The job hunt

Finding a job. Finding a job in academia. Finding a job in academia in this economic climate. All powerful statements, each with their own dilemma. I thought I could take just any job. I figured out this week I was wrong.

The first - just finding a job - feels akin to finding one's mate. I am not a youthful figure for whom any job will be an acceptable fit to get my foot in a door. My working life span has an expiration date, so to speak, and it is much closer than most of those in my graduate student peer group! Fitting into a job that I can grow and stay in is vital to me. I don't have the benefit of time left in my working life to bother with just any job or one that will move me up a proverbial ladder. Nor do I feel I want to be climbing some ladder somewhere! So there are two issues rattling around in my brain when considering marrying my next job. First, what is it I truly want from my working life the next twenty years? Second, what concessions am I willing to make to be happy doing what I truly want from my working life in the next twenty years? Not easy questions to figure out an answer to, even if you aren't new to a profession.

The next - finding a job in academia. A strange land, this place of academia. It is so much different than other kinds of educational interviews I have been a part of in the past. I wonder how ANY professor ever got a job after having sustained only four months of searching for a tenure position! Certainly, there is also a smaller cast of characters in contrast to the past jobs I have sought. Rather than playing the Kevin Bacon game, I can insert just about any professor's name into the game and play it with any other academic and find the next relationship right in front of me. I thought that was an incredibly helpful thing. Turns out it also carries tremendous responsibility and weight with it. It is not something I use as a machete in an interview to cut through the maze of questions being tossed in front of me, but a gift of sorts that I must protect and use with caution. I daydream, likening myself to a kind of King Arthur, pulling Excalibur out of the stone...much better that way! I would probably cut myself in the process of using a machete.

The last - the economic times in which I search for the academic job. Alas, if finding my perfect partner in academia isn't difficult enough, in a place where I can live up to the names I carry with me out into a different glass tower world, in a world filled with card-carrying stone throwers, now I have to be sure that my partner is not a pauper hiding in royal clothing! North Carolina state universities will take a 12% pay cut across the board for the next budget year. Looks like if the republicans have their way, the cuts we will see will be deeper and much more painful than any of us have anticipated. What will that mean to me, the 'new' kid on the block? What will that mean to the plan to pick up the retirement savings that I put on hold four years ago? What will this mean for my future as an educator at all?

And so I search. And apply. And wait. And plan. And dream about being in my own classroom. And wonder for the very first time if this risk I took will play out sooner rather than later. And wait some more. Patience should become my best friend, and yet impatience ripples through me almost daily looking for answers that I still do not have. Not to mention the other stresses that accompany any change of this magnitude!

And for the first time, I consider that I may need to rent those robes that I have dreamed about almost as long as I did my wedding dress.

Finding Serendipity

In the midst of all the craziness of the beginning of a semester, I have added job interviews to the mix. It feels a bit surreal to be at this point, but that is another entry for another day. This is merely a rather funny, perhaps heart-warming story about finding yourself in unexpected places at unexpected times...

So I was scheduled to do an interview on campus during the worst snow storm the southeast has seen this winter. The university is not culpable in this tale, and shall remain nameless. However, I was in constant communication, just trying to be sure that the money they put into that ticket for me was well spent. Whether that meant that I show up or not show up, I wanted to play out in what was best for them. So here is the story as it began.

First, the airline cancelled my ticket for the early flight and rebooked me the same day, late in the afternoon, through Detroit, not Atlanta. I breathed a sigh of relief...until I realized it was also snowing like the devil in Detroit. All day, we faithfully checked to make sure the flights were still a go. Everything looked great!

Mark dropped me off at the airport, I checked in, and just as I settled into my seat, the flight was announced as delayed...30 min. But anyone with a connecting flight AFTER 7:30 was fine. I went to the desk and said, "But my 20 min. check in time IS 7:30" and she said, "I SAID you were fine, you are fine. Your flight doesn't leave until 7:50. You will make it." I didn't say I didn't believe her, but I didn't believe her. THEN she announces, don't go if you are going to miss your flight because there are no rooms available around the Detroit airport. I called my contacts and we decided it would be ok to move ahead.

Got on the plane and thought it was all good...and then the plane sat on the runway for 20 minutes because we needed to be de-iced. Well, that is a great reason right? So now, I am thinking I will arrive at 7:30...close, but Delta 'validated' the connection, right? Oh, it gets better!! We arrive to land in Detroit about 7:20, but there isn't a place to land and we stay floating around the airport in a holding pattern until 7:35...stay on the tarmac waiting for our terminal to be ready for us for another 5 min...then the lift containing the luggage was caught on snow (are you starting to catch my drift here?) and I was able to grab my bag at 7:43...RAN down the hallway after having the Delta person call the gate...and arrived at my gate at 7:49...no plane. It was gone. Left ON TIME. Imagine that!

All the bedraggled passengers from my flight were sent to the OTHER end of the world to check on rebooking. I make the call to figure out what the university would like me to do. At this point, I figure I need to go back home and try again another day! I am starting to imagine I look like Calamity Jane to my potential employers. Standing in line for 90 minutes, I start to panic slightly. No hotel rooms. The guy on my plane wants me to help him rent a car and drive to the destination. Well, he is carrying a guitar case. Not going anywhere with a stranger-guitarist in businessmen clothing. I know ALL about musicians...;)!

I get my ticket changed, no problem, and the Delta agent is completely understanding, right? No, understanding LIKE A ROBOT! Amazing...they have rhino hides for emotional skin, I swear. As far as they were concerned, not their problem. Need a room? Go to Ann Arbor or Livonia. How do I get there? No idea, you are on your own. Or...well, never mind where I thought he should go get a room.

Somewhere in the chaos, I called my mom & dad. Probably half my extended family lives in the area surrounding Detroit, so I was hoping I could find a bed for a night with family. I would never ask for that favor had there had been a hotel room available - the roads were terrible, schools were closing for the next day, and I was unexpected. Yet, when Mom put the family APB out, my lovely cousin Shaney set into motion a plan for my brief stay and sent me a text message letting me know I simply needed to call.

I can't explain my relief. I love being independent and work well on my own. But in situations where I find myself alone, suddenly like this in a strange place, I am frightened. I quickly realize that my husband is the foundation of my daily strength. When he isn't present, I feel lost emotionally, and in this case physically! So that one text message calmed my fear. I made the call, thanking her, and then called my cousin Robert who provided taxi service to my Aunt Maria's house and back to the airport in the morning. There I found a warm bed, sustenance, and the comforting space of people who will take you in simply because you are family.

This was the serendipitous moment. Now I had my moment of anger and frustration and I snapped a bit at Delta for not even offering a drink coupon for my trouble. But when all is said and done, I live my life at breakneck speed, moved far from my roots, perhaps both emotionally and physically, and may forget to acknowledge the safety net or connection to my entire family at times. To stop for just a moment and appreciate my family roots, to revel in having a safe haven no matter where I am, to walk into someone's home and feel completely at home - how could that not be serendipitous at this time in my life?

I remember my Grandpa Rowe taking long walks with all of us - cousins, aunts, uncles, second cousins - and for some reason when I went to bed I was reminded of these walks, this gathering of relatives. That feeling that we were all special, safe, connected and loved. Mom and Dad - always there, a constant, loving and steady force in my life. But this refers to my expanse of family - the way Shaney sprang into action to make me feel safe, the way Robert greeted me at the airport, moving so much like his dad (Doug, gone too soon) with the same warm smile, the way Maria welcomed me with open arms and a hot cup of coffee. What a wonderful way to fall asleep! What a beautiful legacy this family has and how much I suddenly appreciate the gift that it is. This was not a horrible situation fraught with lost time, but a moment to be savored with what had been found.

I resolve to do a better job of letting this huge family know I love them. That I will spend a bit more time appreciating found pockets of time that allow me to do so. And that serendipity is found in the strangest places...even in Detroit in the middle of a snowstorm.