End of Year One

The end of my first year (or nine months, rather) as a PhD student has arrived. One year ago, we had already sent our pets to live (along with a truckload of our stuff) with Michelle's parents in Canada, and were preparing to celebrate our last Christmas in America for a few years. At this time last year, I had only recently accepted the scholarship and was making all the initial arrangements for our move here: accommodation, banking, shipping stuff in advance. Nothing was official, yet, as the visa application had to be sent in and approved (that wasn't finalized until February). Packing up and selling the house was the largest hurdle, though. We spent the latter part of our holiday break packing up everything we didn't need for display while selling the house. I also had to work like mad on a few outstanding house repairs before we could put the house on the market, like finishing the fence, cleaning the gutters, and removing odd bits of do-it-yourself repairs/enhancements that didn't quite turn out right.

I had to be in Australia no later than March 31 in order to retain my scholarship. From that point until about late August I/we spent a great deal of time on 'settling in' details. Michelle arrived on our anniversary in July, and by that time, I had purchased broadband, kitchen appliances and wares, linens and pillows, mountain bikes, and office appliances. Late July, Michelle resumed work with her Dallas job, but could not take the university housing anymore after about two weeks -- largely due to the screaming kids at the daycare across the street and the noisy neighbors next door. That sent us on to experience the joys of apartment hunting here without a car (meaning we walked tens of kilometers and/or rode our bikes). Once we had that taken care of, we got to buy furniture, and several months later, the car -- which brings us to where we are now.

Although I've had many frustrations with the settling in process here, I have to say I have no regrets about this move. When I gave my notice at my last I.T. job, I passed off my reasons as neutral as possible: it's a fantastic opportunity; I get to see Australia; I feel more at home in science; blah, blah, blah. All of those reasons were certainly true. But I didn't provide the company with the real reason. It's the same reason I left the four previous jobs I held since finishing my bachelor's degree. I was too late to the party. All the good times, lucrative positions, and respect were gone by the time I arrived at those jobs. To be fair, I did move my salary up enough that we were able to buy our house, drive decent cars, and I paid cash for my masters degree. But nearly every annual review I had came down to a script: "The company is tight on money, our market looks a little uncertain for the near future, 3% is the best we can do..." There was only one year that I got a surprise 8% raise, but by that time, I had already plotted my course to get out of I.T. The annual review excuses were disingenuous given that the management teams at the companies I worked at were always driving very new luxury cars, living in opulent houses, and getting to spend a great deal of their working hours playing golf or attending social functions. I was clearly outside that circle with no hopes of breaking in. I saw many other people wreck their lives killing themselves for their jobs with vain hopes of breaking in to that inner circle getting all the perks. The annual review script is nothing but HR playing psychologist on company employees, giving people a 'road map' or some other distraction to keep them working the same or harder, but without any tangible promises for benefits other than the base salary -- which is the same thing a person would get anyway just sticking to a 40-hour work week. The game was so obvious to me early on during my I.T. career, that after seeing the same pattern over nearly ten years, I knew nothing would change. It made no difference what new skills I learned, what courses I took, or what degrees I obtained. It wouldn't matter what company I joined or what position I joined at -- the same game would begin anew each time.

There was no way in hell I could play along on the losing end of that game for another thirty-odd years. I was already getting depressed after enduring just ten years. More of the basic perks, stuff like insurance, pensions, would be eroded away each year, leaving me with a very real risk of having almost nothing near retirement. Everyone at the top of the economic food chain in the States continues to burn through the fuel supporting it -- a collapse at some point in the near future seems inevitable. Life is way too short for such nonsense. By refusing to play such a game, I have essentially taken greater control of my own life. If I had not gotten this opportunity, I would have started my own company or something (and likely not in I.T.!). I've never felt so in touch with my life and my place in the world. The work I'm doing is purely for my own benefit, and I am already being rewarded for it -- no dumb HR department or corporate structure involved. This holiday break, we plan to do lots of day trips to see many of the natural wonders here. There is no HR department telling me I only have two days left of vacation time (out of the generous five to ten I might have begun with). I don't have to show up on campus if there's no work to do. I'm not on call. In short, I'm truly free. :)