Good news/bad news
Jun. 29th, 2007 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikistitchSo, Boss Lady poked her head in our office door late this afternoon and announced, "I have some good news and some bad news."
We perked up. We've gotten used to the notion that academic positions (other than for the lucky few who are tenured) are in essence the world's most glorified temp jobs. The time frame is usually a year or so, instead of weeks or months, but the minute you start, the clock is ticking. Grants to individual researchers, which is what pays our bills, generally run for 2 or 3 years. Sometimes, you'll get on a big old program project grant that goes for 5 years. These kinda things seem more secure, but the funding is just as likely to be yanked,
Anyways, these last few months, we've kinda been working on the remaining months of a couple of assorted grants, plus scraps of petty cash our amazingly thrifty boss has tucked away. This is by far and away the best job tiki has had in her adult life, but we have been sadly looking forward to the prospect of coming home from vacation and starting to send out resumes.
"I have some good news, and some bad news, and it's all the same news," our boss said.
We got funded. The Papa Bear grant. The Mama Bear grant. The Baby Bear grant. And all the other sized bears. Everything.
"I'm just not sure how we're going to get all the work done!" she continued.
OK, so we would have said, "Good news/totally and completely awesome news dude." But, our boss, though nice, isn't perfect.
We perked up. We've gotten used to the notion that academic positions (other than for the lucky few who are tenured) are in essence the world's most glorified temp jobs. The time frame is usually a year or so, instead of weeks or months, but the minute you start, the clock is ticking. Grants to individual researchers, which is what pays our bills, generally run for 2 or 3 years. Sometimes, you'll get on a big old program project grant that goes for 5 years. These kinda things seem more secure, but the funding is just as likely to be yanked,
Anyways, these last few months, we've kinda been working on the remaining months of a couple of assorted grants, plus scraps of petty cash our amazingly thrifty boss has tucked away. This is by far and away the best job tiki has had in her adult life, but we have been sadly looking forward to the prospect of coming home from vacation and starting to send out resumes.
"I have some good news, and some bad news, and it's all the same news," our boss said.
We got funded. The Papa Bear grant. The Mama Bear grant. The Baby Bear grant. And all the other sized bears. Everything.
"I'm just not sure how we're going to get all the work done!" she continued.
OK, so we would have said, "Good news/totally and completely awesome news dude." But, our boss, though nice, isn't perfect.
