Jory writes in Fast Company about how the companies can be more aware of the financial difficulties of their employees. How I wish that certain non profits and universities would read her article.
This month I have yet to be paid by either of my university jobs. Meanwhile I'm expected to shell out for gas and thank you gifts for the folks participating in our research. For a university professor (or even the woman who does the payroll for our department) that amount of money would be nothing. When we found out that I hadn't been paid we had $70 in our account and no money for rent.
In comparison to most of the people in the world we are rich, so you will have to take my complaining with a grain of salt. Yet there are times when I feel deeply frustrated at the lack of understanding by the people I work with.
My husband and I are both in school at the moment. My feeling is that this is not by choice, but by unfortunate circumstance. If I had been able to see into the future I would have returned to grad school much earlier, but I wasn't very confident and didn't know what I would want to study. Beorn had a decent job, but he was so unhappy most of our money went into our living expenses and to feed his addiction to electronics. We spent way too much money on eating out. I worked at jobs I loved but that paid me poverty wages. I guess I hoped that I would be able to move up into more reasonably paid management jobs.
In 2001 when the dot.com bubble burst Beorn was laid off. He didn't have a college degree so he had trouble finding a job after that. For a while he worked as a consultant for a startup, then when that went sour he worked at the local computer repair shop for little more than minimum wage. The repair shop didn't last long either. It's pretty demoralizing to go from $70,000+ to less than $20,000 while being repeatedly fired on trumped up excuses, so that they don't have to pay you unemployment.
Meanwhile my nonprofit job expected lots of unpaid overtime and kept on promising me pay raises that never seemed to come. After working there for four years my salary was barely above that of the new hires that I was being expected to train.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Money Issues (or why I'm in grad school, Part I)
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Another Breena
There is another Breena and she likes Donna Haraway. I had no idea that there were people out there actually named Breena. I thought I made the name up. Her blog also has a great name: Superb Lyrebird.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Everyone get thee over to Styley's place
All academic bloggers need to read Styley's hilarious post:
Fumbling Towards Geekdom: If the academic blogs I read got together and created their own university
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Stupid People Come in All Types
This makes me really upset!
Vegan couple gets life over baby's death - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com
Where were these people's families? Where was their midwife? The story doesn't tell anything about why someone wasn't there to advise them. It just makes vegans and people who have their babies at home look really stupid. Feeding a newborn soy milk and apple juice is not normal for vegans or people that have home births.
Normally a home birth is attended by at least a trained midwife. I can't imagine a sane person thinking it's OK for a totally inexperienced couple to deliver a baby at home without anyone to help or advise them. Even the folks from The Farm started out with supportive friends and experienced parents around. Later Ina May Gaskin gained experience and training as a midwife. (I think mostly through delivering babies and reading.) If you read Spiritual Midwifery (I have only read pieces) you'll find they did many stupid things, but I just can't imagine not reading or getting advice from anyone during your pregnancy.
I can only speculate that these parents thought that the baby was getting enough breast milk and that he wasn't? Where was La Leche League? I don't know if baby formula that is soy based is actually made with no animal products but it's just common sense that you don't feed a newborn just any liquid. Can you imagine going through nine months of pregnancy and not reading anything or talking to anyone about becoming a parent?
There has to be something else going on with that family. Something very wrong.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
I have so had this thought...
I love Devil's Panties. Conventions don't appeal to me much because I'm not a fan of masses of strangers, but some things about them are fun. I miss being involved in weird counterculture. Maybe this summer I should go to Burning Man or something, get it out of my system.
Friday, April 27, 2007
I can't get in sync
So my adviser and the other grad student in the "lab" are excited about a new grant application we are working on. Today we had a meeting about it. The result was that we came up with an almost identical research plan to the proposal that I couldn't get my adviser to pay any attention to six month ago. Six months ago when I was trying to come up with a research plan for my thesis they weren't interested and now that I really need to be concentrating on writing my thesis they want to plan for new research. I'm so frustrated! I should be happy, but I have mentally moved on.
On the positive side I have made quite a bit of progress in getting the current data set into a usable form. That process has really helped to clarify for me what it is possible to say with this data and what just isn't there.
Also, my new "super boss" and another grad student at my new job are working on a conference panel to do with the data collection method for my current project. They seem really interested in having me submit something for the panel. The conference is in August in a big east coast city and sounds really fun. I spent over two hours yesterday talking about research methods with the other grad student. Her dissertation topic is related to my current thesis project, especially in terms of data collection methods. She has been collecting data this year so she had lots of interesting stories.
Yesterday made me realize what a truly scholarly, collegial environment would feel like (at least occasionally.)
Friday Cat Blogging
No photos this week. BOK (Big Orange Kitty) had to go to the vet this week because his nictating membranes were showing. Apparently that is a sign of illness. The vet claimed that it usually meant a stomachache and that we should start giving him a bunch of hairball medicine. It's spring and he is shedding a lot. He seems OK other than that. I still worry a little.
