What if we are the ones...?

Nearly all of my posts have been about details of my life since 2007. However, I intend to write about other stuff, too, now that many of the transitions into a respectable adulthood have passed. I often think of large-scale ideas, and rarely write them down. One such idea focuses on the current poor economy and the bleak forecast for the next decade or so.

To begin with, the overall social pendulum seems to be heading in the opposite direction now, towards greater uncertainties, risk, and upheaval. What I mean by this is compared with the "park yourself and prosper" approach to life in the past 75 years, the world population appears to be shifting to that of near constant migration. People who were born 50 or so years ago often did work hard for many of their achievements. But there were also many places where the path was made easy.

Houses used to cost only 2-3 times a person's annual salary. In Australia, the current average price of a house is about $500,000, and in Canada, it's about $250,000. Only in USA can a person buy a decent house for closer to $100,000 -- but that's only because the economy is especially bad in USA. Average middle class salaries are about $45,000 per year in Canada, $55,000 in Australia, and $37,000 in USA. So between these three countries, it is clear to see that someone earning a middle class income in Australia has no hope in ever outright owning a home. In Canada, house prices are about 5 times the middle class salary. So Baby Boomers were able to reach complete home ownership in much less time than people today.

Employment used to be done in a much more humane manner. Once you got a job, you didn't have to keep looking over your shoulder for the corporate ax. You could focus on doing your job well, and you could trust management to make the right decisions for the prosperity of the company and its employees. This brought about an economy where major purchases, such as a house or a car, were far less risky. People could work no more than 40 hours per week and expect that time away from work would always be theirs. Today, employment seems to have the impersonal characteristics of a livestock herd. When times get tight, the herd gets culled. The herd is grazing comfortably, when suddenly they are forced to move this way, then that way. Every minute is micro-managed. And if the owner of the herd wants to recklessly drive them all off a cliff, so what? The smarter members of the herd will choose to migrate to other companies, but the same pattern of micro-management and recklessness is quite pervasive. At some point, people just gamble and choose to stop moving around because constant moving is tiresome.

Education and health care were not priced to the edge of affordability. People didn't pay $100,000 for an undergraduate degree that ended up being worthless towards employment, nor did they walk out of a week's stay in a hospital with a bill for $100,000.

So what could these trends mean for people trying to establish themselves today? Certainly, a greater chunk of a person's life has to be dedicated to becoming established. One can no longer really be considered an adult at age 18, but rather more like age 28. If real adulthood no longer arrives until age 28, then that means stable relationships and home ownership also get delayed. More people are waiting until later in life to have children, and this choice is not out of vanity, but of economic necessity. Family stability simply isn't there unless job stability exists. These adverse social changes mean years of transience. At some point, society will simply be broken, and the transience will be nearly permanent over a lifetime for most people. Jobs will be limited, as will resources for self-sufficiency.

Where is this discussion going? As the title hints, I wonder when will this tipping point come, where it will be apparent that people find the road to becoming stably established blocked. The prosperity enjoyed by previous generations cannot continue forever, and this notion is supported by some thought experiments on the growth of energy consumption, which in turn fuels economic growth.

Therefore the question is what if we are the ones who will be the first to experience this severe downward shock of reduced prosperity? What will be the social consequences? What will be the psychological consequences once masses of people realize they are permanently stuck in a new peasant class, each day having been reduced to essential survival matters?

Here again after another long gap

Life has really turned around again since my last post. My thesis corrections were approved, and I got the hardbound copies printed and sent off. I was starting to get a little depressed at the lack of responses in my job search. Then, at the beginning of May, I found an ad for a start-up company that wanted someone with qualifications similar to mine. The job title said "vice president," though, so at first I was skeptical I would even be a contender since I have never held an executive position before. I convinced myself to apply, and that turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made! (Three interviews, a couple of them at a decent restaurant, and I got the job.)

After about 3 weeks of a verbal offer over the phone, I finally got the official offer letter, along with a full document package to take to immigration to get my work permit. THAT was an ordeal (details of which I won't post here), but I succeeded in getting the work permit. About this same time, we managed to find a nice house to rent near UWaterloo, where I would be working, and moved out of Michelle's parents' house (FINALLY!!!) late June.

Chloe has been growing up so fast. It's hard to believe she's not even 1.5 years old, yet. We got financial assistance from President's Choice charity and were able to purchase hearing aids for her. The benefit of these hearing aids has been remarkable. Michelle took a leave of absence from her job to stay at home with Chloe.

Unpacking has brought back many memories. There were boxes that hadn't been opened in 4 years. Straight away, we found plenty of stuff to get rid of, and we continue to try to keep our possessions as minimal as possible (our massive book collection is the only real indulgence). We've been at the new house for a month and we are still unpacking.

The job has been delightfully busy, and I'm happy to actually be drawing on all my skills and experiences each day. It has been well worth the effort to get a PhD to finally have a job where my skills are deemed important, and not trivialized like they constantly were in I.T. (And, yes, the PhD is official now...I graduated a week ago.)

Thesis approved!

Yesterday morning I got the email with the examiners' reports regarding my thesis, and it has been approved (with a few very minor revisions)! I would like to say I jumped for joy when I read the report, but because of all the emotional exhaustion over the past 6 months, I really didn't feel anything. I was fairly confident to begin with that the thesis would be approved (my supervisors would look bad if it wasn't), so in that respect, the report is what I expected, nothing more, nothing less.

I am glad the approval is official now, though, because that means I can get the revisions done, get the final hard-bound copies of the thesis printed, and graduate in July. From that point on, the Ph.D. experience will be behind me, and I can truly move on. (On a positive note, I emailed the professor for my most promising post-doc opportunity, and he replied back that he would let me know pretty soon what is going on with the funding.)

The revisions will only take me 2-3 hours, tops, and most of that will be spent making sure the formatting in Latex is appropriate. And I am looking forward to holding that final, hard-bound copy in my hands.

Maybe?

I've got a couple of possible opportunities at the moment. One is a proper post-doc in Ottawa. It's an interesting position, and pays well. Plus Ottawa is one of the nicer cities in Canada, with lots of culture. The second possibility is in Winnipeg. That one could be a combination of sorts. I'm applying for an instructor position at the University of Manitoba, and on the side I would volunteer with an eco-car project I read about online. I've exchanged several friendly emails with the guy running the eco-car project, and he likes my qualifications. He's even gone through the trouble of emailing one of his sponsors to see if they would pay for me to work on the project.

Either one of those cities would be nice, although Michelle and I are leaning more towards Ottawa. It really doesn't matter at this point because we are both so ready to be out of her parents' house and on our own again. The nuttiness is now wearing us down more than the cramped conditions we have to live in. I've given up trying to help with the basement, because Michelle's dad doesn't seem to want to give the project a very high priority. He has plenty of time for other interests, like his twice a week coffee chats, curling (twice a week all winter and early spring), "consulting work" for a local charity, and doing free work for the local chapter of the Liberal Party (politics). I just got sick of constantly asking him when will this or that get done in the basement. Work there has been going on since January, and with the remaining items still to do, it will take at least another 3-4 months at the current rate of progress before Michelle and I can actually move down there. And they are opening their cottage for the season at the end of May, so there's another distraction. If one of my job possibilities work out by then, it will no longer be an issue and Michelle's dad can deal with his half-finished basement by himself.

Back on the bright side of things, Chloe can now walk on her own, although she still likes touring the house while holding my hand. It is still such a joy to get to spend so much time with her as she approaches her first birthday.

Still searching...

It is now mid-March, and despite sending off a hundred or so emails and spending countless hours searching for jobs online, I am still unemployed. There are lots of job ads in Biotech, lots of ads for senior researchers (>1 year post-doc experience), but hardly anything for post-docs. Those positions that are available are often so narrowly defined in the requested skills set, it reminds me of my days in I.T. One example was a position studying nanocomposites. I've synthesized nanocomposites, and they are not particularly special as to require a specific research focus, but that's what this one associate professor wanted: someone with a lot of experience just on nanocomposites. I've actually started applying for I.T. jobs here in Canada, just to improve my odds of becoming employed again. Additionally, I've started applying for post-docs in USA. Maybe the only way I can launch my career as a scientist will be to go back to USA for a couple of years, then permanently settle in Canada. I've also been considering alternate careers completely outside I.T. and science, but I have no idea what I should pursue.

Getting to spend each day taking care of Chloe has been the one thing really lifting me up. She's now 10.5 months old, very close to walking on her own, and her precocious personality is really coming out. She's got two teeth, and a couple more following. I usually put her in the stroller and go for a walk mid-afternoon, so as to time it with her afternoon nap. Even though it's been a bit cold until now, I've found it therapeutic to get out of the house.

Living with Michelle's parents has been a very draining experience at times. They seem to get offended by the slightest thing, so each day we have to be extra careful with what we say and do. And they have no clue about baby-proofing. We've had to force the issue with them on several things so far. The basement is still at least another couple months from being done.

Regarding my thesis, the report from the second examiner has arrived, but I won't get the details until 6 April, as that's when the next university thesis committee meets. No rush, guys, not like I'm trying to get my life started again. So I'm losing a month in which I could be doing the revisions.

It's times like this when I really wish I was independently wealthy, as then I could just spend my time studying whatever interests me and getting involved with charities (maybe even mentoring high school students...I'd tell them not to bother trying to get a PhD!).

The Meandering Continues, Part 1

Today is New Year's Day, 2011. It's probably the most humble New Year's for me in a very long time. Sure, in 2010, I finished what I set out to do: get a PhD. But I haven't actually graduated, yet (that will be in July). My thesis was officially submitted and sent to the examiners just before Xmas. I'm very glad to have that done. However, the university experience in Australia was a real let-down. I absolutely would not recommend going to Australia as a student.

The additional aspect of this humble new year is the period of unemployment I'm going through. I honestly do not know how I got the mistaken impression I would land a post-doc soon after I completed the PhD. Neither my supervisors nor anyone else mentioned this detail. The reality is there are far more PhD graduates than post-doc jobs, so it may take me a year or more until I am actually employed as a scientist. I can't help but think of the people who may fall through the cracks and never get that first post-doc job. What a waste of time it was for those people to work towards a PhD, not to mention the loss of their talents to society.

I am glad we chose to go to Canada, rather than back to the States. Michelle and Chloe are already covered under the national healthcare here (whereas in the States, we'd be losing $700/month of our income to pay for family health insurance). It is actually better, financially, for me to be unemployed here in Canada than to have a McJob in the States while paying such extortionate rates for some crappy health insurance plan.

Another stroke of fortune is Michelle being able to sponsor me for permanent residency, since she is a Canadian citizen. The application itself only requires criminal background checks and a medical check for me. This is a stark contrast to the Australian PR application, which is extremely complicated and chock full of gotchas so the government there can take your $2700 application fee and still deny you PR.

I've got lots more to say as life takes this new turn, but it will take a bit for me to gather my thoughts. More to come...