So the latest chapter in the sad, strange arc of my career has come to a close. I was laid off from my (temporary) tax position with New York State yesterday, after 4 months. It was a pretty bitter blow to a wannabe-scientist with a Ph.D. in molecular virology, all around, but there was some good to come out of it, as with many of life's experiences. In a way, it's a microcosm of both my life and the biosciences in general right now.
Follow me below the folding protein molecule for a bit more of a rant and a ramble, if you like.
I guess the worst part of it is the feeling that I've been gulled. It's hardly unusual in today's landscape of independent contractors, temps, internships and no-benefit probationary positions. Most of the middle class is being played for chumps, one way or another.
When I was working this job, despite it being so far below my qualifications, I did my absolute best with it. I'm pretty good at simple clerical work; being a bench scientist means you get used to repetitious tasks quite quickly. Being peak-season temps, we were told from the beginning that many of us would not last past peak. But always there were hints dropped that the better our attendance, the better our productivity, the more likely we would be to be kept when layoffs inevitably came around.
So, despite my disabilities - I have a J-pouch and limited continence, which makes keeping a fixed work schedule very difficult - I set out to compile the best record I could. I had one of the top attendance records in my sorting facility. My immediate supervisors all indicated I was doing a good job. My 3-month evaluation was very good. But peak season was past, and we all knew the layoffs were coming.
Then I got an email. Not a layoff notice, but an interview for a position with no end-date...a perma-temp position. About half the room - those with the best attendance records - got the same notice.
There was an indication that many positions were available. We all did our best with the interviews. We were told 2-4 weeks later, we'd get the answers.
Within 2 days, 90% of us were laid off. Of 14 people in our room to get an interview. one was offered a position - within those same 2 days (they actually sent her a layoff notice, then canceled it shortly before her layoff meeting). The rest of us? Gone. They whacked people new and people with 10 years experience, people highly trained and people just starting, men, women, AAs and white people. It simply didn't matter.
One of the only survivors was one of the people with the worst attendance records in the room, who hadn't even gotten an interview. He didn't have any obvious connections, wasn't anyone's kid. Why he was kept, befuddled even my supervisors. So much for attendance being the be-all and end-all. Just another lie promulgated by the top.
The irony? That survivor was one of the people I worked closely with. I bet him $5 that he'd be the last one at our table to have a job, that I'd be laid off straightaway before him, due to my disability if nothing else. I won the bet. My supervisors really hated to see me go - even wrote me a letter of recommendation. But they couldn't keep the axe from falling on my head.
Now I face a zero income for the second time in a year. I didn't work long enough to get unemployment in New York State, so it's literally back to scratch.
And still nothing on the horizon that would allow me to marry my sweetheart, get a place for us both to live, and start a life together. Seems that that, like so much else, is simply a luxury for the privileged and well off, even something so basic as moving in together and starting a family.
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So let's jump a bit. Not long ago, there was a major conclave at one of my old haunts, the University of Michigan, for what to do about the terrible employment status of young biomedical researchers:
Starting a conversation about scientific employment.
I've heard talk about this for quite some time now. The fundamental problem is that such conversations have to happen among the elite, and the elite is just fine with how things are going. After all, THEY made good, they get an unlimited supply of cheap postdocs and grad students, what's the problem, really? Stories such as mine are just individual tragedies - promulgated by the losers. They are the winners. I've heard that time and time again, with many euphemisms, by tenured faculty. And so it goes.
My temp tax job was a microcosm of my entire life's career experiences. Look at my previous diaries, if you're so interested, to see how my last science position - also a short-term temp position - ended. Just one more way I'm a loser in the new economy.
There are no ladders any more. Only castes.
Thanks for getting this far in the ramblings of a tired old bird.