Monday Blahs

Today wasn't the greatest of days as far as feeling upbeat about this whole situation.

I sat through a postdoc seminar at noon and spent most of it thinking about the fact that I was supposed to give one of these seminars in just 3 weeks. I started out sad and thinking about how I would miss the people in that room and then I moved into extremely angry about all the effort I've put in over the past 7 years only to end up here and then into even angrier that I can't get a job.......correction, that I can't even get an interview for a job..........and then I moved into extreme depression about not being good enough to cut it in my chosen line of work. Probably the fact that my boss was sitting right in front of me and spent the whole seminar staring quite pathetically out the window in a pensive sort of way did not help my mood.

Later that afternoon, the boss appeared in the doorway, pointed at J and then did that come here finger thing that he does when something not good is going to follow. J returned 5 minutes later with "the packet." Our boss had to hand her this thing in front of the department's budget secretary detailing her termination date and a few other official things. She said it was amazingly awkward. And then the 3 of us had to think about the reality of the situation again - mostly we try to avoid that. My turn to the "the packet" will probably happen later this week. I'm not sure if I can handle that. I'm not sure if I can look at my boss in the eye as he goes through the official motions of termination. I got a little teary just thinking about J going through it, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

(Yes, I realize I was very melodramatic today, but once in a while you just have to indulge)

On a much more annoying note, J noticed while looking through her summary of benefits etc. that she would have her un-taken vacation days paid out......postdocs, however, would not have their vacation days compensated for. WHAT?? I was super annoyed. I need one vacation day this coming Friday and then I had no plans to take my other 5. That adds up to a fairly significant amount of money, especially when facing unemployment. I don't understand what makes postdocs not important enough to not be compensated for extra vacation days, but I'll just add this to the list of reasons that this life in science is not the way to go. And while I was a little mad about the money that I'll lose, I did decide right there that I'll either a) take a week off when the weather gets nice and have some time to myself or b) take 3 days weekend for the entire month of June. One way or the other, those days are mine.

Which one would you do - a whole week off or lots of 4 days weeks?