pronoia

In the Morning Light

I'm much calmer now, and I'm going to accept Interview #2's job. I'm waiting for them to write and send me the contract draft, and then we'll hash out whatever still needs to be hashed. They were wonderful when I let them know I had another offer, and it's clear they really, really want me to accept.

Today I'm just excited.

Well, excited and exhausted. I'm taking today really slowly to try to fend off the kind of illness I got when I finished job searching last time, and that means taking myself off to the coffee shop to eat something instead of checking my email every five minutes.

So yay! Job search process over, two weeks after it began. Now we're thinking about Ms. P's job prospects....

At the Risk of Seeming an Ungrateful Wretch

I'm freaking out. Interview #1 just called to offer me a position.

I think I'm in shock, honestly. When I searched for my academic job, I sent out 72 applications to, five months later, get three job offers. For this one I've sent out 13 applications and gotten two offers in two weeks.

I can't even look at them right now, because I'm too busy freaking out that I'm going to have to turn somene down and what if I make the wrong choice? And what the hell am I going to tell my department chair? It's one thing to have that conversation in a fantasy world; it's another to actually have to go in there and do it.

The offers are quite similar: salary within $3K of one another, similar benefits packages, similar work. In another way, the offers couldn't be more different. Interview #1 has to send me a 5 page application which then goes to HR and then they send out a letter; the work is really intense; there's a drug screening; it's downtown. Interview #2 has to check with her business manager, but she'll get me that contract offer tomorrow; the work is can sometimes be intense; it's in a leafy neighborhood doing cool things.

I know that my choice is Interview #2. I'm attracted to the nonprofit work, to the neighborhood, to the excitement of it all. I don't really want to be writing proposals for running EZ Pass when I could be writing proposals to raise money for science equipment. I think where I'm stuck, though, is that I worry that this choice will have long-term negative effects on our finances, that other people (otherwise known as my father) will criticize this choice for reasons I can't quite articulate.

Sometimes I hate being a grown-up. This is great good fortune, and I'm done whining about it.

Everything Always Happens Right Before I Teach

My last undergraduate class of the semester (and my life!) is in twenty minutes, and I just got a phone call offering me the grants manager position at the school.

I'm over the moon.

Interview #2

Because Interview #1 went so well, I went into Interview #2 feeling like they'd have to pull something pretty great out of their hats to make me think they were my first choice. Interview #2 was with the non-profit I had the phone interview with, so I felt like I had a good sense of them already.

Interview #2 was with a non-profit charter high school. I'm partial to non-profits, and this one is dedicated to preparing underserved minority kids for college. In so many ways, this is right up my alley. But I've now spent enough time in academia that I'm bone-tired of scraping by, bone-tired of having to fight for even the smallest resources, bone-tired of having to make do. So I was willing to listen, but skeptical.

To my surprise, they are now my first choice.

First I met with the communications director. He showed me around the school, introduced me to the president and the principal, and pointed out the small and less than appropriate environment. (The school is currently in an old church building, and there's no science equipment or things like that.) We continued our conversation from the phone interview; I told him why I was interested in this position and what I could bring, and I got to ask some hard questions about charter certification and future plans for the school. I was highly amused when he asked me if I could handle giving up the prestige of academia and using my title. I replied that I teach composition, and there's not much prestige to be giving up.

Then I met with the deputy director. She asked me really interesting questions, like how I like to be mentored, and how I would mentor others. She told me about her experience of the school, that there would be room to move and grow, that she thought I'd be great for the job. She told me that they could likely meet the salary I had asked for, and if they couldn't quite meet it, they'd be very close. I got to ask questions about how the board of directors is constituted and the relationship between the president and the board, and then she asked me what else she could tell me to make me excited about the job.

Everyone is excited because they're renovating a beautiful old school building a few miles down the road, and they're moving in August. So in addition to showing me the plans from every conceivable angle, the deputy director showed me things like the furniture plans, and then she had the communications director drive me down to the construction site. It's a good thing I had chosen to wear pants, because I was soon tromping through a construction site in high heels and hard hat. They're keeping the old brick facade and as many wood floors and wrought-iron railings as possible, but they're making the space really good, adding an addition with a huge, beautiful bay window, creating lots of library and music and art and science space, and making room for more students.

It was wonderful. They're doing great work; this year they have 100% acceptance to college in their senior class. This is with kids who entered 9th grade working at a 4th and 5th grade level. They're able to get the resources they need; the president runs things on a business model that presumes that spending a little more now will likely make everything better long term. I'd be working with the communications director and the deputy director, and I like them both a lot. My working space over the summer would frankly suck, but starting in August would be beautiful and functional. The commute over the summer would suck, but the new building is right next to a subway stop. In short, if I sucked up a few things over the summer, by fall I'd have a great space with a great commute and I'd be getting the salary I'd been hoping for. Even the corporate job wasn't promising me that, and with them I wouldn't be getting the satisfaction of doing something good in the world.

So now I've got my fingers crossed and I'm just waiting for the phone call. I know they've been contacting my references, so it's only a matter of time until I hear something.

I'd really like to have this settled, to know that I have a new job, to be able to put into place all the crazy plans we have with the move.

Just Me and the World

At the coffee shop yesterday I overheard two seniors talking about their summer plans and those of their friends. One young man is spending the summer in the wilds of Alaska in the kind of place where you meet the mail plane once a week and have to fly two hours in a tiny plane to get to a drug store. He's allowed to bring fifty pounds of luggage total. "Fifty!" they exclaimed. "You can't even take many books! For the whole summer!"

So I started thinking. If I were only allowed fifty pounds of things for a summer, what would I bring?

• Blank books
• Stationery and stamps
• Camera and film
• Sketchpad and pencils
• Dr. Bronner's peppermint castile soap
• Toothbrush and two tubes of toothpaste
• Lunapads
• Overalls, two pairs of jeans, two pairs of shorts
• A variety of t-shirts
• Sweatshirt
• One niceish outfit, just because
• Two pairs of sturdy shoes
• One rainjacket
• Bug spray
• Sunscreen
• Hat
• Sunglasses
• Neti pot
• Basic first aid and herbal supplements

I think I would be tempted not to bring any books at all, despite the panic that ensues when my books-to-read pile gets anemic. One of the principles of The Artist's Way is a reading fast, a whole week where you don't read anything you aren't absolutely required to read for work. (Cameron points out that we're all quite adept at getting out of work we don't want to do, and we could perhaps use our powers for good that week.) The point is to take away a crutch that too often serves as a stand-in for really engaging the world--for writing or gardening or painting or rearranging the house. Reading, however wonderful, can be the worst enemy of creativity sometimes. I always end the week not nearly as interested in books as I had been before I started. I always end the week immersed in other projects.

It made me think how lovely it would be to spend a summer book-free, to take seriously the idea of a creative retreat, even if I were working hard at something else.

At some point in my life, I'd like to spend a summer building a house with my own two hands and having this kind of creative retreat. No books. No phones. Just me and the world.

On Youth

There are people who are kept young by this profession and the endless succession of young adults. They like to listen to the latest music, they have all the latest gadgets, they wear some version of the latest fashions. Some are only posing, grasping at youth, but most are energized by the movement, the continual experiment.

I am not that person.

Today I had lunch at the student union between candidate gigs. The student radio station was broadcasting from the lobby; throbbing technobeats could be heard upstairs. Friends were screaming to each other across the room. People eddied around booths to prevent cancer, learn about the library, sign up for volunteer opportunities. A TV was blaring from the corner.

All I could think was: I'm too old for this.

The truth is that I love people of this age. I find them endlessly fascinating for their vision and their energy and their enthusiasm and their newness. They're still growing into who they want to be, and there are tendrils now of those people they'll be in ten years. I adore them in their specificity, and in so many ways I am not too old, because I can always get them to tell me their stories. But the truth is that I have never been the kind of youth that is so visible on college campuses--the loud, risk-taking, pop-culture-consciousness kind.

I spent college with my best friend, renting movies and hanging out with an endless succession of guys. We played euchre, we drove to Chicago, we fought about books. We learned the harmonies to the Indigo Girls and had art dates. When we got frustrated with our lives we spiked coffee in a thermos and drove out into the cornfields to look at stars or take pictures of old churches or dance in the glare of the headlights or deliberately get lost.

That is the kind of youth I once was and the kind of youth I still am. I this profession I am always out of place--too nerdy for the hipsters, too artsy for the old farts.

I do not want to be young. I want to live the fullness of my life, and a college campus is no place for that.

Interview #1

Today I spent about 75 minutes being wooed by a national outsourcing firm. I say "wooed" because they hardly asked me any questions; most of the time was spent telling me about the company, telling me about the proposal process, and showing me around the office. I met with the manager as well as the writing staff, and they all seemed like the kind of people I could work well with and potentially even be friends with. They're all near my age, and we made jokes about being dictionary geeks. (Apparently I win with TWO copies of the OED.)

They made no bones about the downsides of the job--when we hit deadlines, there are some late nights and weekends involved. There are also bonuses. I can't quite wrap my mind around a job that is likely to not only get COLA raises but bonuses and maybe even other kinds of raises. It's not in my purview at all!

The salary I asked for was higher than they'd been envisioning, but the manager kept saying that I had a PhD and could make a great case for that salary. His boss is on vacation, so we'll see what happens when she gets back. I assume I'll have a phone conversation with her as a kind of second interview, and we'll go from there.

People keep asking how it went, and I keep only being able to say "it was great!" I'm realizing that the whole looks good, and it looks good partially because the people there seem happy. It's the little things that make me attracted to it--everyone has their own small office, office doors were open, they clearly hang out together, the work I've been doing is clearly appropriate and persuasive.

So, depending on all kinds of things, it's on my list for jobs I wouldn't mind having.

On top of that, I'm busy lining up a third job interview next week. 3 interviews out of 10 applications isn't bad, if I do say so myself.

Hump Day

This week may kill me.

I spent Monday doing search committee things with a candidate: had a meeting, went to her talk, took her out to dinner. Taught. The usual. Spent yesterday getting Ms. P in to see someone who would actually treat her depression and finding out it will cost $3000 to replace the furnace in the house. Realized at the last minute yesterday that I don't own pantyhose. Today I have prepped for tomorrow's interview, applied for three more jobs, gone to the department's awards luncheon, and prepped my class. When it's over, I get to run home, throw things in a bag, call the dogsitter in desperation, and drive to Big City. Tomorrow I interview, have lunch with my sister, then drive home again before teaching my graduate class. Then Friday we have another candidate in.

You only thought I was kidding.

So much to think about and blog about, but when I've not been prepping my interviews, I've been jumping up and down about my interviews or planning what piles of paper to throw away or thinking about bribing librarians to forgive my hundreds of dollars of library fines with fresh new books to add to their collections and which I bought with start up money four years ago and never read.

I want to talk about the new pope, and Ms. P's experience with doctors recently, and my family's reactions to all of these plans, and my adorable students who are amassing right now to give their client presentations in ties and heels, and my worries about youngest cat who seems to be throwing up all the time, and and and and.

Later, then, when I've had a chance to breathe. I'm likely to stay home Saturday from our planned day out, so I might crawl into bed with my laptop and post tale after tale, just because.

Whiplash

This is giving me vertigo.

This morning I got another phone call, this time to set up an interview next week for a national firm. What did I do first? Call my hairdresser. I'm such a girl sometimes.

But seriously, I think about this and I imagine our lives in Big City and I research companies and I'm happy. I'm really happy, even in the thinking about it stage, even in the doing lots of work to make it happen stage. And then I have to come to work and talk to students about registration or go to a faculty meeting about our hiring plan for next year (!) or try to answer last minute grant questions from students who need to do their own damn research, and I can't wrap my brain around it.

I want to list books on Amazon, I want to pitch piles of paper, I want to write up summaries of things someone else would need to know. I don't want to be going to this damn meeting like I care what happens to the hiring plan next year, because I don't. I really don't.

Meanwhile, I'll watch my phone and will it to ring so I can actually schedule this interview and know what my week will be like.

Interview Update, In Which I Am Gauche and Talk About Money

The phone interview went very well. He was chatty and has a similar academic background to my own, so we got along well. I suspect I said all the right things, because now he wants writing samples and has talked about when I might come in for an in-person interview.

So this is very exciting.

Of course there's a drawback.

The drawback is that they aren't paying quite what I hoped for. I was hoping for somewhere near $60K. This is likely to end up around $50K. I think this is doable, especially as Ms. P is likely to be able to get a job that pays more than she's getting now, but I'm wavering.

I would really like to hold out for something higher, because I would like to not feel quite as pinched as we are now for money. On the other hand, I'm trying to transition into a brand-new career, and I suspect I need a starter job that will get me in the door before I can really be competitive for higher-paying jobs.

Here's what it sounds like in my head right now: Housing will cost us quite a bit more, even if we rent. But we won't be driving all over God's green earth like we do now, because there'd be a choir in town and R would be here already and we could carpool to camping with other people. Cellular service would be about the same. Car insurance will be more expensive. I can't tell about food, but it has to be cheaper to get organic food when the bleeping Whole Foods is less than 90 miles away. It'll cost around $60 a month for public transportation, but it would be much higher if I drove.

Gah! Who knows how it will work out. I have 9 other applications out there. I'll send more of them out tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll take it as a good sign that I had a good interview, and stop putting the cart before the horse.