Kaonashi Ga Suki

Technically, I got back last night around 9:45. I went to a Social Psychology conference in Palm Springs. While many grad students who attend these conferences present their research in a poster presentation, I don’t (yet) have any completed research to present, so I spent my time attending symposia, looking at other people’s posters, and making important contacts. I was very pleased to meet and talk with two women whose past research is instrumental to my own. It’s kind of funny, in a way- meeting such people is like meeting celebrities. You spend years following and reading their work, and one day you meet them face to face. I think donyell can relate to this

Admittedly, I really wish I did have a poster presentation. I felt a little embarrassed and behind academically, as I ran into classmates who were there for their own presentations. I dunno- I often feel that my classmates are way ahead of me in so many ways. Many have several completed research projects under their belt, while I still struggle with my stupid thesis. Granted, a lot of this completed research is because they work with a pre-existing dataset; therefore, they don’t need to go through the unenviable task of data collection. They just write the paper, do the analyses, and that’s it.

But enough of that.

I don’t know what to make of Palm Springs overall. It seemed kind of boring to me. Yeah, I didn’t have time to explore since I spent most of my days at the conference, and I didn’t travel with any of my colleagues so I didn’t hang out with anyone afterwards, but still- I just wasn’t impressed with the part of Palm Springs that I did see and experience. To me, it seems like it’s a town mainly for senior citizens.

The conference ended on Saturday night, and my bf and I were supposed to go to Vegas to celebrate his new job, but since he decided to stay at his current job, he can’t get Monday and Tuesday off. He had heard unpleasant things about this company from some former employees, which were enough to convince him to stick it out a little longer at his current job.

I had suspected that things weren’t quite right with the other company. Basically, they never told him that they had hired him. They just assumed that he was going to start working for them! Um, what??? What happened to an offer letter, and to salary negotiation? None of that happened. He kept waiting for them to contact him, when one day he receives an email saying something like, “Oh, we can’t wait for your arrival next week.” He was absolutely stunned since he didn’t even know they hired him!

I dunno, but that just seemed really weird to me. That’s not standard procedure. If they can’t even get down the basic etiquette of hiring people, what are they like as a company overall? I mean, has this sort of thing happened to you when you got hired?

Ok, enough of my rambling. I hope I have something more coherent and interesting to write next time

social psychology, research, job