Various updates

Yesterday I got an email from the administrator at the department where I interviewed, asking if I had any more questions and if it was OK to contact my references. I looked back at my application (the university has it all online so I use the same information each time) and it seems that 2 of the 3 are out of commission. (Couldn't get in contact with one by email so she may have left the job, and the other one is at the flashcards job and I wasn't able to get a response from him six months ago, so I doubt she could get a hold of him now.) The third reference was still willing to talk so that was good - that was from my research job I had in college.

Since obviously I am still at my present job, I can't exactly ask my current supervisor for a recommendation or she'd know I'm looking! I did what I thought was the next best thing, and gave the administrator a copy of my annual review. It has a few things in it that I'd rather not show to people, but a) since they know what the review packet looks like, I can't take pages out and b) I don't really have any other way to prove that I know what I'm doing in research, since I didn't do clinical research in college. So I hope they don't think I'm a horrible person. The review could have been much nicer, but it was written by the admin lady at my department who thinks I don't sufficiently kowtow to the surgeons and that I am a bad person because I once nodded off in a presentation. Hey, my coworkers might nod off once in a while IF THEY ACTUALLY WENT TO PRESENTATIONS. The doctors routinely fall asleep too. I am usually the only one who goes, but somehow the kudos for that wasn't enough to counteract her putting mean spirited comments in my review. When I emailed the new admin lady back, I said something to the effect of "the review isn't as clear as it might be since it was co written by a superior with whom I have little contact, so please contact me if you need clarification." It would definitely sound too bitter to say "This person dislikes me and only hears bad things about me, so don't believe a word she wrote."

I also got the chance to express my preference for staying on the main hospital campus. She confirmed that there are several positions, and some of them are at satellite locations - one satellite far away (read: highway driving) and one pretty close, about 5 minutes driving. The second wouldn't be too bad but I would prefer to not buy a car at all.

In other news, Coworker with the gecko noticed yesterday that I had cleaned up the cage and put new things in, and came and asked me how much she owed me for the supplies. I told her I got it from a friend because she seems to be one of those people who feels really really guilty about things.. although evidently not guilty enough to feed him. I said that she didn't have to reimburse me for the supplies but that he could use some crickets. She said she'd go get some today since apparently the local Petco only has them on Tuesdays and Thursdays - I said that the Pet Supplies Plus about 5 minutes away has them all the time since they raise them in the store. You can probably guess that Sunny is still hungry today, though.

I think I am going to go get some crickets tonight. At this point I don't care how bad my coworkers feel that I am taking care of their animals, they need to be adults and do it themselves. I just hope that they pick up the slack if I take a new job. Probably won't happen but the thought will comfort me.