: "I know why women don't go in to [our field]. It's because then they have to work with [our field]-ists." I can't say I disagree.
I then flew out the next day for my one on-site academic interview. On my end, it went about as well as it could have (except my damn bra strap kept slipping off - grr). Unfortunately, only 6 faculty members showed up to it, and 12-13 grad students, many of whom seemed to have come because they're required to go to a certain number of talks per month or semester. Then only 2 grad students showed up to my meeting with the students. So, I get told there are 30-35 faculty members, 200 master's students and 150 PhD students, and that's all they could get to show up? Laaaaaame.
I've spent most of the past 2 weeks decompressing from the hell that was March. I've bought myself 2 pretty new bags though (a blue Bridezilla by Tano and a black Havana Hobo by Hayden-Harnett - the leather is sooo soft). (Both were on sale, and I didn't have to pay any federal taxes last year thanks to living in a Midwestern diaster zone. The HH is really a graduation present to myself, and I bought it because it was on super sale and I don't know the next time it'll be as cheap as it was). My de-stressing has come along with a week of headaches, but it's been about 6 months since my last headache week, so that's okay. Especially since they didn't occur during an interview or paper deadline.
Unfortunately, I found out at the beginning of this month that my father will be laid off from his job. He seems to be doing pretty well, but he sounds really burned out - like he needs a nice vacation. He's been busting his butt working on establishing a product line for a company (that was then bought by a huge company). He and his people have met all their sales goals, and the company decides to ditch him and 26 others, and move in a different direction with the product. So his reward for his hard work, long hours and exceeding expectations is a pretty pink slip. Corporate America can go f*ck itself.
So now he's thinking of taking himself out of the rat race to repair clocks for a living. The pay is actually reasonable ($30-$35/ hr), but it's kind of odd for me to tell people that's what he's thinking of doing. Going from a very white-collar job to working with his hands. I wouldn't call his type of clock repair blue collar - it's kind of a dying art, and is basically only done on clocks that cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. Plus, both of my parents are total (antique) clock fanatics. I'd never really realized how much of the identity I have for my father is tied up in him being a sales/ business man until now, so it's kind of weird for me to have to start thinking about him differently. I'm still working on this.
I'm also working on the fact that, come September, I'll most likely no longer be affiliated with any school or university. I came to grad school to be a professor. But if it's being a professor at the one academic place where I got an interview, or working in industry, I might still choose industry, even though the thought kills me. (This is totally getting ahead of myself, since the likelihood of me getting an offer from the school is still only 20% (5 candidates)). But if I don't get an academic offer, I'm definitely going into industry. There aren't really any post-docs doing what I want to do. And the industrial places I assumed I'd consider most highly aren't hiring this year. So there is a very high likelihood that I'll end up working for some (a) company, (b) that I didn't even think I'd consider, if I did end up at a company, (c) in the one part of the country I said I didn't want to end up in. But I think I'm okay with that. Maybe I'm just resigned to it, but I don't think so. I know people with PhDs who are happy at the two companies I have interviews with at the end of the month, and I do have a lot of friends in the likely new location. And if I don't like it, I'll look for a job somewhere else when the economy recovers.
So there's been a lot of identity reworking in the past few weeks - for both my view of my father and of myself. It's been weird, but I think things will work out. Of course, I can't get one of my favorite TMBG song lyrics out of my head (sung kind of lounge-style): "I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploited working* class."
* I know neither my father nor I would be considered working class in the traditional sense. But I think to the the CEOs, we might be.
posted by Random Questioner at
11:34 PM
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