Hi Folks

I'm currently working as a post-doc in the medical school of a red-brick, russell group university. As a general rule i'm happy with my job on a day-to-day basis and work fairly hard at it (mostly 45-55 hours per week). I also have a boss who is very reasonable to me, and whom I would consider a friend also.

Somewhere in the last 6 months, although I still like my job, I've sort of decided academia probably is'nt for me. I think the lack of stability and short contracts thing is starting to bother me. As i said earlier, i'm happy with the job I have, but not sure I can be arsed with moving around and constantly worrying about my next contract. I also don't think i'm really interested in being a lecturer, although i do like research.

It's been made more complicated lately in that my girlfriend now has a fulltime permanent job albeit one that pays 10k less that mine, so i feel a bit pressurized to try and find a job where she is (we are currently long distance, about 150 miles apart), so we can settle down etc.

My main problem is I really don't want to let my boss down by moving outside academia, although I consider him a friend, I think he would be quite put out by this, also I can't really find anything else I would rather do than academic research. I think about something like school teaching but I don't really fancy it.

Any suggestions or inputs would be much appreciated, firstly on understanding why I should feel so indebted to my boss, and secondly if you know any alternatives to academic research that you may have found equally fulfilling.

I may be projecting my own thoughts onto you so apologies if this is way off the mark.

I wonder if you've subconsciously or consciously bought into the 'academia is the only successful outcome for a PhD' myth? In which case, knowing how hard it is to get a job, you'd feel very grateful to the person who employed you and feeling like leaving would let them down. It's just I've just completed my first year as a lecturer and frankly the workload, expectations etc have been much heavier than I ever anticipated - makes my PhD look like a walk in the park. Everyone is telling me it gets easier and I'm going to give it another year at least but it's not the dream job people sometimes make it out to be - it's as you've noticed a long hours, stressful profession and all the changes coming next year means instability is the rule. But I bet your mentor has also had thoughts like that. I'm in a successful RG dept and you know what the perennial pub discussion (apart from moaning about work) - what our ideal alternative careers would be. I'd be he won't be as shocked or upset that you're looking elsewhere as you think.

Anyway as to other jobs - no brilliant suggestions but even though it sounds a bit careers servicey have you tried writing down what it is you like about research. Getting at what you value might help you get somewhere in thinking outside the box. Also try vitae.ac.uk - there's some good resources there.