The only thing I'm kind of struggling with with this job situation is the thought that this was it. This was my only chance. Those gazillion retirements that are coming up as the baby boomers get to the end of their careers? They've all happened now, in our department anyway. We've had six retirements in the past couple of years. They replaced them with two hires at full professor level (but younger people who probably still have 20 years of career left), one at level C (so, maybe equivalent to the US associate professor level?) and this one junior hire. They may still be hiring one more junior person, but if they do, it will be to cover a sub-discipline that there is no way in hell I am qualified to teach, and I doubt I could even apply. The next retirements in our department are probably going to happen in around 15 years.
Geekman (fortunately) looks like he's set here for the foreseeable future. We aren't going to be doing an international job search any time soon. So I think I'm now committed to putting together one of those careers where you try and line up one grant after another. And that's pretty exhausting, if I can even do it at all. So many grant agencies don't let you apply for your own salary, and collaborative grants are kind of the exception in my field, so having other people willing to apply for a salary for me on their grant is unlikely. The big national grants scheme has just revamped all its funding rules, and I can't even tell if I'll be eligible to apply for a fellowship at the end of this current one.
Dammit. This is really hard.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Job rant
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3 Comments:
The world of academia is tough... just have a zillion babies and stay at home and start some kind of an online linguist business :P
I'm so sorry. Sorry you didn't get the job, sorry your supervisor doesn't seem to value you, and sorry that this was it for this Uni.
I know how you feel, unfortunately. My husband has a position he loves in a field even rougher than mine (U.S. history). If I do a nationwide job search, I have to ask for a spousal hire in order to accept any offers. (Ha! Likely.) I love my research, but I'm hedging my bets and looking into teaching the applied aspect of my field at the same community college where my husband teaches, although that means pretty much giving up doing research. Best of luck to you!
Talk to me! (You know you want to!)