Thinking about stuff.

Yeah, I know that thinking usually gets me in trouble. Mainly because I tend to dwell on things and get all mopey and depressed, just ask my brother. All this work drama has me worried and stressed out, and it has brought about all the old feelings from my former, emotionally abusive boss and how it was when I got fired from that job.

Financially, I have to work. I wish that werent the case (dont we all). But honestly, if were told in my meeting with the boss on Wednesday that I would have to leave in two weeks... I would be royally frakked! I have less than $1000 in my combined savings accounts--not even enough for the next month of rent. The logical, reasonable part of me realizes that chances of me getting fired are slim, but the rest of me knows that there is now a non-zero chance of getting fired.

The boss has told me in the past that I was safe in my position and that I didnt have anything to worry about. [quote]Other people will leave before you do,[/quote] she said. But that was then, and this is now. She said just several weeks ago, when we first learned that the one grant didnt get funded, that no one should worry about his/her job at group meeting in front of everyone. A month later, my good friend is out of a job (and kicked out of school).

She has unwittingly (or perhaps purposefully) and irreversibly altered the mood/state of the lab. Everyone is worried about his/her job. Whether she intended to or not, she has ushered in a regime of fear. This is how my former boss ran his lab. Constantly being told that if you dont produce and publish on his time frame, you will be out.

I find myself forced to consider contingency plans. What would I do? semi-continuously reverberates in my mind. So, what would I do? I would need to find another job, ASAP. However, could I? Four years, one paper, fired for not producing results. Does NOT look good! Top that with the fact that this is my second postdoc position, and I was fired from the first one for...not producing results! Im unemployable -- with the notable exception that I know that SS4BC would hire me if she were running her own lab, but thats a minimum of two years off.

So, what would I do? The only thing I could do, I guess. Sell as much of my shit as I can, rent a truck, and shack up with my parents. Of course, without income, I would be in deep shit to the government for my taxes, and I would default on my loans. None of that will do good things to my credit rating. I would have to find some sort of job close to where my parents are and scrimp and save and figure out what to do.

So, what do I do now? I frakking work my ass off trying my frakking hardest to produce results so as NOT to get fired. And this situation has me frakking scared. I know from experience that this is not a good position to be in with a boss. I have a plan to get shit done, but I have no idea if the boss will agree with my plan. I have a plan to show her what is getting done, but is this going to be enough? How do you convince a boss NOT to fire you when your science isnt working? That is a question that had plagued me for a long time that I was sure I was past.

But I guess not. I just hope to gods that my plans work and that the outlook after Wednesdays meeting is better. Because right now, I am terrified.

A little influx of cash.

Working at a Medical School does have its perks. Theres a lab upstairs from mine that does blood studies. Usually, theyre hired by companies to test their products. Ive done two different studies with them. One was testing a new method for storing platelets ($600 for me!) and the other was testing a new machine for collecting red blood cells ($250 for me!). They told me both times that they love my veins and that they would keep me in mind for future studies.

Well, last week, I got a call in lab from them. It has been over a year since I heard from them, so I had pretty much forgotten about them. But theyre doing another platelet study, and they thought of me. Theyre going to harvest platelets, radiolabel them, put them back into me, and draw blood over a period of about two weeks to check on them. It sounds horrible, but Ive done it before, and its not a big deal. But this study pays $620! Im so down for that. Its basically free money. I can bleed. Plus, its helping science, and thats a good thing.

It starts Sept 10 and goes for about three weeks in total. So, I probably wont see money until October. But seeing as how, it will probably all go to taxes or bills anyway, it doeesnt really matter. The point is, I need to be sure NOT to spend it on THINGS I dont need. Its for paying down debt. And $620 will certainly help with that.

And speaking of cash, SS4BC posted about ways to earn some extra cash, and this has me thinking about finally doing something with my change bucket and rolled up piles of coins. I know it may annoy my friends at BofA, but I have a feeling that in the next week or so, I may be walking in there with a sack full of rolled coins to deposit. Its like she says, every cent counts.

Swagbucks + Amazon.com = AWESOME!

A while back, SS4BC suggested to me that I sign up for Swagbucks. Basically, you get swagbucks randomly for searching the internet using their search engine, and then, you can trade in your swagbucks for prizes. The awesomest prize on there is a $5 Amazon.com gift card.

So, I had decided that I was going to save up my swagbucks for LOST Season 5. Well, then I got sucked into Eureka, and I realized that I had enough swagbucks for $30 in Amazon gift cards. This, coupled with the fact that (a) LOST Season 5 doesn't come out until December, (b) I have had a craving for new DVDs, and (c) I would buy Eureka DVDs anyway, I decided to spend my first gift cards on Eureka DVDs.

I traded in my swagbucks for gift cards, and I discovered the downside of buying things this way (for me anyway). The conversion from swagbucks to gift cards is soooooo sloooowwwwwww, which makes the whole instant gratification of internet shopping kind of a moot point. BUT, this is good for me, because it gave me a week or so (6-10 business days, officially) to mull over my plans and decide if this is really the way to go.

Anyway, there are three Eureka sets currently available on Amazon. I was all set to buy some when over the course of about 12 hours, one went up in price by about $10! I was pissed. (Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for two gift cards to clear.) Tonight, on a whim, I decided to look again. And lo and behold, it's back down to $14.49 (instead of $25). So, I caved. I bought DVDs.

So, here's how it breaks down...

Eureka Season 1: $25.99
Eureka Season 3: $14.49
Shipping: $0.00 (YAY!)
TOTAL: $40.48
Gift Cards: $20.00
Total Paid: $20.48

I'm perfectly okay with this. Between the two sets of DVDs, there are 21 episodes. This works out to paying $0.98 per episode. I will definitely get $0.98 of enjoyment from the DVDs. If I was paying to download per episode, websites (or iTunes) would charge roughly $2 or $3 per episode. Not that I would actually pay that much, but I'm sure that people do.

Anyway, back in the day (ie. four months ago), I would have become obsessed with the show, and just bought all the DVDs at whatever Amazon price they were at the moment without gift cards, and I probably would have paid extra for the two-day shipping (an extra $12; I looked it up just now). So, I just saved myself $67 over the "me" of the past.

Now, I can relax, my need for DVDs satiated. I know that I'll buy season 2 at some point, but it was the most expensive of the three sets of DVDs. But I know now that I can wait until I have more swag bucks and gift cards.

So, yes, thank you SS4BC for the inspiration, swagbucks for the gift cards, and Amazon for working with swagbucks!