I am going to quit any minute now

This post is my contribution to May 2009 Scientiae Carnival. This month theme is "Spring 2009 Snapshot". To take a snapshot of my present situation, to explain where I am now, I need to start with a brief introduction of the last half a year.

Last summer I was a job-hunting postdoc in UK, whose contract was running out. I am at the stage of my career where I need to continue postdoctoral research to build up publications portfolio. I received one (very good) job offer in the UK, and a surprise last minute email about a postdoc opportunity in Japan.

The offer in Japan was for only one year versus three-year contract at an excellent UK university. But there was an exotic pull of the unknown, and I had been considering Japan for a while as an alternative to US. I felt it was time for me to go overseas now, if I wanted academic future in Europe. I decided on Japan, even if I did not know much about the group here. I was hopeful and believed that it cannot really be any bad, because Big Old Professor has some excellent publications and the science is captivating.

Before coming here I had only two months for preparations. The first email with the offer arrived to my inbox at the beginning of September, and I was in Japan at the end of October. This was very much a last minute offer and a last minute decision.
In that time I did email negotiations with my future supervisor about science project and working conditions (time off to go to a conference within first two months). My family life also required some readjustments: my then boyfriend took a gap year from his studies to go abroad with me and we got married.

When I hurriedly first arrived here, my visa was not yet ready and the workplace seemed not to be ready to have me here either. But later I found out they would never be ready, as I was to be on my own and expected to sort my own problems and things related to my project myself.

At the beginning I was very isolated and lonely. I was unsure where I stand with research. From the earlier email exchange I understood I have two projects to choose from, A and B, and I wanted to do A. When I came here it turned out I can only do B, because A was just a marketing pitch and there is nothing to study here along those lines. I had problems setting up an environment for starting up my research here (ordering necessary glassware and reagents) and was unpleasantly (even sometimes rudely) treated by the senior (male) postdoc in the group. I now understand that this mostly stems out from not fitting into the male patriarchal rules of Japanese workplace, and being a foreign in this xenophobic society does not help either. But my feeling is that me being female hurts the situation much more than just being foreign. If I were male then it would be easier to be accepted as a part of their group.

Research support systems, for example ordering of reagents, do not work here as well as I would have liked. I started here in November, and asked for the things I needed back then, but the members of my group only ordered them in December. The things arrived in early February and I realised I needed to order more things. The department office was closed for orders till end of April because of the end of financial year (a big affair in Japan). So the things that I needed for my research were ordered last week, and I am still waiting to have a functioning laboratory, where I could carry out the work that I do not even want to be doing (project B). While some work is already under way, I am still waiting for delivery before I can proceed with some essential parts of the research.

All of this, plus tight control from my supervisor, made me into quite an unhappy postdoc. When doing some strategic thinking about the prospects of this position I decided that I do not see any scientific future for project B. The study has been done and published on a more important model (related to human disease) and my supervisor wants me to repeat it in the animal model of this disease. This would create very little new knowledge and I am afraid it would be difficult to publish. Also I have realised that former international postdocs in this group did not publish any important papers, all they got was a poster presentation at some local Japanese scientific conferences. There would be no international recognition of my efforts, therefore this project is a waste of time for me and my career.

Since about January I was so unhappy in this workplace that I wished to quit next month and I was investigating options that would allow me to do just that. I now live month-to-month thinking that my misery will end very soon. I started to take a long-term strategic view of my career and life and I started some proactive action to make that happen: a job-hunt in UK and a fellowship application as a postdoc in Japan. I had known about the possibility of writing this application, which would secure two years of my own funding, even before coming here last year, but only now I was convinced that there is a professor here who I trust to be a good supervisor, and it seems there is hope that my future might work out in his lab doing the research that he is leading.

While my job continues to be a nightmare for me, in my private life all is well. I am very happy with my husband and I appreciate that he came here with me. I have made wonderful new friends, both among foreigners in Japan and Japanese (but non-work related Japanese though). They have helped me when I had to move house recently and I feel secure that I would not be alone in a strange, strange country if anything bad happened.

Where I am now in my life I see some hope. I had contacted the prospective supervisor and we had written the application for the fellowship together. He also offered me a job as a postdoc even if we do not get the fellowship. I am waiting to hear more about the details, as I do not feel secure enough to start celebrating just yet without the offer in hand. My mindset could be summarised in one simple sentence: “I want to get out from here! How do I do that?”

For about two years now I live with constant uncertainty about my future. In UK I never knew when my contract is going to end, or whether there would be an extension. I even worked past my contract end waiting for final confirmation whether it was extended or not. I was officially unemployed and I had no other job secured. Now I am in another temporary situation and I am trying to find ways out. It is quite difficult to live your life with constant uncertainty about the future. I do not know where I will live and work in two months time, let alone trying to figure out where I will be in five years…

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