It was my birthday last week, and I don't need my birthday to be a happy-all-day-fiesta but I usually look forward to a good day. I was not looking forward to the job rejection email I received as a birthday gift from a pretty important organisation that I value very highly. It made me sad. It also made me rethink my career interests and ambitions. This blog post is about that.  

 

I have been wondering if maybe I picked the wrong career. If maybe I got carried away at some point. There’s a thing I like to say to myself when I am into someone who is clearly not into me - you’re interested in the idea of being with that person and not the person itself. Most of the time it's bullshit reassurance but sometimes it's true. Maybe something similar happened with my professional life.

 

The other day, I came across the profile of a person who writes about internet cultures every week. I went to their profile, subscribed to their weekly newsletter and went through the most recent ones. It felt good. I realized I liked discovering and studying internet cultures (online visual cultures in particular, but sometimes the distinction between the two is quite blurry in my head). So this was a relief. I have been interested in the person all along.

 

So it’s probably the being with the person which is in crisis right now.  

 

I was under the impression that since I have chosen such a niche and new field, there’s no competing for opportunities. So even if my work is only substandard, I will probably find an average opportunity to study what I want to study and get paid an average sum of money for it. But as I have discovered in the past few months, I am spectacularly wrong about everything.

 

Not only is there competition, but there are fewer jobs which makes the competition feel like a - High Stakes, All or Nothing, Sink or Swim, Why do you even bother - game. In case it isn’t abundantly clear by the grim tone of writing so far, I am losing the game. This is how the game works (for me):

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To be employed, you need to 

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- Know the right people, who know the right people who work on interesting projects or run small organisations that are made up of an impressive team of 4-5 people. 3 out of the 5 people are usually well-established in their career and might translate as ‘managers’ or ‘team leads’ or ‘intimidating researchers who I should probably follow on Twitter’. Out of the other two, one is communications person and the other has a PhD. 

 

And this brings us to the next challenge,

 

- Do a PhD. From what I hear, it takes a long time to complete one, often pushes you into a depressive, existential spiral, and does not actually guarantee you jobs. So this one is a bit of a puzzler. Because there are some very interesting opportunities here that are exclusively open to those pursuing or burdened with a PhD. So I should probably do one, just in case. But from what I hear, PhD scholarships are a - High Stakes, All or Nothing, Sink or Swim, Why do you even bother - game. 

 

and finally, 

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- Be published. At the very least. Show some proof of your work. I’d like to think this game requirement is actually quite noble. I’d like to think that it doesn’t matter ‘where’ your work is published as long as it is published. I’d like to think I could write short pieces on my own platform and self-publish and it would count. But as we have discovered a couple of paragraphs ago, I am spectacularly wrong about everything. 

 

Like most (game) losers, I have resorted to whining and making half-assed attempts to get back into the groove of working on things I like. Today, I am writing this. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll write about internet cultures, who knows? What I do know (and I suppose always knew) is that I am into my career but my career is not into me.