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- May 22, 2018
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<div class="bbWrapper">A lot of things I read about work and jobs speak as though everyone works in some kind of corporate business environment. When I've looked for advice on how to ask for a raise or improve my resume, it always seems to fit well for business or sales...but not the environment I'm in. MJ's books talk about hating ties, being a "corporate drone", and working for a company that worships profits above all. That doesn't fit for me.<br />
I'm a research coordinator and I work on the medical campus of a private university. My research group is focused on curing Alzheimer's disease. This is a wonderful goal. My coworkers and bosses are passionate, caring people who never mistreat me. Working in this area, nobody is really in it for the money. We never have enough money since it all comes in the form of research grants from the government or generosity of for-profit companies or foundations. We spend a lot of time trying to justify on paper why we deserve that money and you'd better believe there are dozens of hoops to jump through before we get it followed by endless documentation of how we use it. My university has good healthcare, my hours are flexible, I have paid time off and sick days. The university offers a lot of other fringe benefits, like free classes and a pass for local public transport. <br />
But I am still miserable there every day. Our overall goal is great, but I am not a scientist. I spend most of my time working on what seem like random fringe projects, wading through stupid layers of large-organization bureaucracy, trying to make sure everyone has the inane paperwork they need, asking five people how to get something done and eventually getting directed back to the first person I talked to. I'm lucky to have an office (part of the team works in a cube space), but the office just feels like a little box that I am put in each morning and released from in the afternoon. A lot of my projects are things I work on nearly solo, so I can sometimes go a whole day with nobody needing to talk to me in person. I work fine on my own when I know what needs to be done and have a definite direction. But a lot of research-related operations don't exactly have obvious solutions and the lack of real teammates can be discouraging. Overall, it feels like my contributions are small, my presence is negligible, my income potential has very strict limits (again, grant funded jobs have a lot of rules), and a lot of the skills I have picked up along the way are so specific to this job that I don't know how much good they would be anywhere else. These are the reasons I want out, but I often feel ashamed of my wishes and dislike for where I am. <br />
Would be interested to hear from others who may feel this way.</div>
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