Pride

I'm back! It's been a busy month (in a good way) having friends and family visit and AB was on a very easy going rotation. But everyone is back home and AB is back on his medicine rotation which means him coming home before 9 pm is a good day. 

At any rate, today we're talking pride.

The thought of working for minimum wage with a PhD degree during grad school was a sense of relief or even something I yearned. What I would have given to be able to show up, work my hours, and then go home. I would be compensated if I worked overtime, expectations and tasks would be obvious, and I could go home without bringing any baggage. I joked I would have been happier bagging groceries than running experiments at times. But was I really OK with that? Probably a classic case of the grass always being greener on the other side.

So how green was that grass because I've got my degree and I'm working below minimum wage + commission. I now show up to work when I'm assigned to and when I clock-out I am not expected to do much else other than make sure I show up when I'm supposed to again. Well, it's not that green. Maybe something like this as opposed to this. One thing I had not considered was my pride - which at the time I thought was non-existent.

I do not view myself as someone that gets my jollies from having a certain status or extra letters at the end of my name. Although, if I am honest with myself I would have to admit that I expect people to be some what impressed with my accomplishment and I feel I am a notch above the majority of the population for the same reason. I of course am very uncomfortable acknowledging this about myself.

Let's talk numbers for a moment. According to the Education Attainment portion of the 2011 census, only 3% of the population 25 and older have either a PhD, EdD, etc or professional degrees such as MD, JD, etc. If we don't include the professional degrees then we are only 1.5% of the population 25 and older. Those are small percentages! The numbers say I'm part of a pretty exclusive club. 

I understand that having this degree doesn't make me a better person or even necessarily smarter than others, but it does mean I have achieved something that not many others have. I lose sight of that (I was shocked it was only 1.5%) because I have been surrounded by people with advanced degrees. But back to the matter at hand. My pride. It exists and the numbers (although not necessary) justify it for me.

It has been difficult knowing I am working a job a high school student without a diploma could do. Not only that, but the employees there (most of them younger) are doing a better job than me. Here's this chick with a PhD that can barely work the register at times. It's also quite the change of pace when you go from being the expert on your project to knowing much less about the products they sell which also contributes to my feeling incompetent. 

The majority of customers walking in probably assume I'm in college (at best) and I am sure many don't even give me the time of day if there is an inkling that I may not know the answer to something. I so badly want to say, "I'm not an idiot I promise! I have a post-graduate degree! I'm part of the 1.5%"... ok maybe I'd leave that last one out.


I can't blame the customers for thinking that way though. I realize I too judge people or make assumptions about them even if I don't mean to or want to. 

Last week a customer came in to discuss digitally archiving her 50 scrapbooks and complimented me on my engagement ring which led to a discussion about AB and what he does and how we met. Her husband is a retired internist physician that had worked at Scripps, which is what AB is in line to do. Eventually I told her I had a PhD in chemistry (the first and only time I've ever relayed this information to a customer) and I could almost hear the respect growing inside her. At the beginning of the conversation she seemed weary of the amount of money she would need to spend and whether we could handle the task. Once she heard I had this degree it was as if she had this new found confidence in me and we instantly had another level of connection. She ended up being my biggest sale that day.

This job has been a change of pace in a lot of ways, but one I don't think I mentally prepared for was the lack of acknowledgment of my background. I've had to swallow my pride and tuck away Dr. Chiang as quickly as I attained that title. Ironically, what makes me feel better about myself nowadays is talking and being affiliated with chemistry.

The ACS Conference, an event where ~16,000 chemists congregate to eat and drink chemistry for a week, was in town a month ago. I went to take advantage of the career center and meet up with friends. Just being in the presence of other chemists made me feel like "oooh look at me with my ridiculously large badge and tacky lanyard. I'm special."

So despite my desire to run away from chemistry while I was in grad school, now that I'm no longer there I seek ways to affiliate myself with it again to increase my self-worth. The grass really is always greener.