It’s been a weird 19 days. I just looked up the definition of weird to make sure – supernatural; uncanny – and I think that’s fairly accurate. Certainly, the events post-inauguration that took place nineteen days ago have felt far from my experience of other transitional states. My proximity to this new administration, as a postdoc within a federal agency, likely has something to do with it. But I don’t seem to be alone in the feeling that the flood of executive orders and cost-cutting acrobatics and just general vernacular shift has been a lot.

Different people have counseled: “This too shall pass,” and “Weather the storm,” and my favorite: “They want us to get overwhelmed and distracted.” I don’t know if this helps or doesn’t help. It certainly didn’t help last week when I received many emails from what appeared to be a suspicious email address, with the subject line: “Fork in the Road.” Images of a huge silver fork standing vertical in the middle of a highway came to my mind exclusively. Other times, when I was instructed by the Fork to “travel to my dream destination,” I thought of brightly colored posters for 1950’s vacations. Florida is Calling!

Admittedly, I also considered the offer from the Fork – for 7 months of pay and benefits. As a recent PhD graduate, I was told by R1 job postings that I should go out and get “postdoc experience” and funding before applying for tenure track jobs. Even though I had pre-doctoral funding and extensive experience with NIH grantmaking, I saw the value in getting my own grants, doing more of my own work. Extra time before the tenure track clock hits, people said.

To me, a postdoc also offered time to figure out if I wanted to be in New York again. The one I’m in – through a number of departments within the Veterans Affairs, is fantastic. Time and space to work on my own things, funding opportunities, and gads of people doing really fantastic research. I had a feeling that the VA would be a bit like Lord of The Rings when Gandalf gets into the ancient dwarf mountain after some struggle to find a way to open the door at the rock face – a huge underground land of research mystery. And I was right.

But there are limitations to a postdoc, too. I’m still not my own PI. I’m still tied to trainee-level expectations, like forced on-camera weekly seminars and progress plans. The pay reflects this. This is not bad or unexpected, but as a four-decade veteran of this earth and single mother of a five year old, I am starting to feel ready to stand in a long-term post.

So, the Fork, despite obvious grammatical errors and blatant typos, weird messaging narratives and the fact that they came from a human I would not trust with the care of my houseplants, offered something attractive. For a moment. What would I do with income and benefits for 7 months? Finish analyzing the “bonus” qualitative data from my dissertation study? Write the book I always daydream about? Go on a trip with Antonio in a van across the country? Travel the world? Dang, Fork. You got me there so easily. It felt even more compelling to think about when Fork’s message came via an actual federal voice via internal communication protocols. Someone that I regularly receive emails from and whose digital voice made sense in the professional context.

This caused a lot of unwanted mental stress, I gotta be honest. Six months into a position with doubts about its new “owner,” and I started asking myself why I wasn’t typing “resign,” in a reply message to Fork. Was it financially irresponsible of me? I could work as a nurse or per diem supervisor easily. I could move back to Buffalo, sell my house. That the choice was taking space in my brain at all caused me moments of concern. I also had zero professional context for these emails. And I have read and received a lot of emails in many professional contexts. Maneuvering all of that exhausted me on many days.

Ultimately, I came to my final conclusion fairly quickly. The legal case against the Fork helped. The counsel from friends who have spent careers as federal employees or in the military did too. But my conclusion wasn’t to reject the offer because of who was sending it, or the insecurity of it all, or whether or not I’d see a dime. That was part of it, but the bulk of my decision lay in the realization that even if I saw that money in a lump sum up front, I’d still be cheating myself. Because, you see, the most valuable part about this fellowship, which became abundantly clear very early on in my tenure, is the mentorship. Leaving with the Fork would mean walking away from relationships of investment that I started only months ago, but already feel rich and collaborative and motivating.

Since beginning in September, I have had access to and audience with some of the most remarkable researchers in our country. People of all disciplines using methods and asking questions that are either adjacent to or the same as those I am also trying to answer. Simple emails have led to dialogues and collaborations that are stretching me further than I imagined, and in gentle, persistent and actionable ways. For example: I spoke my need for further quantitative mentorship when I started this fellowship. I realized that although I have had extensive training, I have never really applied all of my statistical knowledge. This used to freak me out (oh my god, did I mess up the independent variable?!), but now I realize that I instead had different opportunities to apply different methods during my doctoral work – qualitative and network analysis, primarily. So now, here I am with some of the most accomplished scientists and the most comprehensive datasets. Learning how to apply and expand on what I already know.

So, Fork, I’m too nerdy for you. My skepticism helped me come to this, but ultimately, I have reason to believe that the people that make this place what it is are more valuable than your offer. Will I stay in the VA forever? Eh. Dunno. Do I want to continue to invest and be invested in it now? Yes. The returns are obvious. No dream vacation in sight, but here is worth standing in. Worth leaving Fork back there in the road.