I'm Keeping Busy

It's been awhile since I've posted anything here, but I felt like doing it today. I don't think I will ever complain again that no one wants to hire me. I have been very busy working. Currently I have 4 jobs! They are:

1. My company
2. Adjunct professor
3. Biology tutor at a company
4. Gardening instructor at a local center

Although I have all these jobs, I am still not making much money. I hope that will change someday.

Working In The Incubator

I have started working in the incubator program. They gave me some assignments which are due next Thursday. I don't have to have them totally done by then, but I have to start them and make progress on them. I have to:

1. Make a list of my role models
2. Start a list of people who can be a part of my support system. This will be hard and it will take some time
    because I have to go and talk with people.
3. Write a basic business description including a mission statement, a vision statement, and my core values.
    This is also very hard.
4. Create my business identity including name, tagline, logo, and company colors
5. Do a SWOT analysis. That is an analysis of my (my company) strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and
    threats that might keep me (my company) from succeeding.

My greatest concern is how to get funding for the company. The incubator does not have money to give to incubating companies. They have information on how to get grants and loans, so I will be asking about that this coming week. My husband and I are living off of savings and we will use it up by the beginning of December. It can take time for a company to start generating income, so I am very afraid about all this. I will carry on, one day at a time.

My Hero

I am a baby boomer and as those of you who have been following my blog know, I have been looking for a job for 4 years. Several months ago I came to the conclusion that the reason I have not found a job is because of my age. Recently I talked with several people who were in the same situation as I am and they gave up looking for a job and they started their own businesses. I also talked with an employment specialist and he said that the probability of anyone 50 or older being hired for a job other than at Walmart are slim. 

It seems that only the young are valued in our culture. The general attitude among employers appears to be that anyone over 50 does not have anything more to contribute; that we should just be put out to pasture or just go off somewhere to never be seen or heard from again. Well, Diana Nyad at the age of 64 went and did what other younger people have unsuccessfully tried to do, and what she herself could not do when she was younger. What an inspiration!

Even though potential employers, whose advertised positions I have applied to, may think that I have nothing left to offer and am too old to be of value, I'm not going to let them stop me from working. I have decided to hire myself. I will be starting my own business. I applied to get into a local business start-up incubator and I got accepted! A lot of people who are in their 50s and older are not done with life. I am not done with life. I am just reaching the prime of my life. The best is yet to come!

My Memory

sucks when I'm stressed. Over the past 3 months, I have forgotten my office keys at home 4 times and had to have the college police unlock my office door for me. Twice I forgot and left my cell phone somewhere on campus and the college police had to bring it to me. They now know me.

On my last post on my blog, I put that my boss gave me only 7 days to write the book and at the end of 7 days, I turned everything over to her unfinished. I totally forgot that because I didn't finish the book in 7 days, she gave me a 2 week extension. However, she also increased the number of pages that she wanted me to write from about 100 pages to 300 pages. So it was at the end of 3 weeks, that I turned everything over to her unfinished. I guess I should be grateful for the extra 2 weeks. It allowed me time to write about 80 pages.

So, what have I been doing to deal with my stress? I have started doing yoga. I am doing it everyday for about 30 minutes. I have also started listening to music more often. I am also spending less time on facebook. It was too painful to read about the jobs that my friends are getting and the houses that they are buying and the trips that they take. It's amazing how much these three simple things have helped me. That's all for now.

My Not Forgotten Blog

Although it's been a long time since I posted anything here, I have not forgotten about my blog. A few things have happened since my last post.

The book: I left off with my boss giving me 7 days to write a book. Of course, I couldn't write a book in 7 days. At the end of those 7 days, I gave her what I had. She started screaming. She said she could write a book in 2 days and that she would write it. She said she would remove my name as first author and put me as a secondary author. She wanted everything, my chapter outlines, chapter drafts, grafts, tables, and pictures. It gets worse. The pictures were supposed to be confidential and we would need permissions in order to use them for anything. She said we didn't need permissions. I refused to give her the pictures. It turned into a nasty battle which ended up involving the university attorneys. I won that battle. I turned everything else over to her and went back to working on my other research project.

Lab and Teaching: I had the opportunity to start teaching as an adjunct at a local college. In the fall of 2012, I taught one class and I loved it. My boss wasn't at all happy about it, but she went along with it. So I did both teaching and working in the lab. For the spring 2013 semester, I had the opportunity to teach 3 classes. I knew that she would not allow me to teach in addition to working as a post-doc in her lab. She gave me an ultimatum, either teaching or the post-doc, but not both. I chose the teaching and gave her my letter of resignation. Then she begged me to stay in the lab until she could find another post-doc and so I agreed to work 20 hours per week as a post-doc while teaching elsewhere. I stayed for 3 months while she tried to find another post-doc. It was very hard due to her inability to control her emotions. I survived it, but with some damage. I started having nightmares, anxiety, and panic attacks. I don't feel entirely free yet because I have a manuscript to finish, but I just can't work on it right now.

Teaching: So right now I'm teaching as an adjunct. I love it, but I'm not getting enough hours and money to live on. A full-time teaching position opened up in the department that I am teaching in and I applied for it, but did not get selected for an interview. I had thought for sure that I would at least get an interview, but no, no interview. In a previous post, I had written that I suspected that I was experiencing age discrimination and that might be the reason that I still had no interviews or offers for a permanent position. Finally, I have evidence to suggest that is why I did not get an interview for this position. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do about this...file a complaint maybe.

I'm not sure that I have it in me to fight for anything anymore. I'm still dealing with the anxiety, and sadly I'm having some problems with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. These problems did not originate from working in the lab with the abusive boss, but have become greatly exacerbated by it. I'm pretty much dealing with these issues alone because I no longer have health insurance. There are a few low cost clinics in town and I have appointments at two of them for 3 weeks and 8 weeks from now. 

I feel really bad that I have spent so much time and money getting educated and no one will hire me for anything, even if I'm really good at it. My student loan is at 200K now and I have no hope of ever being able to pay it off and no hope of being hired anywhere anymore.

So this is my update on my life for the past year. I'm sorry that it's so depressing.

Oh and the book...she still hasn't finished it. 

Seven Days

That is how long my boss gave me to write a book. A book with several chapters and tables and graphs. I'm not kidding. I guess I should be grateful. At first she said three days and then changed it to seven days.

This occurred during lab meeting last Tuesday, after I handed her the document with some templates and forms that needed to be done for some workshops at the end of July. She said she had been expecting a book from me. But, she had never told me that she wanted a book. She started criticizing me and telling me that what I did was worthless and that I had seven days to write a book.

I can't write a book in seven days. I don't think it's possible to write a book in seven days. So, I am feeling a lot of anxiety over this situation. I have to give her the book this Tuesday and I don't have one to give her. And she will yell and criticize me again in front of my fellow labmates. I wish I could quit this job, but it is my only source of income. I would be glad to hear any suggestions that anyone might have on how to handle this situation.

What Things Want

 A friend posted this poem in Facebook and I love it so much, that I have to post it here. It seems so simple, yet it's so profound. You can read about the poet, Robert Bly, at poets.org

 

What Things Want by Robert Bly

You have to let things
Occupy their own space.
This room is small,
But the green settee

Likes to be here.
The big marsh reeds,
Crowding out the slough,
Find the world good.

You have to let things
Be as they are.
Who knows which of us
Deserves the world more?