I told you about how and why I came to the conclusion that I needed to be a business professor in the Genesis part of the story. That thinking deep thoughts all day and having the esteem of millions would beat working for a living any day of the week. So I did everything necessary to get into the PhD program at the University where I was getting my MBA. I switched into their full-time program, I quit my sales job, I started having interviews with current faculty to talk about the process and the career AND I got pregnant. YUP. Yup. That last part wasn’t really what most aspiring PhDs do right away, but hey! Why not make it that much more difficult? You know, so when there is a movie made about my life, I’ll have even more adversity to overcome (maybe I’m the only one who considers motherhood adversity?) on my quest to solve all of the worlds deepest, most elusive marketing questions. (And P.S., I vote for one of Gwen Stefani’s sons to play mine in the movie). It makes a lot of sense if you think about it that way. No. I know – it actually it doesn’t.
Okay, so I have to beat out a lot of people to get into this program. So I sat in front of all my MBA classes and I talked to all of my marketing professors about their jobs and they all told me it was really weird for an MBA to want to be a professor. And that it was a lot of hard work and would take a lot of dedication and yada, yada, yada. I’m all about hard work and dedication, so what is the issue? I got the feeling that they thought the Type A, overachiever, know-it-all MBA assholes they taught most of time wouldn’t have the patience or temperament to make it as a grad student. I couldn’t really figure out why. I mean, I was an MBA student and I really wanted to do it. I was good at school and I loved it in a fairly unnatural way, so I didn’t understand why they all said stuff like that.
But what they were getting at (that I found out only much, much later) is that being a PhD candidate is really best suited for Type A, overachiever, know-it-all assholes who will put up with getting emotionally, intellectually and financially bitch slapped on a daily, if not hourly, basis. It’s for people who revel in being told they are a constant disappointment and that they can barely read or write or theorize better than a retarded goat. It’s really great for people who don’t require sunlight, like to read journal articles for 15 hours each day, act as their advisor’s bitch for another 5 (including cleaning their office) and be publicly chastised for their work by faculty during the other four. There isn’t a whole lot of time left over for any sort of healthy, normal relationships outside the four cinderblock, windowless walls of the PhD room. No, they can’t have that or you might come to your senses and tell them to go to hell instead of respectfully listening when they maniacally laugh as they tear apart your precious ego and illusions of future grandeur. Yes, you get all that, plus paid less than a deformed hooker at the Greyhound station. That’s why MBAs should not become PhD candidates. Because they are used to giving and getting ass kisses for 10 to 12 hours a day, sleeping for 6 and fucking around for the rest. Oh, and making 6 figures while doing so. Trust me on this one – I know. So the two entail fairly different lifestyles, you see?
Okay, but I wasn’t aware of any of this at the time. So I made it very clear to several marketing faculty members that I wanted to be in the program, I filled out my applications, wrote my essays, crossed my fingers and prayed like hell. Meanwhile, I got pregnanter and pregnanter.
May I just say that being pregnant in an MBA school like the one I went to is about the same level of offense as raising a nine iron over your head and slamming it down into a green, creating gaping three inch crater only a foot away from the hole, for absolutely no reason at all. It’s one of those things that say a few things about you: a) you’re a jackass, b) you’ve just proved you shouldn’t even be there in the first place, and c) you’re ruining it for everyone else. That’s kind of the way I think most of my peers felt about it, but I’m probably projecting because nobody actually said that to me. I came to the party late, and they had their friends already, so people didn’t talk to me unless they had to. They mostly just looked at me with either pity, wonder or disdain, reactions which hit points a, b and c rather nicely. I did not win the Most Popular prize for sure. I couldn’t go out and get wasted with them and/or talk about how many consulting firms or investment banks would be begging me to work for them in 9 months, which is what I gathered were the most common social activities. So I was a bit of an outcast. But that’s okay because I was a rebel on a mission to pure intellectual awesomeness.
Then one day I get a call from the chair of the marketing department (one who I actually feared and adored at the same time and with equal intensity – lets call him Professor Bourbon) saying they were letting me in. AWESOME! SERIOUSLY? AWESOME. Because I was so close to getting my big wooden office with floor to ceiling bookshelves and those little ladders I would have to climb to get all the books off the high shelves. Big pimpin’. If they made maternity twill jackets with corduroy patches on it, I so would have bought one at that moment. But the joy was short-lived. Now I realized that I probably sort of had to tell them I was pregnant and I was pretty sure this wasn’t news that would be particularly well received.
I told myself that it should be fine, because my son was due the day I graduated from MBA school (indeed, his birthday and the date on my diploma match perfectly), and I’d have the summer off before the PhD program started. So it didn’t really affect them at all. I didn’t need to ask for special treatment or anything, but still…when they found out I was pregnant, I could imagine them likening my pregnancy to slamming my nine iron into their little academic green.
When I’m about 8 months along, Professor Bourbon invites everybody who was accepted into the program for a little orientation day. I figure it is at this moment when all of the professors and my future mentors are going to see me and be thinking, “The fuck?! I already hate her bitch ass. Is it too late to rescind the offer and give the spot to someone who is serious about being an academic?” So rather than have my big reveal on orientation day and have it be the big surprise of the day, I decided to call up Professor Bourbon and schedule a meeting with him beforehand and tell him my dirty little secret. It was my intention to have him as my advisor, so I thought I should just get it out on the table and give him the option to kick me out in private, rather than in front of the group that would be my cohort. You know, all the Aspergers kids from China.
So that day, I don all black to make my big belly less noticeable and because I may be going to my newest, shiniest dream’s funeral and I have what I think is going to be one of the most awkward and hard conversations ever. Something along the lines of , “so I got knocked up, but please don’t change your mind because I’m a total geek and if I can’t be a professor then you are shattering my dreams forever and I might go postal.”
But what I actually said was:
“Thank you so much for letting me in the program and I’m so excited and I’m ready to work really hard and I’m definitely going to accept the offer but I feel like I have to tell you something that you should know but I don’t know whether or not you care or if it affects your decision or what you think of me or whatever and it wasn’t like I planned it or anything but really I think you should know before the orientation that I’m…I’m….um….I’m….kind of….um….pregnant. BUT! I’m due in June and I’ll totally be back in September and ready for school and I’ll have a daycare and everything worked out and I’m very serious and I really want to do this and….are you still okay with me being in the program and working with you?”
Little beads of sweat had formed on my forehead and on my big belly under the big gross panels they put to cover your belly on those damn maternity pants. All I wanted to do was take that fucking thing off my stomach and let it just cool in the breeze, but I think that would have been very unwise under the circumstances. I was about to hear whether or not my questionable family planning was going to take away my chance to be one of the smartest, well-known, famous fucking people in the universe, or at least among the 1000 or so marketing professors in the US.
I put it all on the table and I held my breath for my fate to be revealed. And this is what he said:
“Congratulations! Of course we still want you. Having children is one of the greatest gifts in the world! I have three of my own. On top of that, I would argue that you’ll have even greater marketing insights as a parent. Never apologize for bringing another life into this world. This is great news and you should enjoy it. Congratulations!”
Um, whaaaaaaat?? May I just say I love you more than Angelina and Milo put together, Professor Bourbon? Will you marry me? For real? For really real? Oh wait, that is what got me into this predicament in the first place. For the record, I should tell you that this was one of those pivotal conversations that I will remember my entire life and why I will love Professor Bourbon like Take 5 bars and TiVo forever.
Whew. So I was in. And my advisor was going to be kind of kick ass. He thought I was even cooler for having a kid. So now I just had to meet my new classmates. I was pretty sure they’d probably all be a lot fucking smarter and less cool than me. But that would be okay because maybe I’d learn something. I just hoped they weren’t d-bags. And that they were US Weekly subscribers. And that some of them were Americans or Canadians, because my Mandarin really sucks. Oh yeah, and maybe someone there would also count Oprah as their personal savior too.
I actually think I got a little of everything…
To be continued in Love’s PhD Trilogy: Judges
(Love) Notes To Self 
I’m curious; what is the average salary of a deformed hooker at a Greyhound Station?
It’s great when things turn out even better than we planned them to!
From Love – I think its somewhere north of $.95/hour but definitely no more than $2.67. But I guess the Department of Labor doesn’t have really good stats on that, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
I forget how I ended up reading you, but I just wanted to say, Hi!, and You are very funny! And also, I had one of those breathy conversations with my advisor when I got pregnant, and it went similarly (i.e. You aren’t kicking me out? Huzzah!). I can’t wait to hear where this story goes, especially because I’m still in my (Humanities) program, albeit with a 9-month-old Bjorned to me most of the time.
From Love – Good luck!! I remember those days. I’d go into the office on a weekend, just spread out a blanket before he could really get around and put a few chew toys on the ground and pray he’d be cool until I could download my journal articles and maybe finish up my reference pages.
Reading the trilogy you remind me of me. Are you going to crush my dream by telling me that PhD during mommyhood was impossible? I hope there is a better ending.
From Love – Ah, you must be patient my child. I do know this – people with kids get PhDs for sure. They’re just usually men. They get a lot of divorces too. But you know, I hear starter marriages are “in” these days.
LOVE! First of all, tell me what to blog about so that I can comment on your blog without shame and fear of being called out on not blogging in a year. Second of all, is the moral of this story that I need to get pregnant?
From Love – YES! Being pregnant pretty much solves everything. Just ask Nel.
Also, it is true that you haven’t blogged in a year and I’m patiently waiting for more math jokes because I’m that kind of girl. The way I get my material is when the people in my RL are like, “remember the time you….” and I’ll be like “OMG. That’s right. Totally blog worthy.”
So go out and get trashed with your fam and friends. They’ll remind you about what you should blog about. Meanwhile, I’ll sit here looking at my screen and tapping my fingers on the table over and over until Google tells me you’re ready…
Professor Bourbon sounds dreamy. Kind of like one of my accounting professors that made me feel like a goddess and only called on me when he KNEW that I knew the answer. I thought about getting my masters just because I knew he would be one of my professors….
but then I had this stupid idea that I just wanted to be a mommy. Pfft.
From Love – I’m not going to lie. He is dreamy. But not in a sexy way. In a why-can’t-everybody-be-more-like-this-guy way. I had a dream that I told him that I knew is soul. Pretty hilarious, because I just think of what his face would like like if I actually said that. I think he might have run away.