"I got the job!"
I could feel my husband's excitement through the phone. He had been offered a tenure-track assistant professorship at a well-respected medical school on the East Coast. Some 1,200 miles away in Minnesota, I tried to envision a city I had never seen as I listened to details of the interview. It wasn't until hanging up that I felt a twinge of panic -- what about me?
I'll admit I had never worried much about the notorious two-body problem that had plagued so many of my married scientist friends. Even though my husband and I were postdocs in the same department and shared similar research interests, we'd been married less than a year and I was used to doing things on my own.
In terms of my career, I still thought of myself as single. I hadn't applied for tenure-track positions yet because I had been a postdoc for only three years, compared to my husband's six, and to apply for such jobs at that point had seemed overly ambitious. I was also struggling to reconcile my research and teaching interests, while carefully avoiding making a solid commitment to either. It didn't seem like a good idea to apply for jobs when I didn't even know what kind of job I wanted.
But that thinking seemed like a mistake last spring when I realized that we were moving to the East Coast and that the hiring season was over. Still, I had a good publication record, a history of grants, and great references. And I was open to anything -- or so I thought.
Fortunately, my husband had discussed our situation with the chairman of his prospective department, and things looked promising. The good news, we were told, was that the department needed people to teach in the medical school. The bad news was that the department lacked the money to support my research, but I was confident I could get my own grant if I could secure faculty status.
Despite dire warnings from my colleagues, I decided to seek a research faculty position working in my husband's lab. It sounded great: I could get teaching experience in the medical school, write small grants, and take some time to figure out my career. The interview was scheduled, and my husband and I began picking out our lab equipment. "Don't worry," he said, "they're going to love you."
This love was not immediately apparent on the day of my interview. The secretaries fawned over my husband, calling him "Doctor" and "Professor," while I was mostly ignored. My name was misspelled on the flier announcing my departmental seminar, which also neglected to mention my doctorate.
I shook off this ominous first impression and went to meet with the medical school's course coordinators. After presenting a "mock lecture" that I had taken great pains to prepare, I was told that the medical school no longer needed a lecturer, as one had already been hired. Undaunted, I proposed teaching within the department, which also had a graduate program. This was greeted with an almost apologetic disclosure from the coordinators: The school was locally renowned for teaching, and thus had certain standards, which I apparently did not meet. Although I had won a teaching award in graduate school, I was denied even a part-time lectureship.
Instead, I was offered a "lab helper" position -- cleaning equipment and assisting with histology and gross-anatomy laboratories. I hid my disappointment and didn't mention that I had been given more teaching responsibility as a first-year graduate student. Instead, I politely thanked the course coordinators and went to my next appointment with the chairman.
Despite his stern visage and heavy German accent, the chairman did not initially intimidate me. I'd dealt with old-school male scientists before, and developed an approach of deference and irreverent spunk designed to neutralize any age or gender biases. However, I was completely unprepared for what transpired in the interview.
Once again, I naïvely saw myself as a sexless scientist with a solid CV and much to offer -- and not as the wife of the person they really wanted to hire. However, the chairman started our conversation by telling me I shouldn't work in my husband's lab, because it would distract him and interfere with his ability to get tenure. I couldn't imagine what he meant by "distract." Racy lingerie under my lab coat? Or, worse, did he think my husband would need to take time out to help me work the microscope?
Before I could decide how to be insulted, the chairman offered me a half-time postdoctoral position in another departmental lab. When I pointed out that I had been working on my project for three years, and abandoning it would severely compromise my chances for obtaining grants, he gently suggested I lose the "emotional attachment" to my current work.
Again I found myself at a loss for words. Or, rather, I found too many words I could not say. I am not alone in believing that passion for research is one of the few reasons to become a scientist. Sure, the long hours, isolation, and unstable income are attractive, too, but most people do science because they love it. What if John McEnroe had been told to lose his emotional attachment to tennis? OK, that might be a bad example, but at the time it seemed appropriate, and not just because I felt like throwing a tantrum.
Frustrated at my inability to charm this man and negotiate on my own behalf, I became silent as the chairman tried to make marginalization sound like a promotion. As phrases such as "keep you busy" drifted past, I felt a desperate, nebulous anger, like a child being chastised for someone else's spitball. I thought I was making things easy by requesting the type of position for which many people grumpily settle. Yet I was still being made to feel needy, greedy, and immature. And the interview was only half over.
Thankfully, my seminar went well, despite the fact that my husband was asked by the chairman to introduce me, which embarrassed us both. I spent the rest of the day meeting with other department faculty members, who uncomfortably offered me part-time positions in their labs. In all fairness, they tried to ameliorate what was obviously an awkward situation. But no matter how flexible I tried to be, I couldn't find a place that fit my square-peg self.
Many people recall a moment when their career goals became crystallized, more often than not inspired by words of encouragement or wisdom from a mentor. By the end of my interview, I had undergone a transformation. My anger and disappointment had been replaced by a clarity I had been struggling to gain since graduate school. Illogically, the interview from hell seemed to have cured my ambivalence toward teaching, science, and my career. I now felt genuinely excited about my research and committed to continuing the project.
I realized I wanted to teach undergraduates and have my own lab. Most importantly, having finally decided what I wanted, I resolved to settle for nothing less. I can't thank the department's members enough for their words to me, and I probably never will.
