00:00.00 alifeinruins Welcome to episode 72 of life ruins podcasts where we get into the research and careers of those living life ruins I'm your host Carlton Gover and Connor and Conor and David aren't here tonight. Um, don't have a guest It's just gonna be me which you know many many of our listeners might just be turning off the episode now now that they've realized that. Um so we didn't have an episode. Come out the week before this one that is because we're moving towards we're moving away from a weekly schedule right? now we're at biweekly I'm probably going to move towards monthly. We need to talk to Chris and Rachel and this is probably the first time they're hearing that as has read. Editing this episode but me Connor and David together are going to go into that in more detail probably next episode. There's nothing wrong between the 3 of us for all still great. It's just um and we've been doing this podcast. Since it first aired in may of 2019 and it's been four years you know over 4 years since we started the podcast. Um and we went from you know, interviewing other. 01:32.49 alifeinruins Early career professionals in the field about their research and highlighting them how they got into the field and hopes of inspiring the next generation and as the 3 of us transitioned ourselves from early career researchers. Um, you know our interest in those kind of interviews or those episode topics Changed. We started covering more like research and you know really just asked the audience as you guys know feedback of what we could be doing better and and people wanted. 02:10.26 alifeinruins I know more article or more reviews on current science which is great. We love doing those? Um, but they took more time me David and Connor like 3 of us are our lives have changed substantially since we first started this show. 02:28.12 alifeinruins And we just didn't have the time I think part of it is like the passion was also dissipated ah from the 3 of us like this used to be fun. Something. We look forward to. We talked about it all the time and now Poor Chris has to. You know, fucking bother us I mean not like fucking bother us like we're annoyed with him but like you know he's annoyed with us and we know that because look he's always asking for episodes because we're our heart just not in it anymore. So we're hoping that. Maybe if we can limit the amount of episodes we um, drop. 03:05.62 alifeinruins We can get that passion. Um back. We don't want to quit the show altogether we don't think we're ready for that but just limit how much we record so it doesn't feel like work. Um, you know because ah you know people have commented that the dynamic between the 3 of us on airst has changed. And part of that is just no frustration with each other with the show and um, so yeah, no, the the boys are not breaking up. It's just we we need. Ah, we're switching gears trying to change things and hoping. We can make content that you guys all find enjoyable but we understand we'll probably take ah an audience hit which is which is fine. Um, you know, but anyways, um, for today's episode um I know other than that. Slight caveat. Um I want to go into you know, just give you guys like a brief update like I've been. You know my first year as a professor and review. 04:13.78 alifeinruins Right? And I don't I don't know if I've told the whole story. How I ended up here I know I haven't been open or about how much I've absolutely fucking hated it here and just kind of how Jarring. Realization of what academic life truly is and so I just kind of going to use this almost as like a self Therapyapy session just get it out. I mean we've talked I've mentioned in bits and pieces. Um throughout the past year things have been going on here. 04:49.21 alifeinruins Where I work. Um, but I'm just I'm just fucking done and hopefully maybe this could be helpful to someone else or maybe I just sound like a. Just a whiy asshole that whatever. Um, when I was finishing up my last semester of classes at that see you? um I was approached by the director of The Indiana University Museum Of Archaeology and anthropology. 05:26.89 alifeinruins Ah, who who had known through um Lana Mac and Emily and all I do related folks and he asked me to apply for this position at indian university and like this assistant director of a museum and I was like very resistant one because I have no business applying to be an assistant director of anything not a museum. Not a Mcdonald's you know, but it was insistent and I you know thought okay, we'll just use this as the experience to you know, build. Start building my job application portfolio and I had applied to Mcgill earlier that year and so so I applied. And I was interviewed online then I was asked to you know to go to iu and and the whole thing was strange because I was like applying for this like interviewing for this assistant directorship which I wasn't ah you know at all. Eligible for and it was actually during the interview process that when I was like doing one on ones with faculty because that's something they do right? They they've left me in a conference room for like 6 hours and every 30 minutes a new professor would come in and interview. You. 06:54.70 alifeinruins And one dropped the ball like yes, so you you know his his quote roughly was um well you know you're here for the archeology job. Not the assistant director job and I was like what are you talking about? and so then it became clear what had happened was is the director of the museum at that time. Use the assistant directorship job application as an opportunity to bring in candidates that weren't qualified for the job in order to like show the university hey we can also hire these folks. So. Basically 1 person was actually interviewing for the assistant directorship and the the other three candidates we were all just basically trying to interview for these jobs that didn't exist that they're kind of using our. Interviews in our presentations to go to the university during this ah diversity hire initiative to say hey we have these diversity hires potential diversity hires for the anthropology to work at the museum and so I was a part of that. And what had happened is through that. Um, that's how we ended up with these split the split positions so an assistant directorship was offered um and then 3 curatorships or 2 were offered me and 2 and 1 to me and 1 to another um archeologist. 08:19.19 alifeinruins And the way it worked out is we'd have these halftime appointments halftime in the museum as curators and halftime in the department of anthropology because the funding was coming through the college of arts and sciences I never wanted to live in Indiana i. I was very hesitant to take the position but I trusted the director. Um I had known him and he you know indiana university had ah had ah had a the department of anthropology in particular, really bad has really bad fucking reputation and. 08:53.63 alifeinruins Director of the museum. You know basically said hey look I want you to like I want to do things right? I want to change things that I you and I want you to be a part of that Change. You're gonna come in this other director. This director's gonna come in and this other curator's gonna come In. Um. The other curator didn't take the position I wasn't told I was I They gave me the guy's name and I knew he was indigenous So I was really excited to start with another like fresh out of their program. Indigenous guy. And have you know me and him come in and he didn't take the Job. He took a job somewhere else closer to home which I totally totally get. But I wasn't told that before accepting and accepted the offer. Um I I knew who the assistant director was going to be I was excited to work with him. But the offer came so late that he was unable to start in the fall like like me and um so came here ah alone and it wasn't and when I got here I found out that there were um. 10:09.68 alifeinruins There were conversations about my hire that some people felt I couldn't really speak to my indigeneity because I was too white if I had been told that. Before I wish someone had told me that before accepting I was told until after I moved here uprooted my life from Colorado I had a pretty sweet gig with Denver Museum in nature and science and that was a really hard decision for me to turn that down like it paid. Well I really love Colorado. But a tenure track job. You know those were conversations I had with mentors tenure track jobs are to offered one especially like fresh out. Not even with a ph d in hand is damn near unheard of but it was a really difficult decision one that I think I regret um. 11:07.87 alifeinruins You know those conversations happened and that was really disappointed to hear and really just kind of fit into what I knew about the you know programs here at the time and people in those programs and you guys who know me know how. Ah, form like and be and polite part of that was spending a lot of time in Virginia part of that is having a father who is very strict on social protocol and so like you know it took years for me to call Dr Banforth Doug who was yes sir no sir Dr. Banforth 11:44.49 alifeinruins So when I got here I was still kind of in that mindset. Yes, ma'am no ma'am yes, or no sir and apparently some colleagues here weren't too happy with that and I had to have a meeting two weeks after getting here a couple things happened. Like I look over a week after I started here I had to have a meeting with my faculty advisor because I was too formal and it was upsetting people and they thought it was sexist that I was saying ma'am the admin um university admin. 12:18.60 alifeinruins Had actually step in and tell the department to shut the fuck up. Um because they didn't think it was justified what they were doing and this department has a bad track record but then um, two weeks after starting I went to craves wedding Alex crabes wedding. 12:35.49 alifeinruins Came back and the director. The guy came to help change the department with the guy who I came to work for and work with he quit. 12:51.65 alifeinruins I ah and I moved across the country to work with this guy and he quit and I come to find out later that had been ongoing issues. He didn't know if he was gonna get his contract renewed even before I was offered the position he end up quitting and protest anyways and so I kind of got left here. Didn't really have anyone to support me. You know I had Mac and Emily but there was a. Change now that I was one of their professors and that was even weird because I knew things that they didn't know and was part of policy that affected them and it was a really weird position to be in and I don't want it that for anybody else and on top of that like the museum I worked for. They didn't know what I do now that we didn't have a director so I was the only one in there with the archeology background beyond an undergraduate I know all my colleagues the nicest people there but all of them are educated at Indiana University and they don't have a museum program. They have ah a man curatorship. That's new. So like. Even the folks that I work with aren't educated in museums the way that I've been you know after the director quit the curator of archeology left a week after that saw I became the only curator in archeology. 14:23.77 alifeinruins Only archeological curator and then in December you know like three months later four months later the other curator retired leaving me the only curator at that museum I was brand new in an institution that had even from the get go. Hadn't been very good to me I was left you know begging for support in terms of my ability to research because at the museum I wasn't given a lab. Um, people had carved out space and gate kept it so I couldn't even do my research the anthropology department. You know they're like well you're at the museum your lab's over at the museum like that's the kind of whole purpose of you being a curator and it's like why don't have space. Um the collections manager guarded. 15:19.42 alifeinruins Was her space and culture for anthropology wasn't going to let me have any of their space and it was it was it was weird and um, you know the only thing that kind of kept me through it was Connor and David at this point because I i. 15:36.62 alifeinruins Really spiraled into bad depression here because I the the ah the imposter syndrome Just absolutely exploded because I had no support network here I didn't know what the hell I was doing. 15:52.80 alifeinruins Didn't have a mentor I really felt like I just got left I got screwed over um and it got really bad you know and you know that was like my first experience of like. academia ah you know my first couple months being on the other side and not feeling like I was doing what I needed to and that I was failing at my job at the same time trying to wrap up the ph d from boulder. 16:28.75 alifeinruins Um, you know, uprooted my life and let me tell you how not fun. It is to be 30 single and in a college town. You know like everyone my age. They're pretty much graduate students. So Even even like outside of the dating aspect which I wasn't really interested in coming here. You know? Anyways, after ah Lotta and I had separated um people treat you different and I noticed that at the planes conference you know, even with some of my colleagues from a long time. 17:04.26 alifeinruins You know I was different because I was a professor and it was really isolating. It is still really isolating. Ah because I am often mistaken as a graduate student um all my colleagues. Are like at least a decade older than I am and many of them are married and there is a difference between as maybe some of you know what? it's like to be married and partnered up versus single like Devin Pettigrew you know he he had to remind me that I had an education lesson with him because I kind of like bailed on him for something and he's like hey dude you know I'm married and I have my day. Planned and when you bail on us, you kind of ruin our day and I was just like fuck right? you know because I can as you know could just do whatever I want because I have no obligations right? And so like it is really weird not to have people. Ah, it's like the first time in my life I think I felt this isolated before um when I went to undergrad I had friends from high school when I went to Wyoming? Um I had the fraternity and then you know I think I made. David disagrees as you guys have heard you thought it was weird as hell. But um I did well there meeting you know I had colleagues I could talk with at the very least at coffee hour people I could relate to and same at see you is like I I was able to have colleagues I had I had friends I made friends quickly because we're all in the same place. But. 18:36.35 alifeinruins When you're at a new faculty orientation and you're the youngest one there by 9 years and you know everyone's spread out between different departments. It's it's a wakeup call and with that we'll be. We'll be right back I'm going to kind of get into like this last spring I guess and kind of just more updates so we'll be right back up to these messages.