All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet…

The search is over…for the next 2-3 years. I’ve taken a job. Let me tell you, hunting down a position has been quite the roller coaster.

First of all, a lot of people who aren’t professional scientists seem to think that having a PhD in the science field provides some kind of buffer from the turmoil of today’s job market. This is simply not true. Just like most other areas, the ratio of jobs for PhD holders to PhD holding job seekers is smaller than ever. So, yes, while it is true that the science field is hiring more jobs than many other fields, there is an unprecedented amount of competition for these jobs because, duh, there’s a fuck ton of emerging scientists entering the market, so this doesn’t really translate into increased job availability per person looking for employment.  And, despite having a lot of practical experience inside a laboratory, many companies don’t consider this kind of experience to be as useful as “real-world” experience gained outside academia. Having accrued real world experience is more of an advantage than having a high degree for more reasons than one. Besides having a record of work that involves commonly sought after skills (which I have none. I have extremely uncommon skills, that are, imagine that, uncommonly sought after), I’ve noticed a trend: companies seem to be leaning towards hiring bachelor’s degree holders more than PhD’s. T he last job fair I went to, I was actually turned away from about half of the booths because they only wanted bachelors degree holders. This is because they consider bachelors degree holders and PhD holders to have the same amount of “real-world” experiences, that is, none. Furthermore, it is about 3x cheaper to hire a person with a bachelors degree, and on top of that, most companies aren’t pushing the research right now and this cuts down on the number of positions for  PhDs. They probably figure that they’ll be better off having hired 3x as many cheap bachelors degree holders who will have accrued five or so years worth of experience by the time things pick up again.

Yup, I felt pretty down on myself  and my degree(thoughts of setting it on fire just for the cathartic venting of rage, and because I can pay a small fee and the university will print me a replacement) after being rejected three times, feeling like I was losing jobs to people with bachelors degrees, and facing the prospect of being an unemployed PhD holder. Oh oh oh, and to top it all off, I was turning 30 and didn’t feel like I had much to celebrate. November was truly the pits. I started having anxiety attacks again, after 7 years of not having anxiety attacks or treatment for anxiety/depression. Then the frequency of the anxiety attacks increased to daily, then 2x a day, then 3x a day, and then it was more or less like having one long anxiety attack – I had to put forth serious effort in attempt to keep myself from despairing over my situation.

And to make everything better (snark), people kept telling me “it could be worse.” By the way, don’t say that to people you care about. It’s a really douche-y thing to say, even if it is true and you are trying to get them to see the silver lining, or appreciate what they have…because know what? It doesn’t make them appreciate what they have. “It could be worse, you could have no job like so-and-so,” one of my friends was fond of saying whenever I would start whining about how shitty my job search was going. The only thing saying ‘it could be worse’ does is make you think about how much more it could suck without actually putting a positive shine on your life. Seriously, it. does. not. put. a. positive.  shine. on. things. It doesn’t change or elevate my situation to a less crappy level than it is. Furthermore, whether you mean it or not, whoever you say it to is going to feel like you are minimizing/trivializing their ordeal, which is probably a pretty significant concern in their mind.   So, really, unless you yourself have it worse than the person you are saying it to, you should know that saying “it could be worse” is just going to depress the hell out of your friend and possibly make them think you’re a douche, k? The only – ONLY – good exception to this rule, in my opinion, is if you actually have it worse than the person who is complaining. Then you can say that, and it actually might make them consider not complaining. If you don’t have it worse i.e. if you’re not staring unemployment and financial ruin square in the face or have it worse, like have already gone into financial ruin or are unemployed and suffering the consequences of unemployment, I don’t want to hear it from you. Simply put: you will sound very smug to me if you tell me “it could be worse, ” while you yourself don’t actually have it worse. So this is my advice: If you want your friend to stop complaining because you are sick of listening to it, just say that!  Shit, I was pretty sick of hearing myself complain about the job hunt and all my fears of being income-less, healthcare-less, and going into financial ruin when my student loans come due in February.

Then, on my 30th birthday, I got a job offer. And the next day, another job offer. And yestereday, a THIRD job offer! Well, sort of.

The first offer was a position that was brought up to me in passing about 4 months ago – for a post-doc at Brookhaven National Lab. It was just a quick mention, but an application and interview never came my way, so I figured that, what with the whole GPA thing that the National Labs are doing, it was dead in the water and I didn’t give it another thought….until my boss emailed me to once again bring up the post-doc, saying that so-and-so was very interested in me for a position, and it was basically mine for the asking. I told him I’d emailed the guy-in-charge months ago and never heard but if it was for real, I’d be totally interested. I got on the horn right away and said “if this is true, I could possibly commit to this tomorrow, so let me know.” A few hours later I had a phone interview set up for the next morning.

It didn’t turn out to be much of an interview. I picked up the phone and said “Hi, this is Emily,” and the first thing my future prospective boss said was “Hi, we’d like to offer you this position.” Easiest. Interview. Ever. I was in HEAVEN, I tell you. A research position. At a national lab. With (I didn’t mention this earlier) total badasses as my advisors. After the Sandia debacle, I thought my chances of ever having a career in research were over. So you can imagine my elation at this opportunity.

After getting off the phone, I emailed Eastman chemical to let them know I’d received an offer from someone else. I haven’t blogged about this yet, but I had interviewed at Eastman (formerly Eastman-kodak) in mid-November and was awaiting a reply. It was, at that point, 3 weeks after my interview, and they had told me they would have a decision for me in two weeks. The position was a good one, because it was an actual chemistry position, but I’ll admit, I had to feign more interest in it than I actually felt towards the job. There were some other drawbacks to the work and the area, most notably that I wasn’t confident I would be happy doing this kind of job for the rest of my life (and big industry jobs tend to have a kind of…permanence about them for people in my field because you lose relevancy for other types of work), and I didn’t particularly like the geographical location.

Anyways, I went home an enjoyed a nice glass of bourbon, secure in my knowledge that, at the very least, I would not become destitute.

The next morning, Eastman made me a job offer for a whopping 6 figure starting salary. Which I turned down on Monday. Add that to my list of interesting things I’ve done in my lifetime.

Turned down a 6-figure salary in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the great depression. Yup. I just did that. But I have my reasons and can elaborate if you want to know. Just ask, and I’ll reply in due time in the comments section.

And then, on Monday, after formally accepting the offer to be a beamline jockey at the synchrotron, a friend from “company X”, a small start up in MA, where I interviewed in August (and was negged), called to ask me if I was interested in what he described as a “very stressful R&D position,” and inquired as to whether I was still available. To which I replied, in jest, “I could SO kill you right now.” But seriously, it wouldn’t have been the best move for me anyways.

So, there you have it. I’m banking on the economy being ok enough that my additional experience at a top laboratory and networking connections I will gain through the work will get me a job that pretty much makes up the difference in lost earnings from the next two years. Which could very well happen. Despite the pay, the position I’m taking is very good. It’s a prestigious position, very high visibility in my field, and if I don’t f*** it up, it will lead to a much broader field of opportunity than what was available to me as an entry level PhD holder. What does this mean for me in the near future, you ask? Weeeelllll, I’m moving to New York in 2 weeks. Alex and I are driving up to NY a few days before Christmas, and I’m  renting a spare room near the lab in Long Island, while Alex will return to Texas to finish up his post-doc and look for a new job in the NYC-metro area. We’re considering where to stash our guns, but will probably rent a storage unit in Pennsylvania or New Hampshire until we get the proper paperwork in order. I will be sad, dogless, and very busy for the next 6 months. I probably won’t blog much, because, you may have noticed, I never blog at Brookhaven. Too risky in my mind, with big brother right freakin’ there!  On the plus, I’m close to family and many of my friends still live in the northeast area.

I start on January 1st. I will be stationed at the synchrotron at Brookhaven. It will pretty much be my  life for the next months. I’ve been going around saying that “I must become one with the beamline,” and also tossing around the quote that is the title of this blog (which is a Hunter S. Thompson quote from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It’s particularly appropriate for the line of work I’ll be performing. If you don’t get why, just google ‘synchrotron’.)

I hope to be in touch.