So, ya know, I saw the thread title on the main forum page and, when I clicked on IMHO I saw it was started by you, Mouse_Maven and I said, “Oh, my land in heaven! Is she kidding me?” Please, for our sake, if not yours, just leave this job already.
And Auntbeast is right. It’ll soon be like this never happened, once you have your baby.
I 95% agree with the others that have posted before. This job isn’t good for you and it doesn’t look to be improving any time in the near future. As you said, you are looking to hold on to something familiar, but this one really isn’t the right thing to hold on to.
But, for the other 5%. Do you have insurance outside this job? With your pregnancy, and a baby being a built in reason to quite in a few months, do you need the insurance? If the answer is no, then smile nicely, tell Dr Boss how much you have enjoyed the work you have done and sail out the door when your final day arrives.
You can unclench your teeth and utter all the curses you are holding back, once you get into your car.
You’re right. I know why staying crossed my mind: work is familiar and feels safe in a mess-up sort of way. Parenthood is scary and there isn’t really any guidelines.
Mouse_Spouse has made it clear that I should go. He’s tired of seeing me miserable. Luck for us, the Mouseling and I are on his health insurance.
At the moment, if I’m not crying, I want to break something. If I’m not fatigued, I’m nauseated. Over 6 billion people in the world, and more every day. AMAZING!
NO! Say it with me now, NO! Do not let them con you back into that hellacious pit of stress and insanity! Enjoy this time, write a journal that you can look over later on, describing what being pregnant is like. You might even do it in a “lab journal” style if that amuses you. 
You haven’t seen a very pregnant woman needing to pee, with the entire length of the large store between her and the bathroom. Once a pregnant woman builds up speed, she can MOVE! :eek:
Is there room in the Baritone section? Mouse_Maven, don’t do it. If they catch you by phone, give them a random time and Don’t Go. Make sure all your personal things (pictures, knick-knacks, job stuff from prior jobs) are out of your office/cubicle/slave-pit incase they do the security walk-out routine with you. Make sure you have a list of phone numbers and email addresses of people you liked & may want to keep in touch with some day, but get your stuff the hell out & well before this meeting.
PS- I second blowing off this meeting, possibly to the point of not coming in that day at all.
[HanSolo]“Chewy, I got a Bad Feeling about this…”[/HanSolo]
Doctor Boss has caused you nothing but heartache and despair. I know, MM, how much you must love the idea of your job, and how gratifying the paycheck can be. But I’ve read many of your posts over the past year or so, and they basically fall into two categories:
Mousehouse, which is a warm, happy, loving place that brings you great joy (jeez, I thought I had a great marriage, and then I read about yours!) and comfort and security.
Ratrace, which is a frustrating, alienating, appallingly hostile environment into which you take yourself every workday; there, you are underappreciated and ignored when you’re not actively abused.
I think you have an enormous capacity for love and nurture, and I don’t mean that as a sexist man-guy talking to cute little ol’ pregnant you. I mean you are in medical research because you love your fellow humans and want to ease the suffering. That’s wonderful. But you need to just step back and take things one at a time.
Forget lifestyle – go home, be with Mr. Mouse, welcome your little mousey into the world and enjoy your life for awhile. Later, when the diapers and the rocking and the baby spit-up have lost their charm, take stock of your career, seek some advice from an admired old professor and march, clear-eyed and purposefully, back into medical research. Your maternity hiatus will do you a world of good.
You’ve given notice, now follow through. If those who track such things are expecting you to work on the day of the meeting, then attend the meeting. Keep your counsel, consider what Dr. Boss says, think about it and respond in your own good time. I’m betting that if you wait 24 hours, you’ll never give it another thought.
Take the step, be bold; trust, pray, and go. By all means, go.
It sounds like there is going to be a group meeting where Dr. Boss will finally answer some questions and will confirm that the lab is being closed. I’m going to recast my dissenting vote and say go to the meeting. You should still quit but it may be good for you to close the door that way.
Sorry - I now can not help but picture MM in a very large maze with a bathroom at the far end…
OK. I’ll be the dissenting voice.
You are not currently employed elsewhere?
You have pretty well figured out that your department is toast, anyway?
I sisncerely hope you have already begun looking for another job, but if you are not getting any offers, I suggest you grit your teeth and stay on while pushing your resume into every nook and cranny you can find. If the job is going away, you have a paycheck until it does. If the job is not going away, you have a paycheck (and benefits?) until the mouseling arrives.
If you get an offer, then take it swiftly. In the meantime, you can use your current employment to bargain with future employers. If you are unemployed with nothing but “I couldn’t take it any more” for an answer to the inevitable interview question, you have less with which to bargain.
Part of your troubles involve just the uncertainty of the situation. Having decided to quit, you have removed one layer of uncertainty. Now you can tough it out with that small piece of stomach churning laid to rest, which might make the job just sufficiently bearable to bring home that check.
I’m going to continue with the “go ahead and meet, but don’t let them guilt you into agreeing to anything” school of thought.
You know, Mouse_Maven, I’ve been one of the more vocal supporters of the position that your paycheck is not worth your mental health. Nothing I’ve read since has changed. I know that there were many aspects of the job that you liked, and enjoyed. But in the past several months the lack of support from higher ups, most especially this Dr., have seemed to be leeching any potential for enjoyment out your job.
You’ve got a strongly developed sense of responsibility, and obligations, to those people whom you know. And, I suspect that it’s a well-known trait, among those who know you. I’m very, very leery of this meeting offered by your Dr. - I have visions of “Guilt-trip-from-Hell” to get you to stay, but that’s at least as much my own paranoia speaking as any rational evaluation. But that doesn’t change that I suspect you are very susceptible to coercion through that method.
So, unless you’re sure you can tell your Dr. “Thank you, no,” no matter what buttons he tries to push - I suspect you’d be better off skipping the meeting.
Alright, don’t take this the wrong way, but every time I see one of your many posts about your intolerable family, job, etc. I can’t help think that you seem to thrive on being unhappy. I don’t know if it’s because of your lousy childhood, but it just seems like when things are going badly you enjoy wallowing in it, telling everyone how horrible everything is. And that you make things horrible by seeing everything negatively.
Well, until you choose to make your life better, and stop the decisions that are causing pain, this is what you’re going to get. Your mother is a psycho bitch but you won’t cut off contact, (as I recall it’s because you don’t want your brother to have to deal with her - well, that’s his problem, He can cut off contact, too). Your job is hell - do you or don’t you quit, do you or don’t you whistle blow on stuff you don’t have proof of, Boss is lousy (IMHO most doctors aren’t good administrators), etc. Welcome to the world. Work often sucks. Until you learn to either divorce yourself from your job and realize it’s not all about you, your outlook will never get better. It’s a job. You go, you do your work to the best of your ability, and you leave it at the end of the day. If you leave, you can be sure they aren’t going to beat themselves up about how badly they treated you. They’ll find another animal tech if they still need one and life will go on. And if you leave, don’t beat yourself up because you’re leaving them in a lurch. You’re just an employee, and everyone can be replaced.
So should you leave or take a pay raise you don’t even know is being offered? I’d say take the meeting. See what the doc has to say. Give honest but not offensive reasons if asked about why you’re leaving. After all, things can’t change if no one speaks up. If a better offer is made, make sure it’s more than just money. Lay your cards on the table and be ready to walk if they don’t want to meet your conditions.
Learn to be happy. Do what’s best for you and your family. And don’t feel guilty if what’s best for you isn’t what’s best for your mother, your boss or the person who mans the drive-thru window. In the long run, the best gift you can give your child is a happy, well-adjusted mother.
I’m sorry if this post seems harsh. I certainly don’t mean it that way. But go back and look at every thread you’ve started, then ask yourself if there aren’t other things in your life, positive things, that you can post about. Everyone has some of both, but you never seem to see anything in a positive light. I know it seems trite, but you really have to practice seeing the good and minimizing the bad.
StG
If you stay, you lose all bitching rights! 
I’m currently in a job I hate and actively looking for a new job. On the day I hand in my resignation, even though there are only 4 of us in my department and I’m the only one who knows how to do things our biggest client wants us to do, there will be no looking back and no chance I’ll consider staying. The time for reconsideration and bargaining was six months ago.
Maus Maven, I’ve been reading about your situation, and I feel for you. Go to the meeting, if you like, and see if there’s any possibility things may change, but keep in mind that you’re doing that for the next person, not you. You don’ t need this now, especially with your husband’s insurance. I know not working’s terrifying – that’s why I’m still here – but you’ve got two people to look out for now, not to mention your husband. As the song goes, “Just get on the bus, Gus. You don’t have to discuss much. Just drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free!”
I felt that false sense of security in a number of jobs. It’s just you not taking charge of your life.
No one ever died from leaving a job or being fired or laid off or whatever. Move on. In my observation, there is no job that could suck more than the one you’re in. Working the drive-thru at Mickey D’s would be a step up.
Parenthood IS scary. That’s the only sentence in the parenting handbook that you can hold as gospel. That doesn’t mean you should add to that stress by working a McSuck job. Get out while you can.
It’s not often I get to give parenting advice and job advice in one go. But here it is, and it’s the same advice:
Whining/begging/pleading/nagging does not make us change our minds, only new facts to consider might.
That is - does he have any information which is factual that might have some bearing on your decision? Is he offering more money? More hands-on guidance (and don’t settle for some vague “I’ll be in contact more often.” It had better be, “I’m moving my office to this building and I’ll have office hours on Mon, Wed and Fri starting August 1st,” sort of concrete information.) Can he get you an interview with recomendation at another facility in your field if you stay for X number of weeks/months more? Those are all **facts **which might change your mind.
“But we reeeeeeallly neeeeed you, MM!” Isn’t a fact, it’s an opinion, and furthermore it’s a whine. It should have no bearing on you changing your mind.
When you’re a parent, teach this young and often. “But Mooooo-ooooom! I really waaaaant a coooooookie!” is not a reason, and will not be considered new facts in evidence if I’ve already said no. “Mom, I’ll skip desert tonight if I can have a cookie now,” IS a new fact to take into consideration, and it might (or might not) be enough to make me change my mind.
Truer words were rarely spoken. My life became far more serene when I learned to live this way.
And the thing is, regarding work, half the stuff at work wouldn’t be so terrible if you just kept your head down and did your work rather that worrying about the politics. I mean, yes, eventually there isn’t going to be a job or department, but it has nothing to do with you until, well - it does. And then all it would have meant is collecting unemployment for awhile. You don’t need to worry about where the money’s going, you don’t need to know what the boss is doing, you don’t need to worry about the post-docs’ future. As we used to tell my son when he was about 3, your only concern is yourself. Your big mistake was getting involved in the politics rather than going with the flow while brushing off your resume. What a waste - a year spent freaking out over stuff you had absolutely no control over and, meanwhile, in a few months all you’ll care about is your baby.
What the hell for? So that you can continue to be miserable? At this point, why do you give a rat’s ass (heh) what Dr. Boss wants to do?
Just making sure: there is absolutely no chance that this meeting will be turned around into a Mouse_Maven blanket party? I’ve heard of ambushes where firms or UberEgos will call meetings like this and insist the person didn’t quit, but were fired for some trumped up reason or another.
Here’s a thought.
It isn’t about you. Dr. Boss MIGHT show up. Because he’s been goaded into it and because there is a post-doc involved. He’s showing up for the post-Doc - while he is there, he will meet with you for appearances sake. He isn’t going to ask you to stay, he’s going to meet with you to tell you he wishes you the best with the baby and gladhand. If he needed to ask you to stay, there would be something more definate than “he might show up.”
If he wants you to come back, don’t, but my guess is that that isn’t even in his mind. What’s in his mind is that he’s being criticized and needs to show up and appear human.