I agree with this in several ways. During my time working at the Museum of Natural History, I dealt with a lot of people who were miserable and basically stuck around either because they had nothing better to do or were justifying the highly competitive but underpaid environment with job titles that had no value in the grand scheme of the institute. Likewise, Michelle's fight for validity as a postdoc has been continuous and frustrating being the only staffer in a fairly empty office around other academics that were glaringly competitive against each other thanks to a continuously shrinking budget. The administration did not seem to understand this either, as they seemed obsessed with building things that look good but lack usefulness: in fact, one of their latest labs isn't even built up to the specs that the instructors need it for in order to do their research.
I'm not surprised that she left. Michelle is actually more comfortable working here with me, even though she makes less and is seriously underpaid given the value of her education because the culture here is a lot less crazy. It never surprises me that The Upturned Microscope is so ridiculously negative and then I even just read a Nature article actually praising PhDs getting second jobs to substantiate their slave wage income. The institutions are in serious need of revision, imo.
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dancing_serpent
(no subject)
Date: 2017-09-19 05:11 pm (UTC)I'm not surprised that she left. Michelle is actually more comfortable working here with me, even though she makes less and is seriously underpaid given the value of her education because the culture here is a lot less crazy. It never surprises me that The Upturned Microscope is so ridiculously negative and then I even just read a Nature article actually praising PhDs getting second jobs to substantiate their slave wage income. The institutions are in serious need of revision, imo.