
Journal Journal: Wooo!
I'm going to grad school! Woo! After a 3-year stint in the real world, I'm going back to academia for my MS/PhD in environmental engineering. I'm really looking forward to it. I have a nice advisor and I'll be working on a really interesting research project.
I knew it was going to feel good to go back to grad school, but I didn't know how good it would feel to quit my job. My one (mostly off-site) boss has been getting pretty tyrannical lately, so it seems like a very good time to leave.
My co-workers are mostly being very supportive. However, I did come across one who was a bit less so. It's bring your kid to work day here, and so there are lots of kids and the elevators are much more crowded than usual. I step into the rather full elevator and my co-worker starts speaking to me:
"Hey, I heard you're leaving us."
"yeah"
"Well, just remember, a PhD is no guarantee of future employment. I saw more PhDs flipping burgers when I was in my master's program."
"Yeah, well, I'm not in it for the money"
"You say that now, but once you have a family, you'll be talking different..."
At that point, the elevator reached my floor, and I stepped out. I think I heard him say something about a boyfriend, such as "if you have a boyfriend," which is very strange, as he knows I'm married. It's sad, really. It seems he feels his life turned out differently than he expected/wanted, and so he needs to bring others down to feel better about himself. What do they call that? Crabs in a bucket? If there are a bunch of crabs at the bottom of a bucket and one crab tries to crawl out of the bucket, the rest of the crabs in the bucket pull the crab down, so they can all be miserable together. Or something like that. Why can't we all just get along?
Anyways, I'm really looking forward to going back to school and spending loads of time studying and living off a paltry stipend. W00T!