The real world has cookies
I've finally done it. After spending most of each year since 1984 on some sort of educational campus, I've broken free. Twenty-five years after shuffling shyly into the kindergarten classroom, lunchbox tightly in hand, I've at last left school behind and joined The Real World (still clutching a lunchbox, though - sharing your cookies on the first day is a cheap but effective ploy to win friends. Oreo, anyone?).
I won't get into the specifics of my new job; suffice to say that it requires getting a pile of vaccinations and that if there's ever an Ebola, bird flu, or zombie outbreak, yours truly will be the first to hear about it. The important thing, though, is that I'm no longer a postdoc doing research at someone else's beck and call. I'm now an independent researcher able to chart my own course through the scientific waters and hoping said course won't take me into the path of a large iceberg.
I was going to devote this entry to a discussion of the things I was going to miss most about the campus environment - the protracted holiday break over Christmas, the foraging for free food, the fact that you could show up pantless to work and nobody would take much notice - but I realized that I'm not really going to miss the campus very much at all. Sure there are a few lab traditions it would have been nice to bring to my new home - shutting down at 4 p.m. on Friday for socializing over beers, taking a sunny afternoon off for a group BBQ - but after 13 straight years on campus, the list of things I won't miss eclipses the few things I will.
I won't, for example, miss the overcrowded buses in winter, each red-eyed, drippy-nosed rider harbouring more germs than the pole at the Lusty Beaver Cabaret. I won't miss the increasingly grim prospects for on-campus dining, a field whose entrants include roughly 20 permutations of the same establishment, each christened with a different name but all selling the same overpriced soggy sandwiches. And I certainly won't miss spending 95% of my lunch break standing in a queue of 100 people all waiting for said soggy sandwich.
I won't miss the constant battle for office space, even though the two years I spent sharing a converted walk-in freezer with 2-4 other people were some of my most productive. I won't miss evacuating the building for a fire alarm or bomb threat two or three times a week during exam season, when some student's Plan A of studying for the exam fails and they resort to their felonious Plan B. And I won't miss evacuating the building for a hazmat incident two or three times a year when that same student, now working in a lab, does something stupid and spills a noxious chemical. Which they wouldn't have done had they studied for that exam years before.
I won't miss overpriced parking and overpriced food, underfunded buildings and underestimated traffic. I won't miss getting older while the students stay the same age. I won't miss worrying about paycheques, worrying about benefits, worrying about tax status, and having to redo all my pay and benefits and forms every time my funding changes. And I won't miss those blue maintenance vans that'll run you down any chance they get.
Yes, you sacrifice a little freedom and a little whimsy when you join The Real World, but it's not the lifeless bureaucracy that some make it out to be. It's actually rather fun. I get to wear a little swipey security pass around my neck with my picture on it, people have parking spots with their names on little signs, and I've got a patch of real estate all to myself that's twice the size of my old freezer. And plants! The Real World has plants! I've got whiteboards and a mesh chair and business cards and three computers and my own phone line and a door that locks and four whole windows in my office and a coffee table in my office and DID I MENTION THE PLANTS? My God, the plants! And a paycheque! And benefits! And vacation time! And massages! AND THERE ARE A HUNDRED PLACES TO EAT LUNCH! IT'S ALL SO WONDERFUL!
Okay. I've only been there a week and a half. Maybe in a year or two or 10, I'll have found something to gripe about. But for now, I'm pretty jazzed. I've spent 13 years at university and it's finally, finally paid off. I'm doing what I love to do in a place I always wanted to work surrounded by people who are equally excited about their research and I can't wait to see where it takes me.
So take heart, students and postdocs of the world - one day this, too, will be yours. Until then, toil away through those fire alarms and chemical spills, face the long lunch lines, and ride that bus and douse yourself in Purell afterwards. Then, when your training is complete, your free food instincts have been honed, and you have become a Well-Rounded Individual, come join us in The Real World. We have cookies.
Tagged with
benefits,
postdoc,
academia,
job,
paycheque,
researcher,
independent,
leaving
| 
JENNIFER GARDY 
Comments
Congrats!
A word about the Real World, though. To paraphrase Einstein: [The Real World] is only an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Please, just don't stop writing!
So, now that you're in the real world, will you still be blogging for Globe Campus?
Congrats on the job. It sounds CDC-esc.
Congratulations on the new job, but... does this mean that you will stop blogging ? I love reading your blog and I do hope that you'll keep writing your funny and insightful posts.
I'll still be blogging, only now all of science is available as column fodder, not just the postdoc-y bits!
Great post, very funny, brings back memories of the West Coast. I live in Calgary now, but spent 7 years split b/w UVIC & Vancouver. I've been thinking of a PhD some day on the horizon at UBC (economics/finance). It's amazing how the grass starts to get greener as you spend more & more time away from academia!
Contrats NG...
As one who finally graduated from the confines of university laboratories just south of my thirtieth birthday, I too felt your elation.
Five years in, I'm still mostly enjoying the extended honeymoon, but the voyeuristic, ever-present eyes of "The Man" are starting to become less possible to ignore.
And then there's the whole issue of trying to figure out how it will be possible ever to retire (or keep a job long enough to do so) given the undulating financial landscape which our generation will have to navigate.
But be sure to take some time to toast the fruits of your labour. I suggest a nice Merlot.
I'm a phd student. We have nine plants in our office (at last count).
Congratulations. Enjoy the real world, it has a lot to offer. Work. Romance. Goals. Achievement. Frustration. Politics. Money. The whole ball of wax.
And don't be surprised, if one day, you want to return to university. I did.
...V
I'm jealous your out.. I just started my MSc this summer - I'm ready to get away from academia into the real world now!
or atleast into a field with the prospect of future employment... Hurray....
Congrats on graduating and even greater congratulations on getting a job in these trying times.
You claim you'll not miss all the hardships. 50 years later, I found it otherwise. I remember all the hardships and the sacrifices better than I remember the easy times, few as they were. I remember the hard times because I struggled through them and, like you, finally made it to the so-called real world. Each hurdle made me a stronger person and today, in retirement, on easy street, as I look back at my life I miss the challenge.
Enjoy the work place. It can be just as challenging and more rewarding. If you retain your grit, each job hurdle you overcome will make you feel worth your salt and you will set the bar higher.
Good hunting.
Ooooh, can you sense my jealousy all the way from across the city? I'm going on 11 years now (did an MSc, which added some time) and still have more to go. My current challenge is to figure out how academia is apparently encouraging female scientists yet has no real policy in place for maternity leave other than that, sure you can take it, just don't expect to get any of your (already pathetic) stipend, and have fun finishing your Ph.D in less than 6 years, so say goodbye to market competitiveness. Enjoy :)
The real world also has:
social funds, lottery funds you are afraid to leave even when you are transfered and coffee and water funds all that have to be paid on pay day
pot lucks for which -if you are smart -you will always sign up to bring soda pop or cold cuts
standards as to what you can say even in jest to a coworker
a certain lack of spider solitare opportunities
baffles, lots of baffles
a refreshing amount of concern about ergonomics
the enjoyment of being put under the microscope at your annual performance review
Congratulations on the new job.
However, your criticisms of academia read more as institution-specific, rather than a commentary on the plight of an academic lifestyle today.
There are many academic institutions with warm, sunny bike commutes and a host of good dining options.
bravo! love your enthusiasm :-)
13 years of education and you're actually cool with getting tons of toxic vaccinations injected into your body? wow.
NerdGirl, Congrats on the "Real World" job, with all of your hard work in academia it sounds like you deserve to have your dream job. What I am most happy to hear though is that you will be continuing your blog posts. I love reading your posts and look for them every week. Will you continue to be posting them on the globecampus site or elsewhere? Keep up the good work and enjoy your plants. Sincerely, the baldguy from TO.
NerdGirl, Congrats on the "Real World" job, with all of your hard work in academia it sounds like you deserve to have your dream job. What I am most happy to hear though is that you will be continuing your blog posts. I love reading your posts and look for them every week. Will you continue to be posting them on the globecampus site or elsewhere? Keep up the good work and enjoy your plants. Sincerely, the baldguy from TO.
To Nick: warm sunny bike commutes? In Canada? MANY? wanna try making a list?
You are one of the lucky ones who has found a job related to your training. There are many who are still postdocs far longer than you. A real job at age 30 for a Ph.D. is not too bad. There are many who wait longer before jumping ship completely and relaunching a completely new career.
Thank you sooo much Jen for this article. It gave me a great deal of inspiration that there IS light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes, in the lonely hours of studying it gets so depressing with the uncertainty for the future - will this ever end? Is it worth it what I am doing?
Your article has provided the answer. It's all worth it. Thank you!
This is very much a "grass is greener on the other side" sort of perspective. Congratulations on hopping the fence. For me, I spent 25 years in the so-called real world (which, when you get to know it, is really unreal sometimes), and then chose to return to the academy at mid-life. Now, just months away from completing my Ph.D. (knock on... err... there's no wood around here!), I'm hoping beyond hope to find a professorship somewhere to be able to continue in this exceptionally privileged and wonderful world that I've discovered. If I have the opportunity to spend twenty years here, I'm sure I'll become jaded and be ready to peer over the fence again. But going back to the corporatized "real world?" Not if I can help it!
(and yes, I realize that universities are as corporate as anywhere else - that's actually part of my research)
We will miss you, Nerd Girl! Please continue to write, comparing The Real World to post-doc work. Or switch to your own blog... Smart women are sexy!
congrats! but then probably no more spider solitaire then eh?
Congrats! :)
I understand your gripes completely! I've only been with my post-university job a year, but I don't miss the student life at all! I miss learning new things on a much more regimented basis, but working does have it's perks. Have fun!
Congratulations!!!
As everyone's said: "Don't stop writing!" Especially for those of us in the "Real World" that dream of academia from time to time...
Editor's note: This comment has been removed as objectionable.
Hi Nerd Girl,
Best wishes. Loved the UBC grad student/Post doc nostalgia. I went to grade 25 too at UBC, departing '77! I went out and baked myself a home-size batch of UBC cinnamon rolls from the alumni magazine recipe under nostalgia influence (can forward on request.)
Real world appeal is that you get to play with real resources and see what actually happens when people take your advice. Lucky you, though, AN OFFICE! I never escaped the cubicle.
lifer
So there is a light at the end of the long, long, long, long, long, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, tunnell. Weird.
Congrats, Nerd Girl. Post-academic life has just as many rich rewards as the academic one. And for those of you on the inside of academia wondering about how to transition to the outside, there is a community for people like you at www.leavingacademia.com.
Hi Jenn, Congratulations. When we met when you visited the BC Cancer Research Centre as a Jobs in Science guest, I was impressed and inspired by the career that you had managed combining science and writing. I must admit, however, to being confused by the fact that you were still a subject of the Academic Kingdom, with its scant financial rewards and surprising dearth of nourishment for the soul.
My UBC career turns 10 this September and, with luck, I'll be following you into the real world in the not too distant future.
Look forward to reading how it treats you.
so basically you are a highly paid glorified senior technician now...congrats.
Since you are not really in academia anymore...how can you still be one of the globecampus blogs? I mean, it seems like g and m is going to replace Ian since he is not a freshman anymore, shouldn't they do the same to everyone as well?
I envy you your enthusiasm. Really. Fifteen years in the Real World has turned me into a cynic professionally. I was asked to return to my alma mater to teach a couple years ago. I gave it some thought and subsequently replied with a politically correct, polite refusal. The real reason I turned it down was I didn't want to infect young minds with this real world strain of cynicism that is slowly eating my soul... but hey, you're right about the cookies!
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