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[stratagem_007]

Except for the fortunate few, freshly minted PhDs don't get to pick where to teach. We schlep around here and there, hither and thither, never too certain where we will be in six, twelve, or twenty four months down the line.

I have not seen it in these fora yet, but possibly I missed a thread which discusses a certain aspect of this itinerancy we're subjected to: have you ever ended up in a place that just makes you want to lay down across the road that brought you there and hope that a truck passes over you?

I have.

Anyone care to share reminiscences? What was so bad about these places? Did you manage to get out, or are you stuck there? How do you manage to be happy living in a place you would leave in a flash, if only you had the chance?

[secretweapon]

I think I'm there.

[dolljepopp]

The city in which my university is located often has/had that effect on me. (I am living elsewhere while writing the diss.)

A few locations in my pre-academic life did as well. (The real winner was the town of 296 people and several thousand pigs. Individually, many of the pigs smelled better than many of the people, although cumulatively, the pigs won by sheer stench volume.)

[periodically]

I lived in an extremely small town in Kansas for two years. 

I'm generally one of the "blooms where planted" types, but that place was tough.  I was single, and most of the people in town were either married or had taken vows of chastity.  I was content to be single, but it did get a little old to feel like the third wheel most of the time.  The good news is that I finished my dissertation, and had several conference papers accepted, as well as one article.  I gained some valuable teaching experience beyond the intro level.  Amazon and Netflix went there, and even the worst locations have at least one edible restaurant.  Or restaurant with edible food.  Take your pick.

That said, I couldn't drink the water.  Literally.  I bought the water that I drank and cooked with at the grocery store.  It wasn't that it tasted bad, although it did.  My body had a particular reaction to the water, even after running through a filter, and until I figured out that the tap water was causing it, I thought that I must have some kind of dire gastrointestinal disorder.

I'm glad to be elsewhere now, and there were times when I found myself wondering if anyone would even notice if I were to lay down and die.  I took a $3K cut in pay (which was nearly 10% of my salary at the time) in order to take a job somewhere else.  It was worth every penny.

[expatinuk]

That said, I couldn't drink the water.  Literally. 

TT job in SMALL town. After a few weeks I got a really bad kidney infection. When I went to the doctor they asked: Are you drinking tap water?'

Of course...

Turns out that EVERYONE knew you couldn't drink the tap water... it had ecoli in it.

well NO ONE told me.

[lotsoquestions]

There's a town that we pass through on our way in and out of our current location which contains -- a papermill!  Have you actually ever SMELLED a papermill?  It smells kind of like rotting meat.  I'm always amazed when I drive by houses in this town and notice that they have decks and porches -- as if people would ever seriously want to sit outside and smell the papermill.  (Maybe you stop smelling it after awhile?)  It gives us perspective.  Whenever we think about how bad things are, it's always like "well, it could be worse.  We could be living in Paper MIll Town."

[big_giant_head]

I lived in an extremely small town in Kansas for two years. 

I'm generally one of the "blooms where planted" types, but that place was tough.  I was single, and most of the people in town were either married or had taken vows of chastity.  I was content to be single, but it did get a little old to feel like the third wheel most of the time.  The good news is that I finished my dissertation, and had several conference papers accepted, as well as one article.  I gained some valuable teaching experience beyond the intro level.  Amazon and Netflix went there, and even the worst locations have at least one edible restaurant.  Or restaurant with edible food.  Take your pick.

That said, I couldn't drink the water.  Literally.  I bought the water that I drank and cooked with at the grocery store.  It wasn't that it tasted bad, although it did.  My body had a particular reaction to the water, even after running through a filter, and until I figured out that the tap water was causing it, I thought that I must have some kind of dire gastrointestinal disorder.

I'm glad to be elsewhere now, and there were times when I found myself wondering if anyone would even notice if I were to lay down and die.  I took a $3K cut in pay (which was nearly 10% of my salary at the time) in order to take a job somewhere else.  It was worth every penny.

There is one small town in Kansas that has a college in it, and I don't know if we're talking about the same small town, but this one is surrounded by giant hills of mine tailings.  E Coli would be the least of my worries if I drank the water there.