My work relationship status: It’s complicated.

A career in academia is undoubtedly engulfing. Is that bad? I mean, research is great! There’s moments when I’m in the zone. I feel that I have the time to learn (or I’m learning efficiently, and then I feel oh so smart!). I’m engaged in what I’m learning and marvelling at how things work, and all the smart people before me. And then I get to build on top of that foundation. I interpret the problem in my own unique way, and then make my tiny contribution. Sometimes my contribution is, “Well doing something this way is pointless, and no help”. Which is sad for me, but I learned something which shapes my next move. And maybe I can share my learning, and then I’ve saved someone else from wasting their time! How kind of me.

So I want to say: I love my job! I don’t say it enough to my colleagues, because instead I complain. I complain that I don’t get to do what I love about my job 100% of the time. I’m a spoilt brat. We all are! I’m sure someone who gets to live their dream of reviewing new computer games, complains that they have to actually, like, write the review. Not only is complaining cathartic, it unites us as social beings. That’s why jokes in Christmas crackers are objectively bad – we can all grumble together because what did the fish say as it swam into a wall? Dam. 😀

Whilst I’m singing the praises of academia, I think it’s nice that generally our complaints are directed at buggy-code, at nonsensical results, at funding success rates, at writing frustrations, at paper formatting guidelines, at making colourful plots black and white, at having to write in Word, at understanding and reproducing papers, at leaving too little time before presenting, at understanding previous versions of our own code, at the repeated mistake of calling any document ‘Final’, at trying to gauge how many comments are necessary, at realising a basic assumption in your model is incorrect, and so on. That is, I rarely hear, or make complaints, about individuals who we believe inhibit our work (except for Reviewer 2), which is perhaps not true for many jobs where your success is dependent on a few people believing in you? With research, a whole community needs to be believe in you! Oh what a relief that is!

But, for me, complaining quickly becomes self-directed. When I feel crap about my work, I feel crap about myself. Why is it taking me so long to learn this? Why do I seem unable to run a code without magically sprinkling bugs into it? If an antidote to impostor syndrome is sharing, I’m all over that!

Yet what example does all this complaining set to PhD students? They know that I regularly work weekends. They hear me degrade my work and myself when I don’t hit my self-set targets? By definition, I’m better at research than a PhD student. Yet I’m complaining, so what does that do to their self-belief? But what can I do? Not share? Give the impression that I find the whole thing easy? Firstly, no one would believe me as I saunter in, “I revisited a code I wrote last year. What an exemplary coherent piece of efficient coding!”. Secondly, such a facade would probably pass on a whole load of other issues.

I don’t know what the answer is. Logically, it’s about also discussing the good. But that’s difficult to quantify. Maybe it’s my Britishness – grumbling comes naturally, but discussing positive feelings is a more awkward affair. Sure, I can say that I like the autonomy. And the people in research institutes are, in my biased opinion, generally a delightful mix of human beings. But it’s deeper than that. Every time I’ve questioned leaving research, including applying for jobs outside of research, I’ve felt a loss. During one of these periods, I was in a talk and some Matlab plots came up. I felt my heart sink at the idea of no longer using Matlab. Genuine grief for Matlab?! (And now I’m using R anyway. And one day I’ll find time to properly learn Python…)

And because I can’t articulate what I enjoy about my work in a tangible way, I question what my motivation for staying in research is. Is it a happy relationship, or is it sustained out of fear of leaving for a ‘real job’? But then don’t we all question our long-standing relationships from time to time? We forget how fortunate we are and what drew us in.

As I mentioned at the top, I’m drawn to the learning. I’m also helplessly drawn to the challenge. Which is an act of self-sadism because I consistently jump two feet into challenges which are out my depth. And it’s not that I don’t fail, or that I don’t have a fear of failure. I regularly fail, and it hits me hard. Undeterred by this reality, I’m compulsive and over-optimistic.

Then I’m in it, and my shoulders hunch up, insomnia creeps in, I compulsively scratch my neck, I’m moody and irritable and want to hide away from everyone. To avoid the next failure that I’ve set myself up for, I want to only work work work until everything feels better. But it’s not that simple, because at the same time, I want to hide away from work. I want to give up and stay in bed watching Friends. If you were to meet me in this erratic frenzy, you’d suggest I that get my learning-and-challenge-fix doing something else because my job is clearly not bringing out the best in me. And you certainly wouldn’t want to follow my career path! But like any long-standing relationship, there’s tough days, which can be tough weeks, or tough months. And it is important for ourselves, and our loved-ones, that we don’t dismiss these tough days. How tough are these tough days? And how long have they been extending for?

For me, the thought that regains my perspective is wondering how my life would change if I won the lottery. Of course, there’s initially an excess of holidays, gifts, charity donations, donkeys, llamas, and helicopter rides. But then I’d get back to doing research. Only without the time and funding pressures. And isn’t that a sign that, for now at least, this relationship makes me happy? And if and when it stops making me happy, then I can quit! So what’s all the fuss about anyway?