Journal Entries
Arrrgggghhhh
Posted May 22, 2006
Here's my rant moment.
Right, I've been made redundant. Marvelous, bloody marvelous. The rant comes in two parts, the first is the general "woe is me" one (both firmly place blame elsewhere, however). It irks me, that I've spent years at university, first studying, then doing research - doing stuff that hopefully would actually make a difference to people's health, that suddenly it's: End of contract; "sorry, the funding application fell through"; there are bugger all jobs in the area 'cos your very very overqualified* or have the wrong qualifications.
Arrrggghhh.
When considering a postdoctoral research post, people should be locked in a room and forced to write out a thousand times - I understand that if I get married or become a parent life could get bloody complicated as every two years I'm going to find myself jobless.
I got very cross with the 'well, yes, conditions, pay and contracts are shit for postdocs - but you do it for the love of it' attitude that came from MPs recently. Cheers buddies, but I did it because I had so little money in my bank I couldn't take it out of an ATM and a postdoc position suddenly came up nearby. I didn't sit there thinking, hmm well - this job pays bugger all, there's no job security, every 1-2 years I'll have to compete with 20-40 others for 1 post; there are going to be 5 uni's closing their departments meaning there'll be a saturated job market, but...I love it, so sign me up.
The second thing that annoys me is the fact that whenever people find out I'm redundant, their next question is: "Did it come out of the blue or did you know beforehand?" When I say, oh no, it was a 2 year contract, the result is instant lack of sympathy. Suddenly, because I knew about this all along then I've got no excuse for being unemployed, so tough titty. I then feebly try to explain I did try to apply for jobs before the contract finished (one of which I was amongst 90 applicants for one post) and that we had put it another grant application to get another 2 years funding, but even though it was there to round off the end of a project that's been running for over 4 years to make rapid detection devices for bacteria that cause mennigitis or for MRSA, the funding body chucked the application out. That doesn't cut any ice, nope, I just get 'you lazy bastard' looks.
Right rant over. Back to the joys of filling in applications and doing housework and DIY.
*Footnote: Had a mate who after finishing his PhD and not being able to find any work (and being the industrius type), decided any job would do. So off he went. Could he even get casual work? No. A McDonalds interview lasted 3 minutes, of which 2 were talking about running (a shared interest of his and the interviewers in turned out). The other minute was spent by the interviewer explaining that, being as highly qualified as this friend was, he wouldn't stay for long and therefore would wreck the interviewer's Christmas bonus, partly based on staff retention, so he wouldn't get the job.
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Latest reply: May 22, 2006
Down
Posted Sep 22, 2005
Hmmm, feeling rather blue at the moment. Haven't written a journal entry for so long it's untrue. Work is a big pile of the proverbial, and that coupled with money hassles have combined to produce the state of general not-impressed-with-the-worldness. Outside of work, life is rather nice. My son is growing up into a lovely full of character little boy. And my wife is great. It's very frustrating to have this nice picture spoiled. Ho hum, that's life though, so better get on with it.
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Latest reply: Sep 22, 2005
Yee-bloody-ha
Posted Aug 4, 2004
I've done it!!! What? Well, there'll be few who care, but I'll tell anyone who's passing. I did what I set out to do: make a PCR-stable menigitis probe. Where's the whisky? It's one of those things - it's taken me two years, and in the face of numerous failures, I've been determined to nail the bastard; which I finally have. Cigars all round. The only downside is that few people will care, if understand...and at the moment I haven't finished my website that hopefully will...ah well, back to work.
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Latest reply: Aug 4, 2004
Nice cup of tea
Posted Jun 25, 2004
One of the other postgrads I work, Shasha, with is from China and has given me some Bilouchun (it takes some pronouncing - in my case, about three attempts every time I try to say it), it's really, really nice green tea made from whole leaves. You take these dried up brussel sprout-like things with brown straws attached and add boiling water - after a few minutes you find your cup is full of beautiful leaves with stalks. What's more you can keep topping it up all day with more hot water and the taste doesn't change. Great stuff.
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Latest reply: Jun 25, 2004
A cold, cold June
Posted Jun 25, 2004
IT'S FREEZING IN HERE. Our lab appears to have been designed to withstand nuclear attack, and as one of my colleagues (Hayley) put it: to stop aliens reading our minds. Whilst some parts of the building have more glass than your average greenhouse, we have no exterior windows. The lab window looks into the office, which in turn has a window onto a corridor, which houses part of the air circulation gear. The upshot of all this means that the nearby stairwell with glass for three of its walls, it's lovely and warm; in here we are shaded, protected even, from the suns warming rays. This explains why I am sitting here wearing a jumper in late-June, cosseting a cup of coffee to warm my chilled hands. We have also discovered the downside of having flat screen monitors - they just don't kick out as much heat as CRT's - and are our only method of warming, bar the tea and coffee.
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Latest reply: Jun 25, 2004
FlammableFlower
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