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[farm_boy]

To quote the poet and philosopher Merle Haggard, "Are the good times really over for good?"

[patyson]

I recently went through that myself...I was at a small, private university in the south. I went from instructor, to assistant professor, to department chair in three years and my raise over that time period did not even equal 2% of my salary...but my workload had tripled. I still liked my job, but my husband had lost his and we were literally in the middle of nowhere (70 miles from the nearest airport) and hated where we lived. My situation differs in that I love teaching, and am not really into research and publishing...I wanted to work at a state school with great benefits in an urban area, and that just was not going to happen unless I made a drastic change...so I did...I accepted an academic advising position at an emerging Tier I institution in Texas, and couldn't be happier. I still get to work with students, and still enjoy the higher ed atmosphere without having to publish, secure grant funding etc...I will also get to teach on an adjunct basis, so life is nearly perfect...(when my husband finds a job we will be all set). My summer vacations are gone, but the fact that I am living in a thriving city instead of one surrounded by crops and goats makes the vacation thing much less painful.
Good luck to you, and I hope you find your dream position in your dream city/state....
Paty

[musicagloria]

I hear ya. I did my doctorate at a huge football school in the South. They said it was a great school academically but I had to disagree.

I'm now teaching at a CC and making more money than any of my professors. I am very happy at my job even though it is in a rural area. The nearest big city is only an hour away. :)

I hope you find a good place to live and work soon. All the best!

[gearjones]

Obviously I'm very late to this thread but read it with considerable interest.  As many have noted, we sometimes fall so in love with certain aspects of our jobs (or the dream of what our jobs could be) that we overlook too much unhappiness and sacrifice too much.  So I hope you can break the addiction and take a leap that makes you and your partner happy!

I can't help but point out that there's another side to this, as well.  Staying in a position that leaves one unhappy and unfulfilled also prevents someone who would cherish the position from enjoying it.  A new position might create great happiness AND give a much appreciated opportunity to someone who does value what the job offers (a particular location, student SES and culture, and even income).  As a senior person having done a lot of hiring over the years, I've always felt that schools overlook "fit" at their own peril.  We all want the best teachers and scholars on our faculty, but if we strongly suspect the person is likely to be miserable (feelings unfortunately well concealed by many candidates to themselves and to search committees), is anyone really benefitting in the process?  Candidate, department, students, or institution?

As other posters have noted, it's about finding the right mix to make you happy.  For example, my career in academia has involved research, teaching, and a bit of consulting (let's say "marketing" topics to preserve my anonymity :-).  As much as I love teaching, there's always a significant element of frustration with less motivated students, mountains of grading, and angry responses from students feeling oppressed by high standards.  It's not enough to kill the joy of teaching, but it's certainly a stress or on the job.  And then I compare that with my consulting.  Consulting is very much like teaching -- I get to share my knowledge with others, and my "students" are almost invariably highly motivated learners, and they are _deeply_ appreciative of the expertise I have to offer and the "problem solving" I'm able to do for them. They literally thank me and send me gifts for the very same things they might write harsh course evaluations for had I taught it and assigned it for a class.  And there's no grading or dealing with "the dog at my paper."

My point is that sometimes some of the things we value most in academic life - applying our knowledge, making discoveries, teaching eager and appreciative learners - can be even "better" outside the traditional academic position.  I'd encourage anyone to pursue his or her own bliss and, at the same time, free up openings for someone who might love what didn't turn out to be my personal cup of tea.

[prof_artemesia]

I just want to know - if everyone hates the south so much, why can't I ever land a job there?!

[tuxthepenguin]

I just want to know - if everyone hates the south so much, why can't I ever land a job there?!

Maybe it is hatred, but I think it's more that you basically move to a different country, the culture is so different. Did you explain why you want to move to the south? The most common question in interviews with southern, rural universities was if I had ever been there, or why I thought I wanted to move there. If you want to prove that you want a job in the south, move there. It wasn't for me, but the cost of living is so low that you could live a decent life on an adjunct salary.

[prof_artemesia]

I'm from "the south," got my degrees there, my family is there and my research is based there. I was a finalist (whoopee) for a position in GA this past year and I think I definitely passed the "why do you want to live here?" question. But it just seems like more times than not it's just crickets when I apply.
My post was only half serious but it is an interesting observation that I've made. Almost everyone on here with any geographic specificity has been for the north or northeast. Right now I'm in the midwest and I absolutely hate it. I knew long before I ended up here that what qualifies as a good location is truly subjective, it's just funny that it's always the opposite of what my ideal would be.

[cropguru]

Hey Airball, your original post is about what I want to write for my quest to be out.  Two weeks ago, I came the (to me) groundbreaking decision that it simply ain't worth it.  State budgets are terrible, years without raises, tenure going to hell, 33-50% of time spent on grants (I'm in the sciences) for the sake of tenure, kissing ass, shutting up for the sake of tenure, etc.  I love teaching, and I get great reviews... etc.

Et cetera, et cetera, and even more.

Opportunity costs of this whole damn thing.  Etc.

Forget it.

I can't wait to post in this sub-fora about my new industry job.

[farm_boy]

It's a bad sign when scientists are unhappy with academe.  At least they have a discipline.

(I'm in the humanities--an inherently flaky bunch)

[gollum]

For those of you who are worried what other people will think if you leave academia--DON'T.  Odds are, no one cares.  And if they do, (a) why should that matter to you, and (b) doesn't that say more about them than it does about you?

Get out and don't look back!  Academia is a sinking ship.

Gollum

[minidonut]

Get out and don't look back!  Academia is a sinking ship.

I know, I know!  But all I can find are leaky, half-inflated dinghies as alternate transportation sources.

[fadecomic]

I'm trying to figure out when I wrote this post, because I don't remember writing it at all.

I could almost guess that you actually work at the same university I do. Honestly, I'm a southerner by birth, and there are a lot of things I do like about the south. But this town and state in particular I could do without. (You can't paint an entire region with one brush.)

I wanted to add a couple of points, though. First, I've always felt unusual because my colleagues, particularly at R1 schools, seem to completely absorb themselves in their careers, which I've never been able to do. They don't seem to care where they live because their work is their life. Now I like my research, but I also enjoy my personal life, which means that location really, really matters.

Second, I'm a professor in a fairly lucrative science (I hate watching my grad students leave with contracts that are almost double what I make), and there are lots of industry positions available. Unfortunately, given the nature of my science, most of those jobs are located in one city which may actually be less desirable than this one.

I particularly enjoyed the line about aspiring to mediocrity. It's not just my uni that does that. It's the students. Frankly, they couldn't care less about being here, and they seem to view a C as an acceptable grade. That's depressing, and it pulls you down on a daily basis. On top of that, the pay is dismal, especially given the relatively high expense of living in this town thanks to the fruits of my very science. I've also had the joy of seeing two years go by without much in the way of job postings. Which were also slim even before the depths of the recession set in.

Finally, one of the most depressing things for me is that I loved where I lived for my post-doc. I hated leaving to come here, but them's the breaks. It was hard to pull off the old plates and put on the new ones, because that made it official.

[gollum]

Leaving the job market is incredible (though I'm entering another). I think that it is extremely easy to get addicted to being on the market in the way a gambler is addicted to the Big Score. There is the anticipation as the jobs are posted/cards are dealt, the excitement as you mail an application/place a big bet, and the disappointment when you are rejected/lose. But there is also no reason to leave the job market or get up from the table, because there's always another hand or another year. Getting out of that mindset, which is an extreme version of being, "pretty committed to the academic lifestyle and profession," is awesome.

You know what, airball? You have totally nailed it better than anyone else I've ever read. I have been trying to figure out for so long why, even though I'm much happier outside of academia, I felt sort of wistful about the job market... not academia itself, but the academic job market. The game of flyouts and candidate dinners and collecting campus interviews like trophies. It's because it feels like a big high-stakes game of poker. The TT job is the "jackpot", and if you get one, you've "won".

And then you get where you're going and you realize that what you "won" is the privilege of living thousands of miles away from home, working your butt off, being disrespected by your underprepared students, and answering to a chair who may or may not be a sociopath, for $40,000/year.

Not that it's that simple, of course, or that all or even most academic jobs are as I've hyperbolically described. But you're right. The prestige of being "Professor [name]" and the concept of having "won the jackpot", of being more special than the rest of the plebs, is a siren song, especially to people (like most grad students, myself included) who are chronically underconfident.

So that's another reason why I'm also glad to have gotten out of the academic game: because it felt more like a big casino game than a career by the end of it, and I was done playing.

Chime!

Gollum