Nico chasing ducks again...

Nico chasing ducks:



Seriously... really?

Kind of in a grumpy mood today. Partially because I am tired. But also because I have a lot of stuff to do today- none of the work stuff is really that important. And all of the non work stuff is REALLY important.

I applied for a new job here in Florida. Its my plan D. Plan A is to do post doc at Austin. Plan B is to get a Tenure Track job or Post Doc somewhere tolerable, where Dave can get a job too. Plan C is to get a Tenure Track job or Post Doc somewhere tolerable that we can live on one salary (mine). Plan D is that I have epic failed at the job market and we decide to stay in Tallahassee. The new job is with the State Court System. Its more money, doing something I really love (all data all the time).

Plus, I am kind of annoyed with the Department of Health. Yeah... I said it. The place that for such a long time was, in my mind, the shining beacon of hope for the future employment of Jessi Bishop-Royse? Yeah, kind of on my nerves. Any time you need to get something done, you have to send it through to the nine levels of purgatory to get it blessed by Jesus himself. For example, someone who made $6000.00 more a year than I do quit in December. Because my supervisor is one of the only saving graces of DOH, she readvertised it with the hopes of getting me into the process. I applied for it in February. February. She was told for a while to put it on hold (during the session). Then she went through all the steps that you are supposed to do- she interviewed other applicants... other individuals from the bureau were asked to sit in on the interview. Obviously decided that I am better suited for the job. She has been trying to get me hired in the position going on 5 months. 5 months.

And while you would think that being a bureacracy, that it was the function of various positions that mattered, this does not seem to be the actual case. There are people in our division who have been allowed to behave badly. So it jacks up the process of stuff that is supposed to happen. So rather than the process being what it is, all of this contingency gets built in. We recently had to do a Memorandum of Agreement with the VA. Because of all the bullshit, we ended up having to work against a pretty tight deadline to get it done. At one point one of our supervisors had to go to Contract Management and massage someone's ego in order to get the MOA to walk it across the hall to Budget. Rather than sending our administrative assistant to do this, he had to go because the ego in question would have ripped off our admin's head and spit down her neck. So our supervisor got to waste an hour and a half of his life bailing us out because we couldnt send our SECRETARY to walk a packet of papers across the hall. No joke.

So that part is annoying... but its the work that is wearing me out. About 10% of my actual job is working with data... which is what I prefer. Data isn't fickle... its not emotional. It doesnt have a pissy day. Its not going to be different tomorrow than it was today. It's not going to change the rules midstream. Data is reasonable. Its rational. It makes sense to me.

As I tried to explain to a coworker that found out I was on the academic job market- its like I have spent the last 8 years of my life training to run the marathon in the olympics. What I do now is sort of like running 10K races on the weekend.