Dr. Shellie

I went to meet the facilities manager yesterday to discuss lab renovations for the fall. At some point they asked whether white was OK for the student office space.

"You mean I have a choice? I asked rather stupidly.

"Well it’s your space– you can have whatever color you want," he said.

"You mean, I can have it painted yellow?" I asked.

Yes, they said, I can have it painted yellow.

I was totally blown away by this thought.

Ok, so rationally I realize that being pleased and/or surprised by this is totally inane. After all, my university is investing a huge sum of money in me for my startup costs– initial student salaries, summer salary, lab renovation costs, equipment, etc. Painting the room yellow instead of white costs, uh, maybe $25? So I shouldn’t really be so surprised.

I think I haven’t yet adjusted to the abrupt jump in decision-making power between postdoc and assistant professor. Here at my current university, I need my postdoc advisor’s signature to buy anything that costs more than a hundred dollars. When I go visit my future university, people ask me if I need to make any structural modifications to the building.* It is startling. I must remember I am in charge now.

For a long time, I felt that I should be an infinitely more organized and productive person with no need for house cleaners. I also suspected that hiring a cleaner might indicate a lazy, bankrupt moral character and a certain disconnect from the realities of everyday existence. And since I had read "Nickel and Dimed", I knew that house cleaners who work for maid services can end up making insanely, exploitatively small amounts of money per hour, while the maid service collects most of your payment.

On the other hand, I had heard many academics advise that as soon as you can afford it, household help was completely worth it. And our house was getting messier and messier as we put in more and more time at work.

So we went for it. My husband found independent cleaners, a family that runs their own service. They come once a week, and the three of them finish our house in an hour. It is a wonderful thing.

First, there is no longer any need to argue about who last cleaned the toilet. This, in itself, is worth it. Second, now that the cleaners do the routine stuff, we have the chance to tackle the harder things– like figuring out how to fix a broken dresser, or get rid of the spare table that has been clogging up the living room. And third, it is immensely comforting to know that we have just a little help in battling the forces of chaos.

Financially, hiring cleaners will not be an option for everyone (after all, I don’t suppose the cleaners hire cleaners, right?). But if you are overwhelmed by your own house and can afford the cost, I encourage you to try it out.

It all started a month ago.

Someone left a box of very sweet and sticky pastry out on the counter. When we got home for work, there had been an invasion. Tiny ants were crawling all over the kitchen, scaling enormous heights to climb up from the floor to the top of the counter and eat pastry.

We threw out the pastry, and wiped down the counter. The ants dispersed. Just a few remained, wandering here and there in a confused way around the kitchen.

Two days later, I drunk a class of orange juice and left the cup by the sink. When I came home, they were out in force again, swarming over the counter, teetering over the rim of the cup, crawling down into the orange-juice-residue covered depths.

I put the cup in the dishwasher. I cleaned the counter. They dispersed again, until the next glass of orange juice was left out again, five days later.

This cycle has been repeating for the last month. For several days in a row, our alert is on high. We remember to put all orange juice cups directly into the dishwasher. And then… the ants go away, memories fade, and one slip-up starts the cycle all over again.

Clearly, these ants love orange juice. They love it with a passion. And they do not give up. They wait for the day that it will reappear, and go after it all over again.

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Just as I was starting to worry about all my time going into teaching next year, with nary a minute for research, a memo from the dean’s office arrived in my inbox. The teaching load for first year assistant professors has been reduced by one course.