New considerations

Here are some recent ramblings, exploring my thoughts, from a five-year (going on six) postdoc (I apologize in advance):

It has been almost a year since I started to apply to non-academic jobs.  I got a bit frustrated in the last while with my lack of success, and I only sent off one application in the past three months.

So, I evaluated things some more, and I came to the realization that I need to keep all my applications restricted to the industry in which I have some training.  I won't be sending out any of those long-shot applications, and even though jobs only come up maybe once or twice per month in this particular niche, at least I can be confident that I have some of the things the employers might want.  Plus, it is a lot less work doing 2 applications per month than 20 - namely cover letter/resume tailoring and research of the potential company and position.  I still know that I hardly have any chance even in my field, which is still depressing.  At any rate, I submitted 3 applications so far this month, and one of them is for a professorship.  Oops.  I am not sure how that slipped in there, but the bleak market for jobs makes any job (professorship or not) in my field semi-attractive.  Or maybe not.  I think part of it is I just want to be successful and get an offer - to finally get to the end of a job process.  Do you know what I mean?  Even if that means a job in academia - maybe I can actually get an offer?

Stupid academia.

There is still the option of staying where I am at and continuing ad nauseum in a never-ending postdoc role, with the caveat that I secure the necessary funding for my position.  But the pay sucks.  What I mean to say is:  the pay sucks.  Did I say that already?  Well it does.  Is it possible to actually be a 'career postdoc', or a 'professional postdoc'?  Is that actually a career?  How long can someone stay a postdoc?  Any postdoc lifers out there?

It's not sustainable.  I still think at some point it needs to change, and I know that I need to do some sort of applying, to academic jobs or otherwise, in order to produce that change.  And so, I suppose I will continue down the application road, albeit at a much slower pace.

There is also something about just applying that I think is good.  I have applied to so many jobs in the past year that I am immune (not really) to rejection.  Therefore, the point of applying now for me is to keep hope alive; I can continue to hope that one of the applications might actually turn out.  And if I get rejected?  (Or forgotten, I should say, as most of the time I don't even get any notice).  Well, I guess I am assuming before I hit the 'submit' button that it will be rejected.

But at the same time...  is there hope still there, somewhere inside my silly self?  Hope and academia are quite similar in many ways.  They tease you.  They make you feel better than you are (at times).  They both lead you down roads that probably will not pay off in the end.

I have a new best friend... logic.  I'll try to frame my mind solely on logic.