I Wonder as I Wander Out Under the Sky . . .

I had my first performance review on Thursday with my new-ish boss. It was a rather glowing review – she’d like to see me do a bit more speaking and presenting and doing a lot less “support-role” type stuff . . .

All in all, she was rather pleased with me, and it was more than I could have asked for. No raises forthcoming though, since the Random Non-profit is not having a stellar financial year, but I am going to get a bit more vacation time next year.

So, why was I so despondent afterwards?

Well, I didn’t find out that I was having my evaluation until about 2 hours beforehand. I had a meeting in between, so I didn’t have much time to think about it and prepare for it mentally. She also asked me a lot of questions about things that I might be interested in and what I might want to do that I wasn’t quite prepared to answer – I was a bit thrown off guard, and I needed time to think through what was being asked of me. And the whole evaluation was rather rushed, since other than the time I was being asked questions, I really didn’t get to have any other input or state my own impressions of things, and have a bit of a dialogue about what’s happened in our department in the past year. I felt like I was being ambushed in a way . . .

So when I came home that night, and actually had time to sit down and think things through, I was not very happy at all with the situation. I came to the realization that I don’t like my job that much at all, and that if I had my druthers I’d find a new job in the new year.

However, several things are holding me back from doing so. One thing is the benefits, which are rather generous for any sort of workplace – for profit or non-profit. If Mr. Random and I decide to try to have a child next year, those benefits will come in terribly handy. Second thing is the flexibility – if I do get pregnant, I would be able to negotiate a very sweet part time arrangement once the child is here. Both Mr. Random’s longevity and my own would help us be able to take off when we needed to, no questions asked, since they know we are committed to getting our jobs done no matter what.

These are not frivolous reasons for staying. I know my own sanity should take priority, but we have many bills to pay, and grad school to deal with, and introducing another unsettling element (in finding a new job, and the adjustments that may need to be made there, along with the loss of flexibility) is not an attractive or wanted option right now. Mr. Random has another year and a half to go in his program. I just need to figure out how to cope with what I have now until then . . .

I have probably talked about this before, but it keeps coming back, and keeps sitting in my head with everything else stuffed up there. Please forgive me if it is tedious to listen to again . . .

So many things to think about over the Christmas break . . .