Something Shiny!

Editor’s note: Every now and again I fall into the Pit of Despair. I think we all have these black moments. They don’t last long for me, really, nor do they happen very often. (And I want to emphasize that point, lest I start getting concerned phone calls.) But here’s what goes through my mind when I fall into the Pit.

Well-meaning, good people keep saying to me, “I just know you’ll get a job.” And I love them for saying it, I really do. It means the world to me that they have such confidence in me. But at the same time, it makes me want to scream. Because the job market in my field is so very, very tight. (Literally, hundreds of people competing for six jobs.) And because if or when I don’t get a job, what are these well-meaning people going to think? What are my parents or John’s parents going to think? That I’m a loser? And, heck, forget about what anybody thinks; what am I going to DO for a living? I’ll have my PhD in May. And I’ll be overqualified for most jobs that I could have gotten straight out of college. (I don’t say that egotistically; rather, I will literally have become ineligible for most of those jobs.) And I’ll be 32 in December. When do I say, enough is enough? Do we stay in Florida until I can find a job? (Answer: NO!) Do we move somewhere and have a baby? What do I do? I have a million questions and not a single answer.

So there you go: my Pit of Despair. I flit in and out, and only every so often. It’s like a distant cabin off in the woods somewhere: I don’t go there very often, so it’s not well-appointed or furnished, really. And it sort of smells. What does your Pit of Despair look like?

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Job Market, MeMeMeMeMe, NaBloPoMo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.