Oh 2009, how I misjudged you

Dear 2009,

I was ready to be done with you sometime in the middle of the year. Honestly, I wanted 2010 to come quickly, and put you behind me. I truly believed that 2010 would be present the opportunity for a fresh start, a shiny new year to bring a new attitude.

Sadly, it looks like I may have misjudged you, 2009. I may have been ready to be done with you too quickly. Little did I realize how much 2010 would suck so early on.

Sure, I was uncertain of my job situation much of last year, working less than full time most of the year. I traveled for a few job interviews, from New Paltz, NY to Midland, TX. Finally offered a job in Mississippi the same week I found out I could stay at my current job. Not sure why I had to go through all the interviews…seems like it was for nothing; though I suppose whatever doesn’t kill you, blah blah.

But that all seems like a bad dream now. 2010? Has sucked worse in the first month than all of you, 2009, all put together. Okay sure, I love that our basement has been re-done, complete with a full storage room. But that doesn’t outweigh 2010′s bad stuff. Okay, I could deal with the dumping of snow….don’t like it much, but I can deal with it.

The topper is that we have two sick cats. Duncan has lost almost half his weight, and we can’t seem to get it back up. Ares has cancer, which we first found out about January 4. So far we have had a slew of tests for Ares, removed a tumor from his ass, and started chemotherapy. He’s doing really well, and each time we decide on another therapy or treatment, I do some soul searching to make sure that we’re doing the best thing for Ares. I don’t want to put him through stuff just because I don’t want to lose him – I want to make sure that his discomfort is short and has some measurable benefit. The good news is that cats don’t respond to chemo as violently as humans tend to. The bad news is that the chemo is our last shot – the cancer is a bad one, that tends not to respond to chemo, and tends to grow quickly. But at this point, it’s either chemo or making him comfortable….certainly not ready for that yet.

Anyway, 2009, I apologize for underestimating you. After seeing 2010, you’re not so bad.

Tags: grad life, job search, suckitude

To work or not to work, that is the question

A couple of weeks ago, my government manager mentioned that she had been talking to our project manager about taking me on full-time through the next fiscal year. Prior to this, I only knew that my full-time employment was only guaranteed through the end of this calendar year. For any normal person in that situation, with no future job on the horizon, it would be good news that their employment could be continued for another 8-10 months.

I’m not normal.

Currently I work on three different tasks at work – one is a research task for 50% of my time, one is a web development/science support task for 30% of my time, and the last is an education and public outreach task for 20% of my time. I only like one of these tasks – the outreach task. The others are things to be tolerated (an loathed).

Sadly, the full-time position that my one manger is offering, is actually an extension of the web development/science support task. This is the longest-running of my tasks, which started over 5 years ago. For over 4 years, I have hated that job. A big part of the problem is that I often have *nothing to do* – I’m not talking about nothing meaningful or nothing interesting, but rather nothing at all. Another problem is that when I write new text for a web page, I can’t get anyone to approve the text. The result? First, I have a bunch of new web pages that I’ve worked hard to research and write, that just sit on my computer without going live. Second, our web pages get further and further out of date. And does my manager think that turning this into a full-time job is going to relieve these problems?

My outreach position can continue my funding through May (at the 20% level), so I asked about maybe doing the new position at the 80% level through May so that I could at least continue some part of a job I like (that’s not how I worded it with my manager, of course). She didn’t seem to like that idea at all – she’s convinced that they’ll need me full time.

As it happens, Andrew and I are in a position where we can survive on just his salary (pending a large amount of budget-trimming). So, do I take the full-time position just so I’m taking in cash, feeling like I’m contributing to the household? Do I take some time off?

If I were to turn down this position, I would still be able to work the 20% time on outreach. In addition, I would plan on working on my writing – I’ve been told that my fiction is publishable, but to do that I need to polish up some of my stories and research which markets I should submit them to. The house needs a top-to-bottom cleaning and some work (painting and such). I’d also like to work on getting CraftyPhD
up and running. Plus, it would be nice to have some time for my science blog. There’s no way to fit all of that into my life with a full-time job.

But, is this just selfish? Andrew supports my desire to turn down the job. But I’m worried about how much we need to trim the budget. Will he start to resent me for turning down full-time employment when I had the chance? Will I feel guilty over pursuing my interests instead of contributing to the household? I know that when I do find a job, Andrew and I may find our positions swapped, with him having trouble finding a position in whatever town we move to, but is that really a good reason to turn down a job now?

I have to give my decision to my manager tomorrow. I’m honestly not sure what will come out of my mouth at that time. Wish me luck.

Tags: job search, suckitude, work