Hours of Daylight – 14:18
What a beautiful day. No joking, no cynicism. Like something out of a dream. Clear blue sky, cool air, reasonably warm sun. If you ever want to visit Minnesota, now’s the time. Still a bit chilly up north so i’d avoid visiting Ely (i don’t have to remind you how that’s pronounced, right?), but it’s warming.

Ok, so Annette got the word from Reno. She will be receiving a letter of appointment sometime next week. So, the current job-hunting stats show she’s batting 500.

I think we could make Reno work at least for a while. Annette still has to get a better grip on what it is they expect from her. It’s a low-level position. Lecturer. Bottom of the pay scale. While there is every indication the position would evolve after one year, her fear is they simply want cheap labor to teach a ton of intro classes. She fears if she demonstrates she’s willing to work for peanuts the school will have little incentive to boost her pay or position. In all but the most progressive institutions, especially in today’s economy, there is no desire to promote employees. Today’s economy demands just the opposite: get more work for the smallest possible amount of compensation. If she takes the job, then feels they’re screwing her and bails after a year it’s no great loss to the school since they’ll just replace her with another recent graduate who’ll be happy to have a job. Valid concern. Worse there is really no way to verify the school’s true intentions. They can always play the “state cut our budget” card at any time.

Those are the questions for which she has to find satisfactory answers. My concerns are much more pragmatic: what will be her monthly take home salary? What will it cost to add me to her insurance? Will i ever find a job there? Where will we live? How will we get there? What will we bring?

We should have the official offer of employment in a couple of days. The “go, no-go” will come soon thereafter. The waiting game continues.