Job search brings out old stress

While conversating with an esteemed friend of mine, the question came up as to what I wanted to do, exactly, with the Time and Life magazine that I would be trying to slide my way into. In the pursuit of something so elusive and exclusive, I had shunned the typical questions that involve my day-to-day fulfillment on the job. What do I want to do and in what enviornment do I want to do it in? I don't know, honestly. I think that magazines in general suffer their readers with repetitive content. On the other hand, the ones which are packed with serious, world-changing articles are often too dense, namely Nature and Science. The Economist reaches perfection but has a Wizard of Oz aspect because none of the writers have bylines (although there are contributors from the world over). Time is for children, Newsweek is for liberally spawned children, and US News and World Report is for children who steal magazines from doctor's offices. Even the "fun magazines," such as the off-road and sky-surfing mags, are boring because they don't cover much ground and provide a bountiful portion of their pages to special interest advertising. I recall trying to read an issue of "Ski" and wondering where all the articles were. Even the articles seemed to just be about the equipment. The swath of magazines does little to promote their value: design mags, Utne Readers, Men's Mags, the Cosmo clan, it leaves the eyes reflecting their glossy sheen remarkably well.

And yet, it takes alot of guts and hard work to make a place in magazines. Presumably, this is because there are life-enriching jobs on the other end, which makes the entire industry appealing, as opposed to one particular publication.

This same friend, an academic by trade, questioned why I wasn't an academic. Well, it's simple: the English department at KU was the perfect metaphor. Buried in the depths of a huge, flat, building, Professors worked themselves silly and played political games that have nothing to do with scholarship (except that they now seem inseparable) in order to get an office that they would never have to give up. What was a typical office, though? It was a small, windowless space, one in a row of eight at the least. It was certainly quiet, perhaps as quiet as any building which serves for storage or abandonment. These geniuses, hard-workers, and (the few, the proud) the professors that could actually teach all earned a space in this building. Before the building became a repository for the purveyors of humanities, though, it was designed to be a parking garage. Essentially, the professors' workspace was their indefinite, labelled parking space with enough room to cram bookshelves and a desk, all enclosed in prefabricated walls. The unattractiveness of the space, however, is not the lesson, as other professors on campus had sunlight and a view, but shared their situation with the English professors entirely. From what I could see, professors worked very hard to achieve a position that they could never leave unless it was to their detriment. They traded flexibility and movement for a job which guaranteed security and creative influence, which is a fair trade, but perhaps not one that I'm willing to make.

What if I want to move or start a business? What if I wanted to be identified as a professional, someone who, depending on the job market, can start a practice in a new place without having to have extensive contacts. What if I wanted to risk my retirement on an investment? None of these things would be possible if I was dependent on the caretaking nature of the institution for benefits and for my livelihood. I'm not set in stone on anything, but I have an independent temperament that prefers to be alone than to be a team-player. Moreover, while the academic life may be the best in the end, I had to see for myself what it was like to live beyond the strictures of the university. I never feel satisfied with people's descriptions; I'd rather find out for myself.

Tomorrow I'll come up with some more job news.