I have been trying to find the right words, the right manner to speak about something I consider important. When I was finishing university, I had this great idea of getting a job that would finally pay off all those years of constant molding into a capable marine biologist. Finally, I would have a balance between work hours and me hours, motivation to contribute to science, enough free time to maintain a nice routine, escape to nature and visit my family for extended periods of time when possible.

As it turns out, I was ridiculously wrong. I jumped headfirst into the work field, not in the proximity of my family nor the comfort of known research circles, but on a distant and warm island, where the only previous experience I had was a three-month Erasmus traineeship. I was happy. Settled into a new environment, quite thrilled to learn and flow with the new. Language-wise, communication started having more and more sense with every day that passed by. Money-wise, seeing a monthly income, tracking every cent spent or saved, I was going on-wards.

Research-wise, one year in, I started feeling out of place. I wasn’t getting any credit for my work. Sometimes I would get assigned an urgent task that lost importance and was obliviated as soon as I delivered it. Vicious confidence between some colleagues would destroy the newcomers and the internal dynamics would get gnarly. My instinct was starting to send signals, that I am, to this day, trying to ignore.

Not sure of how to navigate from these occurrences on, I immersed myself in the adventures of oceanographic cruises and really enjoyed it. The first one was exciting, an upgrade from lab work to field work for sure. The second one was more challenging, with a few hours’ sleep, that destroyed my biorhythm for the following five months. However, I compromised myself into a doctoral position within the same group.

The compromise that I had made with my superior turned out to be a joke after I officially entered the PhD program. Even the program was far from professional. Requirements were different from the official enrollment documentation. Emails were bounced from one department to the other without proper solution to problems that I had not anticipated. Suddenly, problems were neutralized because some people from abroad came with no experience and the requirements level had to be readjusted. Distress began kicking in, and the more I observed, the phonier the work and academia were.

Work-drive began failing afterwards, and I must admit that I have completely lost myself. While I would dream of giving my all to the scientific world, dedicating time to my profession, I would rather surf and groove with family and friends all day long. Living on an island, that eventually gets small, is difficult. Beside the cultural difference, there are other energy draining facts. The world academia is corrupted. Everyone knows everyone.

Where there is interest, there are relatively neutral relationships, otherwise there is a lot of spitting one on another, criticizing others’ work, judging without understanding and knowing. Merits are given to people who have been in this for a long time, the same people who give big talks about having achieved so much that it is time to leave place to the young researchers, the same people who never retire and even if they do, they never really leave.

I am saddened to feel so much angriness and frustration. I am saddened to still feel that I must dive deeper into these dynamics despite feeling all the negativity. But what saddens me the most is knowing that most people in the research world conform with this. Talking about it, everyone agrees the system is crooked, everyone plays smart, everyone has the perfect formula to reverse the dinosaur era, but what is happening really, is the complete conformation to a system so distant from efficient, productive, innovative and in tune with the objectives written in many research projects.

This is my very subjective opinion, solely based on my living experience. It could be that I started off too excited and without properly knowing who I was about to work with. It could be because I am not really prepared to climb up the achievement mountain just to have a big raise and become a moody woman. Or it could be that I am not in the same career seeking place as before, that I appreciate time too much to dedicate it all to work. Loads of possibilities and nothing too clear to step forward. Could a step back be the solution?

Aja Trebec