What quickly became apparent was that I was different than most of the other hourly employees. They were 18 to 22; I was 26. They were single or dating; I was married. I was a manager’s dream: a responsible employee. I worked my shifts without complaint, caused no drama, and covered other shifts when needed. When the summer was over, I planned to reduce my hours and focus on my dissertation and the course I would be teaching.

My manager, however, had other plans. He called me back to his office, a tiny space adjacent to the stockroom, where he explained that the store’s management team thought I was a great asset, and didn’t want to lose me in the fall. So he offered me a promotion to assistant manager.

I was shocked by what was supposed to be good news. I offered my thanks, but I explained that I couldn’t possibly take the position. I’d already promised my department I would teach in the fall, and teaching was how I earned my graduate stipend and tuition waiver.

“Don’t teach then,” my manager said. The store offered tuition vouchers, better pay, and a 401(k).

Startled, I glanced over at him. “Don’t teach?” I repeated dumbly.

“How much is your graduate stipend, anyway?”

“$12,000 a year.”

“Are you serious? That’s not even minimum wage!” He grabbed the calculator off of his desk and started punching in numbers. With a flourish, he held up the calculator for me to see: My weekly take-home pay from teaching was $230.72, or roughly $5.76 an hour.

“I get an additional $2,000 for teaching in the summer,” I offered weakly.

“Kelly, we’ll pay you more plus benefits.”

“Let me think about the offer,” I managed to say as I fled the office and the store. I did think about it, but the promise of an assistant manager’s job didn’t seem to fit easily with graduate school. How could I turn down my stipend? Did graduate students ever turn down a stipend and work outside of the university? Would my department be disappointed by my choice? What would happen to my recommendation letters? And, most worrisome: Would I struggle to finish my dissertation if I was working full-time at the Gap?

Still, a job with better pay and benefits was so tempting. I wouldn’t have to pay fees for the university’s health insurance. For once, I wouldn’t have to take out loans to supplement my stipend and to cover the hundreds of dollars of fees that my tuition waiver didn’t cover. I would make a living wage! Might this job end my constant anxiety about finances? Certainly assistant manager at the Gap wasn’t my dream job, but it would pay the bills until that dream job materialized.

After days of reciting the pros and cons, I didn’t take the position. I couldn’t quite imagine how it would fit with my academic aspirations. Nine years later, my failure of imagination still gives me pause.

I keep thinking about that job offer from the Gap as one of the paths I didn’t take. Maybe it sticks in my mind because of the years I spent on the faculty job market for a career that didn’t pan out. Maybe I keep revisiting that offer because freelance writing is a constant hustle. Or maybe it is because friends of mine are now gaining tenure. What might my life look like if I had taken that promotion and told my department to take their shitty stipend and shove it? Would I have finished my dissertation? Would I have applied for teaching jobs? Would I have been happy selling fashion jeans in all of their glorious varieties? (I do love jeans.) Would I have avoided the angst, pain, and doubt of postdoctoral life?

I need an angel, preferably named Clarence (or Castiel), to guide me through the alternate endings.

The Gap, after all, is a global retailer that encompasses six brands (Gap, Banana Republic, Piperlime, Old Navy, Athleta, and INTERMIX) with 3,300 stores and around 150,000 employees. Gap is the largest of the six with 1,700 stores. Assistant managers (the promotion I was offered) average salaries of $40,000 to $41,000. Gap store managers have average salaries between $63,000 and $65,000, which is five times more than my graduate-school stipend and almost three times as much as my salary as a lecturer.

The most I ever earned as a faculty member was $32,000 a year, teaching four classes for two semesters. Friends and acquaintances from my undergraduate years spent their time since then building careers. Meanwhile, I spent my 20s and early 30s in graduate school and on the job market, training for and seeking a job that is increasingly a rarity. My husband recently asked me if I knew how much money I’d lost while working in low-wage academic jobs for 11 years. I couldn’t bring myself to do the math.

Turning down that promotion at the Gap seems more and more like a bad choice. I’m still paying off graduate-school loans. My mental and emotional well-being are just now recovering, almost two years after I decided to leave academe behind. Walking away from a decent-paying job with benefits was only a choice I could made when I thought academia was my future. Now I know that future is no longer mine.

Often, I feel like I reached for too much. How could I -- a working-class woman from rural Florida -- ever imagine that I could be a college professor? Did I really expect that a Ph.D. would be my ticket into secure employment? Was it my own hubris, or naïveté, that led to such expectations?

I’m not sure. The path not taken looks better by the day because at least it was a job, not just the training for one that never materialized. Would I have had regrets if I’d become an assistant manager nine year ago? Probably, but I have them now, too. And at least I would have been paid better.

Kelly J. Baker

- See more at: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1004-maybe-i-should-have-stayed-in-retail#sthash.A5ck73xF.dpuf

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2882661&forum_id=2#27908438)

In an oversupplied market, marginal suppliers should shut down.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2882661&forum_id=2#27908753)

Alternative body of article: "It was the summer of '92, hot, sweltering. I rang up customer after customer in the local Gap. And Gap loved me for it. And I gave them the love back. Too much love. I sat down and breathed. Could I be hearing right? $22 an hour and benefits! It was the hot ticket! My hands twisted in nervousness, as if daring me to leap out if my chair, shake my boss's hand, and collect cash money.

But the scholarship. The siren song. It called the deepest recesses of my soul. Could I dare forsake it? No. No. My head visibly shook no. The manager... He started in his chair. And I kicked up and leapt and twisted in the air. The scholarly prance. Oh the dance. And I left out the door. "

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2882661&forum_id=2#27909523)

Sent from my Iridium

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2882661&forum_id=2#27910147)

Also, I looked up her CV and to be fair it seems that she's published a lot (though I don't really know if they're "good" Religious Studies journals). But here's one of her latest papers:

"Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Dumb: Humor, Religious Intolerance, and South Park"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2882661&forum_id=2#27911504)

Tier 2 - 45%

Tier 3 - 43%

Tier 4 (Rank 63+) - 43%

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2882661&forum_id=2#27912954)

This is completely true, even for STEM and even at the top schools. Everyone doing a PhD should realize their chances of academic employment are slim--if you're in STEM, at least you have a chance to market yourself to a job and if you're at a famous school, you have options like MBB.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2882661&forum_id=2#27913172)