Why is it so bad to aspire to simply have a paycheck and attempt to pursue interests in one’s free time?

Sorry about the back to back postings.

Good grief, I’m in real trouble!

That moment came when I was walking through my department late one night, having just finished a homework assignment. It was close to midnight. I met a professor in the halls. Astonished to see him at such an hour, I blurted out “What are YOU doing here?” He smiled and ducked his head (he was kind of goofy) and mumbled something about working on grant applications.

That was when I knew that this was not the life I wanted. I did not want to be working until midnight on grant applications. I didn’t particularly enjoy teaching. I was good at research but it never gave me enough joy to sustain me through all the other stuff. I hated reading other peoples’ research papers and hated writing my own even more.

I did leave, but much later than I should have. What can I say? I was a fool, but at least I wasn’t a “quitter.” For whatever that’s worth.

I’ve blogged the process of deciding to leave over the past 2 1/2 years, but the short version is this: I was starting to find the repetitiveness of teaching stultifying in my first t-t job, but I had such a lovely, cheerful department and living situation that I was, overall, quite happy. Then what seemed like the perfect job for me came up: lower teaching load, grad teaching precisely in my specialty, prestigious school, etc. I got that job and by the time the first winter set in, I was depressed. I felt trapped in an isolated place in a job that should have been my dream job, and was certainly the dream job for lots of friends I had beat out when I got it. I realized I did not share the values of my colleagues in a research-oriented dept.; I had always loved teaching, but the joy had gone out of that, and at that point I had nothing left. The summer after that first year is where my blog picks up. In my second fall there, I was invited to apply for a couple of similarly fancypants jobs, but I knew for certain that doing the same job in a different place, even a much more congenial place, wasn’t going to solve the problem. I think it was that point, when I could do the thought experiment “What would it be like to do this work if I could do it in a place I love instead of a place I hate?” and STILL know in my heart that I wouldn’t want the job that I knew it was time for a change of career. It took till the start of my third year to be able to tell people in positions of authority that I intended to leave, and it took all of that academic year to extricate myself. In retrospect, I could have gotten out a lot quicker if I hadn’t been so concerned about Doing the Right Thing, but the time to really think about what kind of work I want to do has been valuable.

then we played for 2hrs and mama went back to work, feeling frustrated w/my work, isolated and no one to talk to, my son came back into my office dragging his air mattress to sleep at my feet while I worked again.. and that damn air mattress made SO much NOISE!

right then i knew it. there was going to be many many more frustrating nights where I felt isolated by my work from my family. i was going to feel many more nights of inadequacy as a PhD student, wife, mother and friend.

and I knew then that I was compromising my values for attaining a personal goal- that may not be necessary for obtaining rewarding employment.