I met her in graduate school and she was, without question, the second-most-depressing person I had ever met. The first was my grandfather, who, upon being asked when he had last felt well, provided a precise date in 1923. Still, she ran a close second. On good days, her virulent negativity was channeled into wit. On bad days, the floodgates would open and she would wallow in her misery, threatening to pull down all of her fellow doctoral students with her. We called her Eeyore. Is it bad to refer to someone who taught me the most about the academic job market as a beloved character from children's literature?
Eeyore's sadness must have come from somewhere deep within her, because her life always seemed to be just as bad as everyone else's, but no worse. Graduate students are poor, but not so poor that we can't buy beer. And although we may be overworked, we still find time to complain about it. Eeyore came to our graduate program in the earth sciences with a bit more experience than the rest of us. She was an "older" student, a term that encompasses anyone who does not submit to graduate school immediately upon receipt of a B.A. Before our program, she had done graduate work and teaching elsewhere, giving her a world-weariness that I rather admired.
It was worth hanging out with her because with age comes knowledge. While I was still locating my department mailbox (to my credit, it's nowhere near my office, and who uses paper mail anyway?), she had already figured out office politics. She knew who was being hired, fired, promoted, subtly ignored by their superiors. She was thinking about jobs when the rest of us, her supposed cohort, were still focused on classes. Because of her, I learned the real, sordid story of the money that was donated recently to our university. I also learned who was sleeping with whom, and exactly how the pretty blonde got into our program.
I had always assumed that Eeyore and I would support each other through the job-search process. Job searching is painful and demoralizing, so it can be helpful to have a drinking companion who will never, ever encourage you to look on the bright side. She saw all job struggles as class struggles: the brilliant but misunderstood young scientist against the stodgy old establishment, tilting at academic journals and riding away into the sunset. At other times, the struggle was the scientist with patient attention to detail and methods fighting the freewheeling, politics-driven department controlled by people with no respect for the great traditions of science.
Either way, it was a battle, and we were going to fight it. As a scientist with literary tendencies, I internalized her stories until they became my own. She turned something as quotidian as office politics and career angling into a grand romance, complete with suffering.
Eeyore gave me advice on my career, and I gave her advice about her personal life. I tried to show her that the world was not out to get her, and that most hassles with the administration were due to disaffection, not malice. She tried to show me that people were duplicitous, as well they should be. Aren't we all competing for the same sparse pool of grant money and approval? She outlined what academic life would be like and warned me that I would have to leave my beloved city if I wanted a successful career. When I began exploring career options outside of academe, she reacted as though that was a reasonable course for one who didn't feel, as she did, driven by the work.
She certainly seemed driven. I would leave the office to go to dance class, or to dinner with my boyfriend, and she would toil late into the night. I would come in a bit late the next morning and see her hunched over her desk, sometimes in the same clothing. I assumed that when I was further along the career path, I, too, would give up frivolities like culture, exercise, and love.
Progress came to our department. Eeyore started mentioning casual comments that could be interpreted as job openings. I started hearing those comments, too, and was grateful to have a translator who would shepherd me into my first job. I assumed that she would graduate and get a job before I would, but that she would continue to help me navigate the professional world. When a professor in my field in France asked if I would be interested in moving to Paris, was he offering me a job? Eeyore assured me that he was merely inviting me to apply, nothing more. What about his judgmental sigh of how American it was that I was drinking coffee while walking to the bus? Less promising.
Lately, I've been doing fieldwork on the other side of the world. Information about Eeyore has been tricking in slowly, but I think I've pieced together the story. Mutual friends tell me the department fired her. No, you can't fire a graduate student, we're not employees. She was asked to leave; she can still defend later. No, she can't defend later. Yes, she could, but it generally isn't done. Actually, she's graduating; she'll get her degree because the department won't admit failure. No, she isn't graduating, but she's telling people that she is. And did you know who she blames for so many of her problems here? You didn't know? She even complained to your adviser behind your back.
That's right. Eeyore, who always told me that people were lying and not what they seemed, had somehow tried to blame me for her troubles in a last-ditch attempt to save herself. We work in different subfields, so the most she could accuse me of was being mean. Maybe I was mean. I tried to get her to act more professionally in the office and leave her personal problems for more appropriate venues. I tried to find professional help for her. Perhaps the psychological trauma I supposedly inflicted would be enough to make the administration take pity on her plight?
Alas, it wasn't. Her work was, apparently, poor. Not being in her field, I have no way to evaluate that. Maybe there really was a conspiracy against her. I'll never know.
But what to make of all the career advice she offered? It seems I know less than I did when I started. When I talk to departments in the future, how will I know what is polite conversation and what is an actual promise of employment? Clearly, my own judgment isn't very good or I would have seen the personal betrayal coming. But that doesn't mean that her understanding of career politics in academe wasn't accurate. And her actions have proven to me the folly of misplaced trust more clearly than her words ever did.
I have postponed my job search for another year. I have my own grant money and an adviser who is happy to keep me on board so long as I cost him nothing. So, given the current economy, I'm staying in my office, where it's safe. The aforementioned blonde is about to defend her dissertation. She has a job lined up for the fall. Perhaps I should ask her for career advice.
