signalnoise

In all honesty, I sincerely do not think of myself as a dramatic person. In that same vein, I am much less judgmental then I was say in high school. Regardless of these positive character attributes and despite my prior promise to the contrary, there is more academic drama to report today.

Unfortunately, it is not about me and there is precious little I can do about it.

I actually do not think this has made much of an appearance here, but my wife does not care for her job. For those not keeping score at home, shes a laboratory technologist (re: lab tech) here at the U of C. Its what she thought she wanted to do when she got her B.A. and M.S. Shes done it for a year and a half, but its just not for her. The work is not particularly invigorating (she mostly just takes orders) and the pay is not that great. My wife doesnt necessarily need both. She doesnt define herself through her job nor is she excessively materialistic. But having one of the two, which are pretty much the two basic criteria we look for in our work, would be nice. The gist is: she feels like she has a job not a career, there is little room for advancement, shes afraid every job in the field will be like this, and she just thinks she can get more out of life.

So, over the pats eight months or so, we have had a lot of conversations. The goal was first to identify WHY she did not like her job (would a change of lab or even a whole new career direction, into something like publishing for instance, make the difference?). Then, once it seemed that something new was the cure, we talked about what that would mean. Of course, school came up a lot. But to do what? Medical school? Law school or an M.B.A program (she was thinking patent law kind of work? Graduate school (unlikely, the tedium of science was part of what was the rub in her current position)? Doing some research, S. finally settled on pharmacy school. It has just enough science to attract her, the pay is ridiculously good, and it has an air of professionalism and purpose. Its a growing field (fueled by aging Boomers), and the only two pharmacy programs in the state just happen to be in the Chicago metro area. It would be a challenge to get in, and it would be expensive. But, we have no commitments right now (we own no property, not even a car, and we do not have children). Plus, its a highly portable skill (every town has a Walgreens or fifty), an excellent plus for the spouse of an academic. The decision was made.

Then she made the mistake of telling her parents, who are apparently more evil then I thought. Sure, there was the time they tried to take over the wedding and then basically refused to help pay for it when we resisted their grab for power. Sure, there was the whole resistance to paying for S.s college, since she could just go to community college for free! But being upset over this? Which hardly concerns them? This Sunday, S.s mother unleashed a bizarre barrage of criticisms including: pharmacy was not respectable or challenging (confusing pharmacy technician which requires an associates degree with being a pharmacist, which is a Pharm.D degree), this was a waste of S.s biology degrees (not really she would have needed the B.A. anyway, the M.S. was a good experience that only adds more gloss to her resume), and that there were not any jobs in the field anyway (simply not true most people leave pharmacy school with four or five job offers). Equally frustrating: S.s parents know some folks who do pharmacy work, and S. had asked for some contact info (to further research what the job itself and pharmacy school was like). There was no help on that front from them either.

(As Ray Romano says on Everybody Loves Raymond a show that is growing on me, despite myself, due to the wonderful way it skewers family politics: Nothing good ever comes from families!)

When S. got off the phone, there was quiet in the bedroom. I stuck my head in and saw one of those sights that break your heart. S. was sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away from me. Her hair was in pigtails. She was crying. Killed me.

Whats her moms problem? Who knows? Maybe she was just concerned and ill informed. Maybe she worries that this will increase the wait for grandchildren. Perhaps its her own natural conservativism when it comes to employment showing itself (S.s mother has some decent office managing skills, but has stayed at the same crummy job apparently because shes friends with the owner and his office is conveniently located). In the end, I dont know what this was all about really. It annoys me.

For a moment, S. was not sure what to do. We talked about it, and now (thank god!), she is still dedicated to giving this a shot. Shes going to order her test prep books. Shes checking out the (stupidly expensive) Kaplan test prep program. Shes working on learning more about the job itself. So, all is well. Rocky but well.

God, hopefully sometime Ill have something happy to toss up, like a usual rant on why the world sucks