Expectations are such a let down
July 17, 2022
Hello new readers and long time readers! I’m super excited to you join me down this path. If you haven’t had a chance to hear my manifesto, please take a moment to listen in. I invited you to come along with me here – to build a career and life that is purposeful, full of curiosity and connection. I hope that you will learn something new about me, yourself, and the responder job. We are in a really unique field in this time right now – it is not always easy or fun, but it can still be meaningful. I got into this field because I wanted to help my community and because I love forensic science. I can’t binge watch TV but I can sit quietly to put an entire skeleton back together again. I love my family but will spend a whole week away from them recovering victims of some mass disaster. Work/life balance isn’t a reality for us but we can choose to make the best of the time we have at work and at home.
Do you all know about this website? If you’re looking for a job in forensic science – any job at all – sign up for this newsletter. They’ll automatically send out a weekly list of jobs, from crime scene investigations to death investigators and more. https://www.crime-scene-investigator.net/index.html
When I first moved from my full time, urban regional office to a rural place with a state-run medical examiner system, I was not impressed. Death investigation can feel a bit like a dead-end (ugh, I didn’t intend on that pun but I’m going to leave it). The structure of medical examiner and coroner offices does not provide much career growth. I came into the job as a Forensic Investigator I and when I retired almost 15years and four offices later, I was a Forensic Investigator II. Some people start as an autopsy technician and move up. Some folks move into a coveted management role but, if your offices are anything like mine, those folks posted up and stayed as long as possible. And unless you are going to go to medical school, you’re certainly not moving into a Pathology position. One of the state ME offices I could work for offered county positions, on call, per diem. While doing this, I was hired by the local police department for their academy (yes, I was almost a police officer!), considered teaching at the local community college (YUCK!), going back for my PhD, and also applying for other death investigator jobs somewhere else. My husband moved the entire family for his job, why couldn’t I?! It turns out, the whole country is hurting for death investigators and everywhere I applied, I was offered a job! Nice for the self-esteem but terrible for the morale. My husband’s field is the complete opposite – thousands of willing applicants, very few spots. The correct smart choice was to stay put. And true, part of me was thankful that I had this time to focus on my newborn son and learning my new house and community. But the morgue is my respite, my sweet spot, where I thrive. It was a really long two years; I felt lonely, forgotten, unappreciated. I didn’t have the tools to handle these emotions so, I started drinking and withdrawing more. Sometimes I wish I could go back to that time and give that unhappy girl a hug. Tell her that it was all going to work out in the end. Turns out though, you’ve got to go through things like that. You’ve got to wobble to keep upright. Turns out, what I needed then and what I need now are my people. I need to surround myself with the people who have worked all night, the people who lift dead bodies from bathrooms, the people who have truly seen it all.
As my army-veteran morgue tech used to say: Keep It Movin,
Kat
