I volunteered to chair a session at a conference this summer at the last minute, and got an email from the same guy asking if I wanted to be "local chair" for another conference in 2010. I didn't know what that meant, but it sounded like the previous "chair" responsibility, maybe reviewing abstracts or something, so instead of asking what it was, I said yes.
He wrote back,
"Given your proximity to the area and your interests in the section, we thought you would be ideal for the role of local chair.
Local chair’s responsibility usually includes physically reviewing the local venue (if possible), advertising the conference to the local community including government organizations, universities and private companies, working with the chairs and [professional organization] staff to organizing the local logistical details for the days of the conference and also organizing the social event on the second day of the conference. We hope you will be able to accomplish this by committing not more than a day per month over 12 months preceding the conference.
We will set up a conference call soon to kick off the planning sessions."
Is he joking? No way!
I wrote back right away and said that I had misunderstood the role of local chair, apologized profusely, and would be happy to review abstracts or do something academic for the conference.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Impostor syndrome: email version
I am supposed to be finding a research project now. The only constraint is that my research has to relate to the training grant, and I think they want me to do a little work with some people in the research center, but otherwise I can go around the department finding people to work with. I have a whole list, and I have carried around that list of people to speak with for several days before I got up the courage to write to any of them. Classic impostor syndrome: I think they wouldn't want to work with me either right now or later after getting to know me.
The funny thing is that it doesn't get any easier the more I write to. I wrote to the three directly suggested to me, no problem. And to the department chair. But now I have 3 or 4 more left, and each one feels difficult.
My insecurity was made slightly worse that my (very sweet but straight-talking) advisor said that the department chair was a good person to speak with as long as I don't ask him about nonsense. I should let that roll off my back. I know I should. I just feel like I should take some lesson from it.
Also, one of the 3 I have to write to, made some sarcastic remark to me in a phone conversation before I came, which made me feel like he thought I wasn't smart. And everyone tells me this guy is so nice.
Just have to do it. Three two one and then it's the weekend. And I will have accomplished all week is attending a class and sending some emails. Well, and getting more settled. And reading more Boice.
The funny thing is that it doesn't get any easier the more I write to. I wrote to the three directly suggested to me, no problem. And to the department chair. But now I have 3 or 4 more left, and each one feels difficult.
My insecurity was made slightly worse that my (very sweet but straight-talking) advisor said that the department chair was a good person to speak with as long as I don't ask him about nonsense. I should let that roll off my back. I know I should. I just feel like I should take some lesson from it.
Also, one of the 3 I have to write to, made some sarcastic remark to me in a phone conversation before I came, which made me feel like he thought I wasn't smart. And everyone tells me this guy is so nice.
Just have to do it. Three two one and then it's the weekend. And I will have accomplished all week is attending a class and sending some emails. Well, and getting more settled. And reading more Boice.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
$1.71
The current balance in my bank account is $1.71. I've never in my life seen a bank balance like that.
Somehow the moving expenses this time have been thousands of dollars.
I do not get reimbursed any moving expenses, and my first 6 weeks of pay go entirely to moving. I am detailing my expenses so people can see what it goes to, even for someone who is very careful about money. I shopped around a lot for things like moving and car shipping companies where there were many estimates, and chose the cheapest options by far in each category. I packed lots of things that people tend to throw out and buy new in each new place, like bathroom and bedroom trash cans and silverware trays, and I got these things free in the first place. Much of my furniture comes from Craig's list and Goodwill, but I also didn't have time to do Craig's list for everything or ability to (e.g.) move a couch by myself.
Here is the list of expenses:
- $1100 moving
- $600 to transport a car.
- $150 one-way plane fare
- $100 to rent a car to shop during first 3 days because my car's shipment was delayed by 10 days.
- $900 in new furniture: kitchen had no counter space and little storage- $125 for countertop/storage (on clearance); my roommate owned our couch and I can't move a couch from Craig's list in my car - $400 for new couch that arrives by UPS and can be assembled and disassembled for moving; twin bed for guest bedroom + extra mattress + sheets: $240, new armchair $90.
- $500 in other set-up expenses: food, lightbulbs, lamps, cleaning supplies.
Total: 3450. And there's more beyond that, I'm sure.
Some of these expenses could have been less if I spent more time --- e.g., the gas estimate was $300 to drive the car instead of $850 to ship car + fly + rent car due to late car shipment --- but there is a time and practicality trade-off, and the car is more than a decade old and not necessarily reliable. I could have found a couch for free and rented a UHaul and found someone to help me move the couch, instead of spending $400 on a new one shipped to me.
This way, I was done with all moving activities in a few days and was able to move everything by myself since I don't have anyone to help me.
It does seem inadvisable that someone should spend more than 10% of their annual post-tax income on moving. And yet that's how it fell out.
Somehow the moving expenses this time have been thousands of dollars.
I do not get reimbursed any moving expenses, and my first 6 weeks of pay go entirely to moving. I am detailing my expenses so people can see what it goes to, even for someone who is very careful about money. I shopped around a lot for things like moving and car shipping companies where there were many estimates, and chose the cheapest options by far in each category. I packed lots of things that people tend to throw out and buy new in each new place, like bathroom and bedroom trash cans and silverware trays, and I got these things free in the first place. Much of my furniture comes from Craig's list and Goodwill, but I also didn't have time to do Craig's list for everything or ability to (e.g.) move a couch by myself.
Here is the list of expenses:
- $1100 moving
- $600 to transport a car.
- $150 one-way plane fare
- $100 to rent a car to shop during first 3 days because my car's shipment was delayed by 10 days.
- $900 in new furniture: kitchen had no counter space and little storage- $125 for countertop/storage (on clearance); my roommate owned our couch and I can't move a couch from Craig's list in my car - $400 for new couch that arrives by UPS and can be assembled and disassembled for moving; twin bed for guest bedroom + extra mattress + sheets: $240, new armchair $90.
- $500 in other set-up expenses: food, lightbulbs, lamps, cleaning supplies.
Total: 3450. And there's more beyond that, I'm sure.
Some of these expenses could have been less if I spent more time --- e.g., the gas estimate was $300 to drive the car instead of $850 to ship car + fly + rent car due to late car shipment --- but there is a time and practicality trade-off, and the car is more than a decade old and not necessarily reliable. I could have found a couch for free and rented a UHaul and found someone to help me move the couch, instead of spending $400 on a new one shipped to me.
This way, I was done with all moving activities in a few days and was able to move everything by myself since I don't have anyone to help me.
It does seem inadvisable that someone should spend more than 10% of their annual post-tax income on moving. And yet that's how it fell out.
Friday, August 29, 2008
News from the crime scene
Literally just as I was coming back from writing the previous blog post, including the note about the apparent suicide in my department exactly one week before, I was rounding the corner and saw that a security officer and a guy in a white shirt and tie were unlocking the suicide's office door, which is a few down from mine.
The name was on the door that morning, but by then they had removed the name. A little later, as I was going to the bathroom (the suicide's office is on the way to the bathroom), there was a uniformed police officer with a big old-fashioned camera, the kind in 1960's TV shows, taking a picture of the door. They opened the door, and went in with the camera. I overheard one of the officers saying, "It's a good thing [they] left the computer logged in." and something about a note, though it wasn't clear whether they were saying there was or wasn't one. Now there is a sign on the door saying, "Please do not enter. If you need anything, please see [administrator.]" No yellow crime scene tape, but perhaps effectively it is.
I wonder why they waited a week to start the investigation.
A friend of mine said, after I told him about the two deaths on the same project, "Driving a car into a house doesn't sound like an accident. And an apparent suicide might not be. You'll stay away from this project, right?" Which sounds ridiculous, but on the other hand, who knows.
The name was on the door that morning, but by then they had removed the name. A little later, as I was going to the bathroom (the suicide's office is on the way to the bathroom), there was a uniformed police officer with a big old-fashioned camera, the kind in 1960's TV shows, taking a picture of the door. They opened the door, and went in with the camera. I overheard one of the officers saying, "It's a good thing [they] left the computer logged in." and something about a note, though it wasn't clear whether they were saying there was or wasn't one. Now there is a sign on the door saying, "Please do not enter. If you need anything, please see [administrator.]" No yellow crime scene tape, but perhaps effectively it is.
I wonder why they waited a week to start the investigation.
A friend of mine said, after I told him about the two deaths on the same project, "Driving a car into a house doesn't sound like an accident. And an apparent suicide might not be. You'll stay away from this project, right?" Which sounds ridiculous, but on the other hand, who knows.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
New postdoc: the beginning
I started this week at my new new postdoc. This postdoc is at the university which is the top in my field, and theoretically should be "ideal" whatever that means, at least to people who like to speak in those terms. And in some respects, it's very nice. My office furniture is actually beautiful, for instance, which means a lot when I think about how much time I am supposed to be spending there. And obviously there are really exciting research projects and student activities. I have learned there are also ways in which I appreciate things I took for granted in my old position and every RA-ship I have ever had: printer access, computer, phone (the policy on all three is BYO (bring/buy your own)), a single contact person for administrative details, a library with books (it has only 1 of the 3 seminal books my advisor recommended; my previous medium-ranked school had all 3), a computer support department run by computer geeks.
I called my advisor's secretary to make an appointment to see him, and she asked who I was. I had to explain that I was his postdoc and tell her which grant I am under.
Plus, a creepy thing that has nothing to do with me. There have been 2 deaths in the past month in the department, coincidentally both on the same research project. One was a middle-aged project manager who was killed while sleeping when a car drove into their house. The other was a post-BA RA who, I am guessing, committed suicide. I can't avoid seeing the RA's name plate on my way to the bathroom from my office.
Good things:
1. Administratively, I am a student, so it's considered reasonable to attend/audit classes, get involved in student activities relevant to my work and there are many that could actually help my CV as "community service" of the kind faculty do. And apparently faculty get involved in these too. And there are all kinds of introductory student functions that I am automatically sent notice about.
2. There happens to be a course this term on exactly the new method that I hear I am supposed to learn for my research, so I have an excuse to meet people and get involved in something right away that is relevant.
3. I really like my apartment. It feels like home, and it feels good to be at a bit of a distance from school.
4. It's a gigantic institution, which is what makes it feel lonely and difficult to navigate, but that also means that there are ways around. There is no central departmental printer, but for some reason the library has free printing, I just discovered.
5. My office has beautiful golden wood furniture, and the office is clearly built for two people.
6. There are common spaces close to my office where I can work if I get tired of being alone.
One of the things that people talk about in college and then grad school is how you have to learn to ask for things if you want them, and this postdoc epitomizes this need. After receiving my ID card, my entire orientation to the postdoc consisted of not giving me a key to my office (they didn't have an extra) and telling me to have a nice year. Presumably I was supposed to race down the hall and sit down at my computer and write a paper.
I do have work to do. But somehow being given the empty half of a dimly-lit shared office that I don't have a key to, with no printer access, no phone to call my advisor to make an appointment, feels like I don't really have anything to do until the room gets a bit more populated. I know that there is no inspiration for work. You just have to do it. Even without a printer. And when I have a draft to print, I will have to find a way to print it.
So I will go back to my office, work for an hour, and see what comes out of it.
I called my advisor's secretary to make an appointment to see him, and she asked who I was. I had to explain that I was his postdoc and tell her which grant I am under.
Plus, a creepy thing that has nothing to do with me. There have been 2 deaths in the past month in the department, coincidentally both on the same research project. One was a middle-aged project manager who was killed while sleeping when a car drove into their house. The other was a post-BA RA who, I am guessing, committed suicide. I can't avoid seeing the RA's name plate on my way to the bathroom from my office.
Good things:
1. Administratively, I am a student, so it's considered reasonable to attend/audit classes, get involved in student activities relevant to my work and there are many that could actually help my CV as "community service" of the kind faculty do. And apparently faculty get involved in these too. And there are all kinds of introductory student functions that I am automatically sent notice about.
2. There happens to be a course this term on exactly the new method that I hear I am supposed to learn for my research, so I have an excuse to meet people and get involved in something right away that is relevant.
3. I really like my apartment. It feels like home, and it feels good to be at a bit of a distance from school.
4. It's a gigantic institution, which is what makes it feel lonely and difficult to navigate, but that also means that there are ways around. There is no central departmental printer, but for some reason the library has free printing, I just discovered.
5. My office has beautiful golden wood furniture, and the office is clearly built for two people.
6. There are common spaces close to my office where I can work if I get tired of being alone.
One of the things that people talk about in college and then grad school is how you have to learn to ask for things if you want them, and this postdoc epitomizes this need. After receiving my ID card, my entire orientation to the postdoc consisted of not giving me a key to my office (they didn't have an extra) and telling me to have a nice year. Presumably I was supposed to race down the hall and sit down at my computer and write a paper.
I do have work to do. But somehow being given the empty half of a dimly-lit shared office that I don't have a key to, with no printer access, no phone to call my advisor to make an appointment, feels like I don't really have anything to do until the room gets a bit more populated. I know that there is no inspiration for work. You just have to do it. Even without a printer. And when I have a draft to print, I will have to find a way to print it.
So I will go back to my office, work for an hour, and see what comes out of it.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Aftermath of this postdoc
My postdoc advisor keeps writing to me to ask me to perform various secretarial tasks --- not terribly time-consuming, but a total of 45 minutes that I don't feel like I have as I prepare to move and start a new postdoc that I am trying to be extremely conscientious about. I told him that I was surprised to continue getting requests for secretarial, to which he replied that he was surprised at my response, since he doesn't feel that I have put in as much time as I was paid for this year, though he admits he could be wrong.
I don't know how to reply to this, or if I should. It seems to me that it's water under the bridge, though I am tempted to say a few things:
1. He cut my salary in half when he hired an administrator to do these secretarial tasks, and yet continued to give me these secretarial tasks.
2. I am not a secretary. If he thinks I owe him research work, that's a reasonable issue to discuss. Discussing how many emails I have to send and lists to compile is not reasonable, and really weren't reasonable tasks for me in the first place.
Both points are reasonable, and I could tell him both of those. The third point that is of course in the back of my mind is that he lost me the second he cut my salary in half and made the first few months of my employment be 70% secretarial tasks.
But really I just want to avoid the whole issue. It was a mistake to accept the job. My term of employment ended, and I no longer have affiliation with that university. And if he thinks that I owe him something, he should have raised this issue when he was actually paying me.
That's a little overly strict, but I am concerned about maintaining boundaries so that I can succeed in my up-coming position.
I don't know how to reply to this, or if I should. It seems to me that it's water under the bridge, though I am tempted to say a few things:
1. He cut my salary in half when he hired an administrator to do these secretarial tasks, and yet continued to give me these secretarial tasks.
2. I am not a secretary. If he thinks I owe him research work, that's a reasonable issue to discuss. Discussing how many emails I have to send and lists to compile is not reasonable, and really weren't reasonable tasks for me in the first place.
Both points are reasonable, and I could tell him both of those. The third point that is of course in the back of my mind is that he lost me the second he cut my salary in half and made the first few months of my employment be 70% secretarial tasks.
But really I just want to avoid the whole issue. It was a mistake to accept the job. My term of employment ended, and I no longer have affiliation with that university. And if he thinks that I owe him something, he should have raised this issue when he was actually paying me.
That's a little overly strict, but I am concerned about maintaining boundaries so that I can succeed in my up-coming position.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Lessons from my postdoc
In no particular order, these are the lessons I learned from the job search that led up to my current postdoc, which was a mistake to accept from the beginning:
- Don't try fancy tricks: I took my current job as a stop-gap measure before I was going to go abroad. It was an offbeat interesting thing to do --- trying to do multiple things at once --- that completely failed and left me with an unfulfilling and frustrating year, and not very much money either. If I had taken my second choice, which was just a plain old postdoc at the same school, it might have been more boring, but that stability is good and probably ultimately more fulfilling.
- Take only a job that cares about your professional development. In this postdoc, my professional development was an extracurricular activity. That's why my pay got cut in half before I even started because I needed time for my own work. The postdoc that I would have taken otherwise did care. Even the visiting assistant professorship at an elite college, where I would primarily be a teacher, cared about my professional development more than this postdoc did.
- Prominent million dollar professors are dangerous. Some students of these professors with a million dollars in grants manage to do very well, but some just end up being used. I have a friend from a different school whose advisor was a million dollar professor, who just ended up being an underpaid programmer, and is a programmer even though PhD is nothing related to computers or engineering. This guy I worked for this year was a million dollar professor which meant he was never around, he assumed that I could discern what he wanted if we spoke for just 15 minutes every month or two, and he didn't care at all about my professional development.
- Have good will to everyone, but trust no one. That sounds obvious, and I was really good about making sure that no one took advantage of me throughout the job process, but I took this job without a paper offer because I was assured that there was funding and he wouldn't leave me loose. The existence of money to pay me was not the thing that I should have been concerned about. What I should have been concerned with was how much of the money was going to me, and what my responsibilities would be.
It's interesting to think back at last year, and what my options were. I didn't apply to enough postdocs last year, and didn't really understand the job market, so what happened was slightly weird especially since I expected 3 specific offers that I didn't get, but would have preferred any of them to what I took.
I think I said this already, but to review the real actual offers for myself.
- First offer: postdoc teaching 1 class a semester at Ivy-ish university with 6 days to decide before I had even interviewed everywhere. Turned it down when I got:
- Second offer: VAP at elite small college. Which I was in the mindset that I was going to accept and was on the verge of accepting when they told me that it would be bad for me to take it.
- Third offer: research scientist at top-5 that wanted to use me.
- Fourth offer: a real postdoc abroad.
- Fifth offer: the real postdoc at my current school.
- Sixth offer: didn't get the real paper offer letter until my first day, and didn't get salary commitment until I started the process of moving. By this time, the process of travels and offers had stretched out for about four or five months, much longer than it usually would, and I was just tired. I'm not usually such a sucker. I can bargain with cab drivers in Arab countries, but somehow I let there be an exception because I was tired and impatient and trying to be interesting.
With what I know now, I would have done a few things differently on the labor market in 2006-07:
1. Applied to more postdocs, even if not in the fall to keep applying through the spring in spite of all the traveling I was doing just in case no real offers came through.
2. Not applied to temporary teaching positions at all. Safety option would be postdoc at mediocre school.
3. Not apply to positions that just want to use me.
4. Accept only positions where I know exactly what I will be doing, how much I would be paid, how long it will last, and nailed down as much as possible. Uncertainty is a risk, and risks feel stressful, and this job was one big uncertainty. Even until now.
5. Accepted the only job that cared about my professional development: the postdoc at my current institution. Even though it didn't come with group health insurance and even though it paid less than I had been promised in my current job (which didn't come through on that.)
6. Not think seriously about moving to a new city until I had lived in my current city for a few months without leaving. That might mean moving to the new city during the summer rather than stretching it out.
I lost financially, but I think I am coming out ahead as far as my CV goes. My CV lists my current position as a type of job that a grad student might have, and technically I was a grad student this year. So my first year of postdoc is at this prestigious place instead of at my current mediocre place. But I think I might have been happier if I had settled and settled down and just lived for awhile and caught up on my papers and been normal for awhile before looking for another job.
Given that I did accept it, there were some things that I could have done better as well:
- Meet people even if they are all hidden away in their offices and no one introduces me. I was used to there being common areas, seminars, etc. where people meet, or at least being taken around and introduced, but everyone just stayed hidden away all the time. The only people I met were one girl who came to my office, a few people at a Christmas party, and a guy who I met at a conference elsewhere who took a job here.
- Regular updates. Even though I went months without seeing my advisor, and probably only saw him a total of six times in person (seriously, six, I'm not exaggerating. I can get out my calendar and count them all) for the entire 14 months that I worked for him, giving weekly email updates is a way to stay engaged with him. And keep calling. Even though I rarely got through.
- Talk and engage even when irritated. I used this blog to vent instead of taking my grievances to my advisor, and it would have been more healthy and helpful if I had tried to have constructive conversations about exactly what the plan was and what I should do.
- Decide in advance. I was keeping this double-think that I was going to go abroad even though I knew it was probably a bad idea for my career if I wanted to live here. But I kept the option open and that made me not commit to being here right away and made my advisor not commit to me, because I had some weird idea that if I committed to this postdoc I would be boring or mediocre somehow. Although partly the lack of commitment was because the project was initially supposed to be 3 months and now somehow it's stretched out to 14 months and still not done.
- Do things quickly even if it's gruntwork. Find ways to make gruntwork okay. 30% of my job was secretarial work and 60% of my job was lit summary tasks that an undergrad RA would have done, and I was ticked off. But the remaining 10% of the job was where I could have taken the undergrad stuff and done a great job with it, and made it interesting, and gone beyond. But instead I dragged my feet and complained because it seemed like the tedium would last forever, therefore ensuring that the tedium did last forever. If I had just accepted that I would be spending 100 hours doing undergrad RA tasks, and just tried to finish, I could have counted down from 100 and moved on from there. Plus then I would have learned more. As I was finishing up the undergrad RA tasks a month or two ago I was just thinking how even though it was tedious, I would have had a better handle on the project as a whole if I had just done it right away when I started. So tedious things are okay too.
- Remember that nothing lasts forever. So many of the issues that I had this year came from an assumption that somehow things weren't going to change ever, when in fact they did change every few months. Initially I was convinced that there were no men here to date which made me plot to move to another city and invest lots of time in my job hunt, and then somehow they've started popping up all over the place like gophers in that game now that I have gotten settled in and started going to activities and meeting people. (And actually before that I was dating someone for a couple months and it seemed pretty solid when it wasn't.) And the tedious work wasn't forever either.
- Corollary: Don't panic! Like it says on that book. I had a few biological clock panics this year and it really didn't help anything. Somehow things work themselves out even if not in the way you expect.
- Engage. It's hard to engage when traveling. All I want to do is go home and stay there after I've been traveling at least every other week and sometimes more, but going out and doing things even when I'm tired from traveling would have been better for me overall. And perhaps find a way to decrease traveling.
- Don't try to move subfields without a huge amount of research. Otherwise all the interviews are a waste of time. I went on maybe six interviews for jobs that I had a low probability of getting because they were in a new subfield. My dissertation was on A. My current job was going to let me work in a new subfield B, though that project ended up being given away to someone else even though it was a major factor that brought me here. So I figured I could apply to projects in B elsewhere without much additional research. I applied thoroughly to every single position in a good city in area B without making a serious effort at a research proposal.
By contrast, in subfield A people appear to be ready to give me the moon and stars. Just now I emailed a government official who is the retiring director of a big department in my area of research looking for her replacement, and asked for an informational interview and whether they have more junior positions. I saw her name because I saw the senior job announcement. She wrote back enthusiastically, and said I may as well apply for the senior position because my research interests match the department's so closely.
The reason I wanted to switch is because I don't have a great deal of confidence in the future of funding in this area A and ability to find a job where I wanted to live, and I also feel like it's not as "important" as B. And just for variety. A's such a small area. B is expansive. But if I wanted to work in B I had to put lots of time and lots of reading, and instead I just spent tons of time writing applications for jobs in B that I wasn't competitive for because I hadn't prepared enough for them.
- And one last job search tip that I learned this year. This one is the rule of improv theatre, and it works for job interviews too: affirm everything. I am very much myself on interviews, and I trust a bit too much and convey things that could be seen as negative. Like 80% of faculty live on campus, and at the moment that I hear it it sounds claustrophobic and weird. I did say, "How great that you have such a community among the faculty and probably get to know people in other departments that way. And the campus housing looks really beautiful and well-planned." But then much later on in the interview (2 days is such a long time!) I let my guard down and asked if it ever feels like they're in a bubble. When I should have stayed on message. Affirm affirm affirm. They said their major concern was "fit." Affirm affirm.
So, that's all, folks.
Probably won't be blogging much after this, though maybe about my interviews next year once they started happening.
- Don't try fancy tricks: I took my current job as a stop-gap measure before I was going to go abroad. It was an offbeat interesting thing to do --- trying to do multiple things at once --- that completely failed and left me with an unfulfilling and frustrating year, and not very much money either. If I had taken my second choice, which was just a plain old postdoc at the same school, it might have been more boring, but that stability is good and probably ultimately more fulfilling.
- Take only a job that cares about your professional development. In this postdoc, my professional development was an extracurricular activity. That's why my pay got cut in half before I even started because I needed time for my own work. The postdoc that I would have taken otherwise did care. Even the visiting assistant professorship at an elite college, where I would primarily be a teacher, cared about my professional development more than this postdoc did.
- Prominent million dollar professors are dangerous. Some students of these professors with a million dollars in grants manage to do very well, but some just end up being used. I have a friend from a different school whose advisor was a million dollar professor, who just ended up being an underpaid programmer, and is a programmer even though PhD is nothing related to computers or engineering. This guy I worked for this year was a million dollar professor which meant he was never around, he assumed that I could discern what he wanted if we spoke for just 15 minutes every month or two, and he didn't care at all about my professional development.
- Have good will to everyone, but trust no one. That sounds obvious, and I was really good about making sure that no one took advantage of me throughout the job process, but I took this job without a paper offer because I was assured that there was funding and he wouldn't leave me loose. The existence of money to pay me was not the thing that I should have been concerned about. What I should have been concerned with was how much of the money was going to me, and what my responsibilities would be.
It's interesting to think back at last year, and what my options were. I didn't apply to enough postdocs last year, and didn't really understand the job market, so what happened was slightly weird especially since I expected 3 specific offers that I didn't get, but would have preferred any of them to what I took.
I think I said this already, but to review the real actual offers for myself.
- First offer: postdoc teaching 1 class a semester at Ivy-ish university with 6 days to decide before I had even interviewed everywhere. Turned it down when I got:
- Second offer: VAP at elite small college. Which I was in the mindset that I was going to accept and was on the verge of accepting when they told me that it would be bad for me to take it.
- Third offer: research scientist at top-5 that wanted to use me.
- Fourth offer: a real postdoc abroad.
- Fifth offer: the real postdoc at my current school.
- Sixth offer: didn't get the real paper offer letter until my first day, and didn't get salary commitment until I started the process of moving. By this time, the process of travels and offers had stretched out for about four or five months, much longer than it usually would, and I was just tired. I'm not usually such a sucker. I can bargain with cab drivers in Arab countries, but somehow I let there be an exception because I was tired and impatient and trying to be interesting.
With what I know now, I would have done a few things differently on the labor market in 2006-07:
1. Applied to more postdocs, even if not in the fall to keep applying through the spring in spite of all the traveling I was doing just in case no real offers came through.
2. Not applied to temporary teaching positions at all. Safety option would be postdoc at mediocre school.
3. Not apply to positions that just want to use me.
4. Accept only positions where I know exactly what I will be doing, how much I would be paid, how long it will last, and nailed down as much as possible. Uncertainty is a risk, and risks feel stressful, and this job was one big uncertainty. Even until now.
5. Accepted the only job that cared about my professional development: the postdoc at my current institution. Even though it didn't come with group health insurance and even though it paid less than I had been promised in my current job (which didn't come through on that.)
6. Not think seriously about moving to a new city until I had lived in my current city for a few months without leaving. That might mean moving to the new city during the summer rather than stretching it out.
I lost financially, but I think I am coming out ahead as far as my CV goes. My CV lists my current position as a type of job that a grad student might have, and technically I was a grad student this year. So my first year of postdoc is at this prestigious place instead of at my current mediocre place. But I think I might have been happier if I had settled and settled down and just lived for awhile and caught up on my papers and been normal for awhile before looking for another job.
Given that I did accept it, there were some things that I could have done better as well:
- Meet people even if they are all hidden away in their offices and no one introduces me. I was used to there being common areas, seminars, etc. where people meet, or at least being taken around and introduced, but everyone just stayed hidden away all the time. The only people I met were one girl who came to my office, a few people at a Christmas party, and a guy who I met at a conference elsewhere who took a job here.
- Regular updates. Even though I went months without seeing my advisor, and probably only saw him a total of six times in person (seriously, six, I'm not exaggerating. I can get out my calendar and count them all) for the entire 14 months that I worked for him, giving weekly email updates is a way to stay engaged with him. And keep calling. Even though I rarely got through.
- Talk and engage even when irritated. I used this blog to vent instead of taking my grievances to my advisor, and it would have been more healthy and helpful if I had tried to have constructive conversations about exactly what the plan was and what I should do.
- Decide in advance. I was keeping this double-think that I was going to go abroad even though I knew it was probably a bad idea for my career if I wanted to live here. But I kept the option open and that made me not commit to being here right away and made my advisor not commit to me, because I had some weird idea that if I committed to this postdoc I would be boring or mediocre somehow. Although partly the lack of commitment was because the project was initially supposed to be 3 months and now somehow it's stretched out to 14 months and still not done.
- Do things quickly even if it's gruntwork. Find ways to make gruntwork okay. 30% of my job was secretarial work and 60% of my job was lit summary tasks that an undergrad RA would have done, and I was ticked off. But the remaining 10% of the job was where I could have taken the undergrad stuff and done a great job with it, and made it interesting, and gone beyond. But instead I dragged my feet and complained because it seemed like the tedium would last forever, therefore ensuring that the tedium did last forever. If I had just accepted that I would be spending 100 hours doing undergrad RA tasks, and just tried to finish, I could have counted down from 100 and moved on from there. Plus then I would have learned more. As I was finishing up the undergrad RA tasks a month or two ago I was just thinking how even though it was tedious, I would have had a better handle on the project as a whole if I had just done it right away when I started. So tedious things are okay too.
- Remember that nothing lasts forever. So many of the issues that I had this year came from an assumption that somehow things weren't going to change ever, when in fact they did change every few months. Initially I was convinced that there were no men here to date which made me plot to move to another city and invest lots of time in my job hunt, and then somehow they've started popping up all over the place like gophers in that game now that I have gotten settled in and started going to activities and meeting people. (And actually before that I was dating someone for a couple months and it seemed pretty solid when it wasn't.) And the tedious work wasn't forever either.
- Corollary: Don't panic! Like it says on that book. I had a few biological clock panics this year and it really didn't help anything. Somehow things work themselves out even if not in the way you expect.
- Engage. It's hard to engage when traveling. All I want to do is go home and stay there after I've been traveling at least every other week and sometimes more, but going out and doing things even when I'm tired from traveling would have been better for me overall. And perhaps find a way to decrease traveling.
- Don't try to move subfields without a huge amount of research. Otherwise all the interviews are a waste of time. I went on maybe six interviews for jobs that I had a low probability of getting because they were in a new subfield. My dissertation was on A. My current job was going to let me work in a new subfield B, though that project ended up being given away to someone else even though it was a major factor that brought me here. So I figured I could apply to projects in B elsewhere without much additional research. I applied thoroughly to every single position in a good city in area B without making a serious effort at a research proposal.
By contrast, in subfield A people appear to be ready to give me the moon and stars. Just now I emailed a government official who is the retiring director of a big department in my area of research looking for her replacement, and asked for an informational interview and whether they have more junior positions. I saw her name because I saw the senior job announcement. She wrote back enthusiastically, and said I may as well apply for the senior position because my research interests match the department's so closely.
The reason I wanted to switch is because I don't have a great deal of confidence in the future of funding in this area A and ability to find a job where I wanted to live, and I also feel like it's not as "important" as B. And just for variety. A's such a small area. B is expansive. But if I wanted to work in B I had to put lots of time and lots of reading, and instead I just spent tons of time writing applications for jobs in B that I wasn't competitive for because I hadn't prepared enough for them.
- And one last job search tip that I learned this year. This one is the rule of improv theatre, and it works for job interviews too: affirm everything. I am very much myself on interviews, and I trust a bit too much and convey things that could be seen as negative. Like 80% of faculty live on campus, and at the moment that I hear it it sounds claustrophobic and weird. I did say, "How great that you have such a community among the faculty and probably get to know people in other departments that way. And the campus housing looks really beautiful and well-planned." But then much later on in the interview (2 days is such a long time!) I let my guard down and asked if it ever feels like they're in a bubble. When I should have stayed on message. Affirm affirm affirm. They said their major concern was "fit." Affirm affirm.
So, that's all, folks.
Probably won't be blogging much after this, though maybe about my interviews next year once they started happening.
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