Oh What wonderful timing
Some may consider me a bit of a muppet for having left university just as the whole credit crunch was beginning to bite (Oct 08), but for me it was in some ways a saviour.

At that point in time I was half way through a PhD which was well and truly pushing me to the brink of madness, thanks to the addition of a major building project on site. This mix of builders plus research meant a couple of trips to the psychiatrist and the joy of happy pills. So after taking a short break away, I decided that leaving was my best option. I was fed up of the side effects of happy pills and wanted to be clean.

I tried to get a job quickly out of a desire to be doing something other than being faced with the horror of daytime TV. However, after having no success after a few weeks I accepted that I needed to sign on and use the jobcentre's services.(I've since found out that the likes of the armed forces won't take people who admit to needing happy pills for safety reasons - you'd think they'd want a unit of madmen to send into a trouble spot.)

Thankfully I've managed to find something other than daytime TV to fill my time - the local gym plus a few old video games I had in my collection. Along with catching up on sleep - something that I have begun to enjoy, as it's free . Also the time away from working has allowed me to come off the meds completely.

Unfortunately I did have an encounter with a basketball that left me with a sprained ankle, and allowed me to encounter the bureaucracy of job centre sick forms, as it put me on crutches. More than 2 weeks and they put you on incapacity benefit, so I forced myself to walk to avoid the faff of transferring between the two in quick succession.

The two things I dislike about my situation are:
1) the jobcentre staff who try to encourage me to take posts with fewer hours than I know will cover the bills, but will also prevent you from claiming income support. which makes you worse off than being unemployed.

2) bank staff who don't want to print your bank balances because one of your accounts is set up for online access. I've encountered one such jobsworth at the bank of scotland.

I've also had plenty of time to think about teaching as a career path. currently it seems a good choice for someone with a chemistry degree, especialy if you can persuade the school to let you perform visually wild demonstrations.
(trainee mad doctor is currently trying to build a secret laboratory, Sun 5 Apr 2009, 14:16, 2 replies)

training beware
think very carefully about going into teaching! if you thought doing a phd was stressful... it will take over your life, and push you to the brink and beyond!
(treaclebriggs, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 0:05, closed)

the only reason to be a teacher
is because you want to teach.

there are too many people who have fallen back on it, or thought it would be an easy way out, and that way everyone suffers.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 11:40, closed)