Living in Limbo

Part and parcel to going through the postdoc years is the phenomenon of being sent into a state of limbo at the end of each contract. Life in limbo, that phase that happens with rhythmic and anticipated frequency, where you're between jobs and you're looking for your next post. This is a period where applications are flying left and right through cyber-space, awkward phone interviews take place, occasional on-the-spot interviews are conducted, and eventually an offer is made. In our case, due to the highly specialized nature of my husband's field, there isn't one centralized location where the majority of this type of research is being conducted, so we find openings scattered here and there, literally all over the world. There are posts in Australia, all over Europe, in Canada, and tucked away in various universities dotted willy-nilly throughout the United States. If you're like us, this isn't such a big deal, in fact, the variety in location is a wonderful opportunity to broaden our knowledge of the world ~ to get the type of education that we could only get by going somewhere completely new and doing things we would have otherwise never done.

Limbo is a time of great excitement, as well as high anxiety. Each application carries with it the hope and anticipation of an offer, and an imagined scenario of what life would be like in that new location. In the course of the two to three months we typically spend in limbo, my husband may apply to one or two dozen jobs total, in places like Brighton Beach, U.K., or Perth, Australia. He'll apply to spots in California, or all along the east coast of the United States. He'll also apply to a few positions in the Scandinavian countries such as Denmark or Norway, and a handful throughout mainland Europe, such as Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, etc, etc, etc...

It's always great fun to think about our lives carrying on within one of these wonderful windows of opportunity... What will the schools be like in England for our son, Sean, who has been verified as a true Asperger's club member? Would we still be able to afford to keep all our furniture if we moved to California and were only able to rent a one-bedroom apartment? Will I be able to teach English classes in Norway??? Will my driver's license transfer from Minnesota to Germany... and will we be able to buy a car right away? Will we ever see our old friends again??? Questions, questions, questions. And being a type-A personality who loves to make plans and invest in the long-run, it all can be a little nerve-wracking. But I'm getting the hang of it... By trial and error, I'd say I've become an expert at organizational adjustment and change management.

Through the years, we've been following a strategy whereby we place my husband in his next post first, and then I follow suit by trying to find a professional job within the vicinity of his.  However, so far it hasn't been working out too well for me, and maybe it's time for a new strategy. Honestly, though, I don't know how dual career families do it... I couldn't have a separate apartment hours away from my family... I would hate it if my husband wasn't in bed with me at the end of the day, or if we weren't all together at the dinner table, talking nonsense about the world and teaching our children probably far too much about society as we share a common meal. These are the best of times! These are the moments worth living for!

Obviously, I'm committed to my family a bit more than I have been to my career, which I hope most would agree is a good thing. But, like most things in this world, there is a trade-off, and the trade off in this instance turns out to be, ironically, a detriment to my family, as well. For how am I going to contribute to the BOTTOM LINE of my sons' futures without contributing financially? These moves to places so remote and out of the way, and far away from the center of knowledge where I obtained my graduate degree, mean it's just that much harder for me to get my foot in the door in any sort of lucrative job every time we move. In Germany it was a full 15 months before I found my first job... in Vancouver I found a job tutoring right away, but it was extremely part-time, and I had some major interruptions that year, including the death of my younger brother the month after we arrived in Vancouver and the epic struggle with my son, Sean, during his kindergarten and first grade years in public school before he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. After twenty months of struggle in Vancouver, I felt like pulling my hair out (and Vancouver, though very beautiful and full of activity, is so very expensive i.e., hard on the postdoc's wallet; having no money in Vancouver meant that we spent most of our time hanging out in our basement apartment).  Okay, so, Vancouver had obstacles outside of the ordinary for me to contend with, and perhaps that period of time needs to be considered in light of those difficulties...

However, I needed a change and we decided it was time to come back to the United States where things might be a little easier for me.  My husband fortunately had two offers, and he took the one he's got now, in a sleepy little town known mostly for one industry leader, and which has been known to not have too much to offer to the professional spouses of the employees of this industry leader, who relocate together with their spouses but who may not be positioned for that particular industry. On top of that, we moved back right on the crest of the wave of the great recession, when jobs were being shed in the hundreds of thousands each month... Sigh...

Needless to say, this time around, after 15 months of diligent search and application, I still haven't found significant work in this location.  I know what you must be thinking... you're thinking that it's just a matter of having to apply myself more, or of needing to thinking outside the box more, or of being patient and professional and waiting out the storms, or being willing to compromise on the kind of work I'm willing to take. And I’d agree with you! Those are the same exact thoughts I've had myself, and I’ve tried nearly all the different strategies there are out from compromising to being patient to creatively finding ways to get noticed. Yet still nothing.


And now the time has come for my husband to find a new position since he's come to the end of this contract. The door revolves in front of me yet again, and I’ll have to jam my foot into it.

Back to limbo.  Being between postdoc positions means you, as the spouse of the postdoc, are no longer committed to the location in which you live because you know you're only there for a short time more, so you stop applying to jobs in that location.  This also means that during the last remaining months when you are in your current location, all your connections start to pull away from you, you become detached and isolated, and you stop connecting with your community in turn.  If you have children, it can be awkward.  “Mom, why are there no kids at my birthday party”, for example. This must be what it feels like to be a military brat.
As soon as limbo begins, you start casting your net wider, trying to catch a fish in other waters whose currents are dictated by your partner's opportunities, in order to get a head-start on your own job search. However, this is always a risky strategy in itself because now you both are applying all over the place and if you get a wonderful offer in one state and your spouse gets one in another, then having to choose between the two, or between taking both and splitting up the family, can be quite stressful. And during limbo, applying all over the place is not very efficient, to say the least (I have a hard time keeping track of all the positions I've applied to, not to mention how tedious and redundant the research into each location's economy becomes). BUT... it does give me TONS OF PRACTICE in writing cover letters and custom tailoring my résumé, which turns out to be a very good thing for my particular professional field, thought it doesn't show up anywhere on my résumé.

But maybe it should... Maybe I should write "Expert cover letter writer with a 100% response rate from 30% of positions applied for around the world." Or "Change management experience: Successfully uprooted, reestablished, plugged-in, developed, maintained, wrapped-up operations, and departed from nation-wide and international markets” – That one sounds more MBAish.  Maybe I’ll add it to my next round of applications!

Compelled to Write

The desire to compulsively scream out my primal scream has reached an all-time high, which is an indication to me that it is time to start writing about my experiences over the last eight years as a career-minded wife of a nomadic postdoctoral scientist.

For those of you who don't know, the postdoc years for a research scientist consists of taking positions in universities, institutions, and corporations where you're lucky to have the first year of work guaranteed. These days, scientific postdoctoral researchers spend an average of five to ten years on short-term contracts after obtaining the coveted Ph.D., and during those years, the pay is, um, let's just say, ridiculously atrocious (see this postdoc article).

The work conditions can be appalling, as well. Here are some adjectives that come to mind: dispiriting, demoralizing, anxious, isolating, bleak, wearisome. Postdocs never know where their next stop on the map is going to be once their contract expires, they usually have abusive supervisors who expect them to work around the clock, and occasionally they may have primary investigators who are all too keen to put their name to the postdoc's research and take credit for all that work. "Mentor"? Ha! More like "Oppressor".

The number of professional academic and corporate research positions has not grown in proportion to the number of scientists with Ph.D.s who are being turned out, year after year, from America's institutions of higher learning, and so there is, conveniently for some, a backlog of highly qualified individuals who are desperate for work. This phenomenon has resulted in a new term, called the "Highway Professor", which is one who drives from college to college, teaching a class here and there just to be able to put some food on the table. As well, the Wall Street Journal recently ran an article suggesting that if Ph.D.s want to find work, they should first get their passports because all the academic jobs are currently in Asia and Eastern Europe (see this postdoc article).

However, these postdoc years are suppose to serve as a period of apprenticeship, similar to a residency within medicine, where there is a strong mentoring relationship between the primary investigator and the postdoc, where the young scientist gains valuable experience which he could not obtain in any other way, and where the primary investigator builds a successful body of followers who have been touched by his masterful influence. In a perfect scenario, one hand washes the other. However, rather than serving a common purpose, these days, the postdoc usually receives the short end of the stick in the business of science. Have a project to complete? Get a postdoc to do it! Don't offer any support, don't offer any guidance, bare-minimum benefits, and a lot of pressure to produce... if he doesn't produce fast enough, there are several others waiting in line for his job! ~ This, sadly, is the reality of the situation for many now entering science.

My husband, for example, works for a large, world renowned medical research center whose name sounds similar to the name of a common sandwich condiment, and was given the stipulation that he was to produce and publish three significant papers in twelve months time or else his contract could not be renewed. In contrast, at this same institution, medical fellows are given three years to produce three papers, and are paid roughly $12k more per year to produce it.

But this blog isn't about postdoc work, or being a scientist. No. This blog is about being married to one of these pedestrians; Specifically, its about what it's like for me to be married to a postdoc... and what it means for my career (and my ability to be able to profit from my investment in my education) and my ability to raise our children in a stable environment.

In a nutshell, it's my purge.

I earned my Master's degree in management a year after I married. Soon following was the arrival of our firstborn child. At 27 years of age, I thought it was the perfect time, biologically, to have my first child. After all, I had read so many stories about how women were delaying giving birth until much later in life, after they had established themselves in their careers, and I myself had no desire to follow this trend, since its ill effects included a) taking an extended break from the career path after having spent so much time building up to it... and having to play professional catch-up with all the fresh new graduates once I returned and b) risking my health and the health of my unborn child by delaying birth until after 35, for example. So, we had our baby, and my husband ventured into his Ph.D. study soon after.

As you may have guessed, there aren't a whole many people in this unique position that I am in. Of the postdocs under the age of 40, roughly 40% are married... and of those who are married, only about 30% have one child or more. Even further, of those spouses married to postdocs and have children, it is estimated that only 10% of these spouses are not employed. What these numbers tell me is that most postdocs know better than to get married before they have settled down into their careers. But for those who do decide to get married, most of those people know better than to go ahead and have a child during the postdoc years. And the last number, well, it tells me that of those married postdocs who do have kids, the spouse better be working outside the home! Which brings me to my question... what is it about me that makes me fall into this slim, 10% of the 30% of the 40% of postdoc family demographics???

I hope to have some answers for you (and myself) real soon.